Currently browsing… Fly fishing
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Why fly fishing is like pizza
Pizza is pizza, right? A little crust, a little sauce, some cheese… bada-bing! There you go. Not hardly! Perish that thought. Great pizza is an artform. It should be a perfect balance involving great crust, delicious sauce, golden cheese and fantastic toppings. If any of those four elements are deficient in any way… meh pizza! The operative word…
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Learn from the best at School of Trout
There’s a great deal to be said for doing one thing and doing it with excellence. My friend Todd Tanner and the folks at School of Trout do that with fly fishing. Boy howdy, do they ever. They bring together the planet's finest and most iconic fly fishers to share their experiences, their knowledge, their…
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One salmonid for the rest of my life? I choose Dolly
You can try to time the silver run or the king run, and maybe you'll get lucky and hit it just right. Odds are, you'll time your date with Dolly perfectly — she's rarely a no-show
I made an off-hand comment on a friend's Facebook post this morning — he uploaded a great photo of a Dolly Varden in Southeast Alaska and I quickly opined that, should some higher power ever dictate to me that I could only catch one salmonid for the rest of my life, it very well might…
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National Park Service targets brown trout at Lees Ferry
by Jim Strogen The Colorado River below Lake Powell is a blue-ribbon rainbow trout fishery loved by anglers across the country. While this reach is among the prettiest places that I have fished, and one that I try to return to as often as possible, there are issues on the river that are important to…
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Finding community on Independence Day
On this Independence Day, we honor those who have made a commitment to their communities, and the nation, the centerpiece of their lives
“I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.” – Bob Dylan I firmly believe that the obligations of community do not contradict independence. What I have seen, in fact, is that when strong, independent men and women dedicate themselves to service, communities emerge. On this Independence…
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Keeping an eye out for wildfires
Sunset over the Caribou National Forest, Idaho. Chris Hunt photo. I've spent the last couple of days working from one of my favorite places in the world -- an out-of-the-way campsite in the middle of the Caribou National Forest. Some years back, while fishing the little trout stream near camp, my phone rang in my…
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The old man’s fly rod
Some years back, I got a gift package in the mail right around Christmas time. It was from my uncle John, my mom’s brother. Long and slender, the package was a complete mystery to me--we’d long since stopped receiving gift packages from aunts and uncles, so I was really curious. Come Christmas morning, I watched…