320 reasons why, Hier kom groot kak Flyfishing filmmaker Jako Lucas has been on a world tear since dropping Gangsters of the Flats on U.S. audiences in 2012. The bangers of those Seychelles flats were, of course, large and in charge giant trevally. With Aqua Hulk, last year’s Best New Film at The Drake Film…
Dust off the Holgas, dump the hard drives, do your best Terry Richardson, and delivereth your mind-blowing fishing images for a chance to win swag. As 2013 comes to a close Trout’s Fly Fishing has teamed with The Drake and drakemag.com to run its year-end photo extravaganza. What’s up for grabs? 1) A one-year subscription to…
Overshadowed by Pebble Mine but equally troubling when it comes to potential for a large-scale environmental beatdown, a dam proposal targeting the Susitna River continues to make headway. Alaska recently authorized expenditures of $165 million to push the project through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s expedited permitting process. Matt Stoecker and Travis Rummel, who’ve teamed…
Overshadowed by Pebble Mine but equally troubling when it comes to potential for a large-scale environmental beatdown, a dam proposal targeting the Susitna River continues to make headway. Alaska recently authorized expenditures of $165 million to push the project through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s expedited permitting process. Matt Stoecker and Travis Rummel, who’ve teamed…
Overshadowed by Pebble Mine but equally troubling when it comes to potential for a large-scale environmental beatdown, a dam proposal targeting the Susitna River continues to make headway. Alaska recently authorized expenditures of $165 million to push the project through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s expedited permitting process. Matt Stoecker and Travis Rummel, who’ve teamed…
For many, fishing is a sanctified act. So what happens when you eliminate the practice from the actual areas we go to worship tarpon, permit, and bonefish? In the Keys, where The Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary has been protecting 2,900 square nautical miles since it went into effect in 1990, anglers are itching for answers. The…
Not-So-Fictional Fiction [Brickhead originally ran in the Summer 2010 issue of The Drake. For the all new Part II, click here. —ed] QUINTANA ROO, MEXICO. HIS DOGS WERE torched. He’d forgotten to put sunscreen on his feet the day before. He had taken his wading boots off after a mile walk on the flats and just spaced it.…
What’s a Florida Keys flat worth? Or how about healthy populations of tarpon, permit, and bonefish that frequent its shallow-water habitats? The answer is big bucks, according to a new study from the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust. BTT states that flats-fishing is a significant money generator in the Keys, contributing more than $249 million to local…
Bruce C. Switzer is the former head of environmental affairs for Cominco Ltd.—the company that sold Pebble Mine to Northern Dynasty for “peanuts” in 2001, citing environmental worries and the low-quality ore available at the site. In his column “Compass: Pebble Can’t Work for Alaska” he details a bogus permitting process and the risks associated with this…
THE FIRST BONEFISH TO EAT MY DRY was tailing in ankle-deep water. I threw it two feet ahead of him and left it to dead drift. When he got near, I stripped it and he saw the wake, followed with his head up, hesitated, then turned away. I twitched the fly and he circled it…
Conservation across Western public lands is not a cheap prospect, considering that what’s buried under the ground has been valued at treasure-like proportions by those intent on tapping it. But that hasn’t stopped groups from making headway in the fight to stymie drilling interests by outcompeting oil and gas companies in the race to purchase…
Efforts to bolster conservation and management of Florida’s bonefish, tarpon, and permit fisheries are in jeopardy, with a vote due at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission meeting tomorrow (Wednesday, Feb. 13). Whether you live in Florida or you travel there to flyfish, BTT is urging all anglers to support new Sportfish and Gamefish rules…
Back in the fall, during the second presidential debate, President Obama and Mitt Romney got into a somewhat spirited exchange on the topic of energy. It began by Romney saying that “oil production is down 14 percent this year on federal land, and gas production is down nine percent. Why? Because the President cut in…
Recently ran into this beauty while fishing out of Oceanside Marina in Key West. Don’t know what life you’re living, but some seriously have it dialed.
CRAWFORD COUNTY, MICHIGAN—Nine years ago river advocate Rusty Gates assembled a team of angler conservationists and volunteer lawyers to scrutinize Savoy Energy’s plans to drill under the South Branch of the Au Sable River. Although Gates has since passed, he’s likely awash in posthumous Crown Royal swigs now that Anglers of the Au Sable won…
When sight-fishing as a sport debuted in the Upper Keys and Florida Bay, boat-makers modified their hulls, fishing companies developed faster and lighter rods, and tackle shops sprouted up all over the islands. By the 1950s an entire industry was formed around a specific shallow-water grassland habitat dominated by tarpon, redfish, permit, snook, and bonefish.…
George Washington Served: April 30, 1789 – March 4, 1797 America’s Founding Father was not only the Brits’ worst nightmare, he was also a badass woodsman, whiskey distiller, tobacco farmer, and once dabbled in spinning and weaving. We’re excusing the last two knowing that the First Prez also hauled in cash via commercial fishing on…
category nominees: Bulls on Top by Shallow Water Expeditions SUP by Permit On A Fly – Skinny Water Culture / Chris lewis Magnetic North by Fly Out Media
HAVANA—Cuban President Raul Castro recently said that his government is willing to mend fences with the United States and sit down to discuss anything. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. If this means a chance to rap unlimited access to permit, tarpon, bonefish, mojitos, and the mambo… we’re listening.
Although we’re not huge on corporate newsletters, our own included, the latest edition of the Palometa Club’s version was dripping with enough permit porn to make us stand erect and salute. It also includes our Passports Mexico piece on Punta Allen and additional words on Mexico flats fishing by Drake contributor Chris Santella in the…
Scouts are totally making a comeback this summer thanks to this doofy kid (Jared Gilman) and Wes Anderson’s new movie Moonrise Kingdom—an epic tale of young lovers on the lam from the law and their parents. Real life Boy Scout Robert Raycraft, 18, has taken the scouting rep a step further by earning “rare badges” in…
Northern British Columbia is about to get ultra-gassy thanks to a recent find by Apache Corp. in the remote and largely unexplored Liard Basin area. The company is calling it the “best and highest quality” shale gas reservoir in North America, with enough volume to justify doubling the size of the Kitimat terminal it’s proposing with partners…
APALACHICOLA, FL—Partnered with The Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, and Dr. Jerry Ault, Director of the Tarpon and Bonefish research center, the Forgotten Coast tarpon tagging tournament is a first of its kind, fly-only event aimed at science and conservation. The placement of state-of-the-art SPOT and PAT satellite tags is the contest’s main objective.
If you’ve fished out West for more than a little while chances are you’ve figured it out—Rafts rule. You jealously spy them drifting by the opposite bank, the one you can’t get to, past the “No Trespassing” sign and fence you can’t cross, into water you can’t fish. You wish you knew that guy on…
Invasive species poses massive ecological threat Ninety-feet below the surface with a mile of blue oblivion below, I approach her slowly as she stalks her prey. She hypnotizes a small snapper with her crimson mane, but I send my spear through her head before she can strike. I slip her into a bag full of…
Pure Michigan is the state slogan that includes boasts to the most publicly accessible freshwater coastline in the world. But those shores you fish may be closed under a new bill being considered in the Senate Natural Resources committee.
The Environmental Protection Agency will release its draft Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment in just a few weeks. This precedent-setting scientific assessment will likely guide decisions about large-scale mining and other industrial development in the Bristol Bay region well into the future. If the EPA determines that waste from the mine would harm the surrounding clean…