Let’s Go Bass’nIt’s time to test the warmwaters By Beau Davis and Tom Bie Photo by Jeremiah Watt Want to avoid bumping elbows with ten million new trout-chasers this summer? Then consider a guided day on some warmwater. You’ll surely face a less-pressured fishery, and if the trip includes kicking around in a float-tube, you…
None of us guessed what was coming. Within hours of our leaving the river, the county would close all boat ramps and Oregon’s governor would implement stay-at-home guidelines. We were fishing on the last days of winter steelhead season 2020 and we didn’t even know it.
Before first light hit any of the famed pools along Oregon’s North Umpqua on the morning of September 8th, the Archie Creek fire had already begun.
If the big bugs don’t show, what’s option B? South Fork of the Snake Southeast Idaho Pale Morning Duns are a prolific hatch all summer on the South Fork, and often all day long. In fact, not having PMD patterns in your fly box for a day on this river is like showing up in…
As a lifetime Oregon resident, angler, and guide, I spend 40-60 days a year on the rivers of the Southern Oregon coast. I interact with anglers that use all types of methods, and every one of them I’ve talked to has noticed a significant decline in encounters with wild steelhead. How can this be explained?…
When I opened the car door, a mangy border collie barked and charged at us. Mike Murtha yelled, and the dog backed off. Mike was in his 80s and wore a dusty-brimmed Stetson and tattered Wranglers. He smoked Camels, and his hands resembled the harsh, cracked earth of the surrounding desert. Tin cans filled with…
LAST SUMMER, SITTING QUIETLY on a stump smoking a fine-smelling cigar, no doubt rolled on the thighs of an elderly Cuban woman, I heard one of the greatest lines ever muttered by a fellow brother of the flyfishing fraternity. In many ways it encapsulated subconscious thoughts I would like to think I am capable of,…
Once upon a time, Utah’s Green River below Flaming Gorge was the only tailwater in the state that anglers knew or cared about. Sure, the Green was, and is, one of the most famous in the country, but beyond that, or wading the Middle Provo if the snow sucked in Park City, the Beehive State…
The first places I explored as a kid, outside of my backyard, were the small creeks and wetlands near my home. They were full of tadpoles, salamanders, and, if we were lucky, turtles. I spent countless hours trying to fit various animals into Mason jars, but mostly I just covered myself in mud.
Tucker Jones is certainly comfortable speaking in front of a surly audience. This much is clear from the outset. The burly, self-deprecating Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist is standing in front of a group of 50 guides and anglers on a blustery spring evening at his agency’s office overlooking the Columbia River in…
“Gaining a good network of supporters is critical to the life of any new NGO, and in this day and age people can be very leery of supporting any non-profit; not everyone out there is completely sincere in their fundraising efforts.” —Bucky Buchstaber, from the opening paragraph to his story, “Fly Fishing Collaborative in South…
Flyfishing businesses occupy a tempestuous microcosm tied to the sea-sawing health of rivers and oceans. Example. If there are no fish (participation catalyst), there is no you (potential consumer). And for brands that appreciate a prosperous tomorrow, backing nonprofits working to keep trout, tarpon, salmon, steelhead swimming makes sense.
Rolling over from my plywood perch on the top bunk, I peer down to see all three of my cabinmates asleep. So I rule them out. Slipping the headlamp from beneath my pillow and turning on the light reveals not one but two Alaska-sized mice sitting on top of a cooler, munching saltines. I stare…
STATE OF ARMS AS WOULD ANY GUY SPAWNED FROM THE gravels of Oregon, I had deep reservations about driving the backroads of my home state in a rig blasphemed by California plates. It was a red Tacoma with a watertight canopy and a rod rack permanently bolted to its hood, an otherwise brilliant fishing truck,…
FOR MANY YEARS after I met Jeff Cottrell, I would have said that SoCal’s Bear Creek was the best small stream I’ve ever fished. A secretive tributary of the San Gabriel River not far from the troubled sprawl of the L.A. basin, it was the kind of place only fishing kids knew about.…
CHAD BROWN, the Navy veteran who spawned the Soul River Runs Deep brand, looks like he’s just fought the battle of his life. And it’s no surprise he’s beat. A glance at my watch shows 3 a.m. Alaska time and Brown, along with his squad of vet volunteers here to herd a posse of bedraggled…
Winston Rod Company in Twin Bridges, Montana, announced this week that it has acquired Bauer Premium Reel Company of Ashland, Oregon.
[The Obama administration and California officials are set to announce an agreement to remove four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, sidestepping Congress to restore its salmon and steelhead fisheries. The move would result in the largest river restoration in U.S. history. A news conference trumpeting the deal will take place today at the Yurok Reservation in…
THE DONNER PARTY MEMORIAL in Truckee, Calif., stands 22 feet tall, indicating the depth of the snow during the fateful winter of 1846-47. The snowstorms began in early November, trapping the Donners and other families near a frozen lake, deep in the high Sierra Nevada, until rescuers were able to reach them in March. Of…
IN THE SHOWTIME SERIES HOMELAND, Carrie Mathison, played by actress Claire Danes, leads drone strikes against terrorists from the comfort of her CIA station. But the same technology that makes drones—also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs—convenient military weapons, has also helped advance the careers of real-world civilians, including a growing list of flyfishing…
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…
Patagonia Inc. Founder On The Offensive Patagonia Inc. founder Yvon Chouinard went on the offensive today, imploring President Obama to turn his attention toward eliminating dysfunctional dams on eastern Washington’s Snake River. In a New York Times op-ed he notes that electricity generation from the four dams along the river’s lower reaches is marginal (at…
The state fish and game departments for Washington and Oregon both face a major dilemma: how to adequately protect what remains of their wild steelhead, while also continuing to produce hatchery steelhead for the many anglers who like to bring one home for dinner.
I’d planned to fish something new, and was ready for a bold adventure. But then I remembered promising my buddy that I’d do some light mechanical work on his stupid Accord that evening. That guy doesn’t even fish. Anyway, no one likes exploring with a time constraint, so I resigned myself to fishing the same…
The browns had started to rise just as Sam Bush was taking center stage. Twenty yards of dimpled St. Vrain trout water was all that separated me from Planet Bluegrass amphitheater and a full night of music in Lyons, Colorado. The urge to tube my rod prematurely and forgo my well-designed plan was tempting, but…
IN 1972 WALT “CLYDE” FRAZIER was holding down the New York Knicks’ backcourt with Earl “the Pearl” Monroe, and my dad came home one day to our suburban Connecticut home at the wheel of a shiny white Mercury Montego MX Brougham. Though it was classified a mid-size, the Montego, with its hood extending into next…
Across the continent, 2012 was a bad year to be a climate- change skeptic, but a much worse year to be a fish. Before you bid a tepid au revoir to this torrid 12 months, consider: According to 350.org founder and climate raconteur Bill McKibben, June broke 2,132 high-temperature records across the country. May was…