-
FITS light hiker-crew socks
Let’s face it…socks are not the kind of gear which occupy much of our thought, in the way that a sexy, machined-aluminum fly reel might. But this somewhat overlooked bit of gear is one of the most crucial elements of our comfort out on the river. Over the past few weeks I have spent a…
-
Fishewear wine hydroflask tumbler
While I would prefer to be remembered as well-suited to review something like a nice new tip-flex 6-weight, because of my propensity to fish big water for large, wild trout... it would be entirely disingenuous to pretend I was not perfectly-suited for the FisheWear wine Hydroflask tumbler. For one, FisheWear is a woman-owned company and…
-
Reilly Rod Crafters: great people, great rods
I remember the day I knew I wanted to learn to fly fish. I don’t think I was 10 years old yet. My dad and I had just returned from a horseback day trip to the backcountry and were in the process of unsaddling our horses. That’s when I saw Carl Evers casting a dry…
-
Loon tying tools help keep winter at bay
The drift hanging over the eves on the house this morning is quite impressive. And it's cold. Damn cold. The thought of sneaking off for an afternoon on the Henry's Fork is now more of a pathetic inside joke—fighting frozen guides, frozen fingers and frozen toes while the the wind whips snow around my wadered…
-
The Wisconsin way
Something breeds great conservationists in Wisconsin. John Muir, famous for the Sierra’s, was born in Scotland and moved to Wisconsin as a young boy. He took his first course in botany at the University of Wisconsin. Aldo Leopold, author of the seminal, "A Sand County Almanac," lived in Wisconsin and raised five prominent conservationists in…
-
Changes to the Clean Water Rule have big impacts on the ground
High in the headwaters of Back Creek in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia are several small streams that only run after it rains. Those “ephemeral” tributaries to Back Creek, a wild brook trout stream that also holds browns and rainbows, intersect with the proposed 600-mile route of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a project that…
-
Going to the birds
The fishing had been ok that morning years ago when Corey Fisher and I waded up a small creek in Utah trying not to scare fish — or rattlesnakes. We had each caught a couple, but nothing like the fish we had heard about coming from this remote destination. That, however, was about to…