Author

Chris Hunt

  • Voices from the river

    Voices from the River: The tying desk

    By Eric Booton It's like watching magic happen, or so it seems. Fifteen short minutes and the wood finish stripper has performed its intimidating chemical magic and one stroke of the scraper removes the shabby finish and once adored princess stickers that have previously defined this forgotten piece of furniture. The hours spent with the…

  • Fishing Fly tying

    Fly tying: Attaching dumbbell eyes

    For fly tiers who like big streamers and saltwater patterns (count me in this group—the bigger the pattern, the easier to tie, in my opinion), dumbbell eyes can present a challenge, mostly because, no matter how many times we "figure-eight" the tying thread around the eyes and the hook shank, the eyes, with enough pressure,…

  • Fishing Fly tying

    Fly tying: JC’s Electric Steelie Stone

    Being a western angler, I'm not terribly familiar with the steelhead flies used in Great Lakes tributaries. Most western steelhead patterns are purple or pink or some color variation that just looks loud and gawdy. Higher up in the steelhead drainages, like here in Idaho, it's easier to get awa y from the "eggy" and…

  • Video spotlight

    Video spotlight: Spatsizi

    I've been missing my little girl lately—she's off on her own adventures now after graduating from high school last spring. But we had some adventures in years past, and this past summer, we met on a little creek high in Idaho's Caribou National Forest for some fishing. The two of us have always had a…

  • Short casts: Roadless battle over?; EPA cuts; salmon sex, and more

    Some of America's wildest lands should staty that way if a legal decision last month in Washington has any staying power. The U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia threw out the state of Alaska's last-ditch effort to undermine the 2001 Roadless Rule, which protects some 50 million acres of public lands, including Alaska's…

  • How big will you go with a click-and-pawl?

    I spent most of the past few weeks fishing only with click-and-pawl reels. That was mostly just for kicks. I have nothing against disc-drag reels (What are you kidding? I love disc-drag reels), but every now and then I get into palming the reel myself. And let’s face it, a click-and- pawl reel sounds beautiful…