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A summer for Plan B
When water temperatures approach the mid-60s on your favorite trout stream, it's time for a back-up plan. Chris Hunt photo. The calendar said it was June 18. Not even summer yet. But we hit the mid-90s two weeks earlier and the heat hadn’t really let up. Sure, you could get away from it up high…
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The Brood X hatch? Big deal … or a nothing burger?
I don’t live in an area that saw the once-in-seventeen-year “Brood X’ cicada hatch. And I’m not sure if I’m happy about that, or jealous of those of you who did get the cicadas. I saw them on television, landing on the President’s neck, even grounding the White House press plane for a while. My friends…
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‘Posted’ signs a sad end to a chapter
How much trouble is it to ask permission to access a choice swimming hole? An Oregon landowner reluctantly posts his property after neighbors repeatedly ignore his requests for a heads up before swimming.
Dad has always been proud of the spot. "It's the best hole on the creek," he has said many times about the spot down the hill from his house. That's something of a guess. Dad hasn't explored the entire creek, a tributary to Oregon's South Umpqua River that runs for probably 15 miles from its…
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Bury your fly to rid it of unnatural odors
If you’re getting some obvious follows on your streamer, but not getting the takes you want, this might be what gets a trout to make that final commitment. It won’t hurt, that’s for sure
Several years back, while fishing for bonefish on Long Island in the Bahamas, Capt. Markk Cartwright gave me a great tip that translated well beyond the finicky bones on the flats around Dead Man’s Cay. It’s a tip I use every time I cast streamers and nymphs for trout, too. “Bury your fly in the…
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How to know if a caught fish is in trouble
Summer is not quite here yet, but it’s already sizzling in many places throughout America. So it’s extra important to be mindful of water temperatures. Put a thermometer in your fishing pack, and know when to give trout a break. Once water temps push above 65 degrees (which they are, right now in rivers like…
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Swing wet flies and feel like a kid again
In our family, we had an informal rule about kids fishing on their own—you started out by fishing wet flies downstream, and once you reached a certain age, you got to turn upstream and fish dry flies. It was a tiny, gentle river, really, and there was always an adult looking on, even if we didn’t…
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Roundtable: Dealing with bad behavior on public lands
Kamil Miłkowski photo via Pixabay. Editor’s note: With more and more people heading to the outdoors in pursuit of safe and healthy recreation, reports of bad behavior are becoming more common. From abandoned campfires to litter, we’re seeing impacts on public lands that stem largely from ignorance rather than malice. We asked several long-time Trout…
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