Minnesota’s Mississippi shoreline bounds the “Southeast Blufflands” region, or what anglers know as the Minnesota Driftless. All five of us fish it: A magical world of pastoral valleys, each drained by a spring creek, mostly brimming with wild fish.
It’s late February and I stumble out the door to grab another beer kept cold by winter’s free refrigeration. If it was anything but the high-octane variety, it would’ve frozen from a lack of alcohol. I pop the cap, drain it, and unzip my pants, melting as much snow as possible when I piss—anything to…
Trout fishing in northern Minnesota in the summer is a good way to inhale a lot of bugs. Same for splitting wood, or cutting the grass, or any other sweaty, breathy work. Supposedly, my great-great uncle had a line for this, whenever one of the kids was choking and spitting on a mosquito:
I’ve made a lot of trips between northern Minnesota and northern Michigan. Usually I’m fishing my way across, hunting hex-eating browns and flats-cruising smallies in July, and backwoods muskies in November. By far the fishiest route is U.S. 2 through the Upper Peninsula and across the Mackinac Bridge down into the top of the mitten;…
FROM THE SICKLE’S CURVE of Great Abaco Island’s eastern shore, the next piece of solid ground for 3,500 miles is the African continent. Between those shores lies ample room for inspiration. This is perhaps why noted American sporting artist Vaughn Cochran called a summit. “Years ago, when I managed fishing lodges, I had this idea…
I’m sitting in Bob Mitchell’s Fly Shop in St. Paul, Minnesota, watching Brian Bergeson tie a fly. His thread wraps are quick and confident. He trims a tightly bound clump of bucktail and a plume of hair rises and settles to the table. His Red Bull sits safely outside the fallout radius. His fingers seem…
CHASING HATCHES IS STUPID and obnoxious. I know. I’ve tried. Pursuing particular insects insures that the potential for disappointment will dwarf the likelihood of success. If us fishing media folk are to be believed (also a bad idea), fishing is an appreciation of the moment, being present, or some other Baba Ram Das shit. Planning…
AFTER GETTING WORD that I’d be next in line for the continuing Ride with Clyde saga, my fishing and social life took on a strange, A-list vibe. Clyde is a rock-star rig, and I suddenly became a kind of social agent for this over-forty hunk of Detroit steel.
“I THINK THE BEST TIRE is the spare in the trunk,” says Pete, handing me the keys. The other four tires vary in brand and age but seem to be holding air. I drop onto the seat and close the sagging door with a little extra encouragement. Amy does the same on the passenger side.…
I STOOD AT ATTENTION in front of my Colonel after a firm and deliberate salute: “Captain Church reporting as ordered Ma’am.” “Yes, Captain Church, why did I just find out during my executive staff meeting that you were detained in a Qatari jail?” Her look said that she demanded more of the story than the…
THE SUMMER OF 1998 was good to Lee Spencer. By fall he’d raised 77 steelhead to his fly on Oregon’s famed North Umpqua River, landing about half of them. (Spencer keeps meticulous notes.) Yet there was a problem. Of the fish he’d landed, three had died—two of them wild. He’d also once brought in a…
You go to florida to fish the salt. But if you also happen to love largemouth, as I do, and you live in a place that’s a mile high, with a nine-week window to fish for them, then you take advantage of every opportunity to chase them elsewhere. Attending this summer’s annual flyfishing trade show…
Severed by North Dakota, the Saskatchewan plains, Alberta tar-sands, and British Columbia’s snow-covered Coast Mountains, Gaylord, Minnesota, is far removed from a proposed large-scale Alaskan mining operation and the toll it would take on anadromous fish runs. But it’s in Gaylord that Sportsman’s Alliance of Alaska Director Scott Hed had lived a quintessential Midwestern life—playing…