By Dave Ammons I’m pretty sure that woven into most rivers in North America are intervals of private and public water, and the river I fish is no different. I am privileged to have access to nearly a mile of private water, a beautiful mix of long runs, boulder-strewn pocke ts, and stretches of riffles
The Steelhead Whisperer, on his home water, in his characteristic pose. By Sam Davidson Apparently I like to observe important fishing occasions by making other anglers feel better about themselves. 2017 was a case in point. I ended the calendar year, and the 2016-17 winter steelhead season (in March), in the same fashion: by going
By Dave Ammons For about two weeks in late June, the garden off the cabin deck explodes in the brilliant red-orange shades of the Papaver rhoeas, common poppies whose seeds were first sown in that spot by my grandfather years ago. I imagine him scratching the soil, strewing a few handfuls of seed indiscriminately, perhaps
By Mark Taylor During a visit last summer to the stomping grounds of my youth, the family and I found ourselves not far from one of my favorite fishing spots, a small pond at the site of a long-ago razed lumber mill. “I want to show you guys a place where Grandpa Steve, Uncle Greg
By Chris Hunt It’s December. How did that happen? Why, just last week, it seemed, I was casting fat Chernobyls to willing cutthroats on Bear Creek under the warmest of summer suns. But today, as I step outside to grab the mail, my nostrils freeze tight and the vapor from my breath circles my face,
Tight-lining a tandem set of nymphs through a bucket on the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River in West Virginia with his 11-foot Euro nymph rod, Mark Taylor comes tight to a 14-inch rainbow trout. (Sam Dean photo.) By Mark Taylor Fishermen never stop learning, but we are also victims of
By Erin Rodgers Trout Unlimited continues to make good progress in efforts to reconnect the fragmented Mettawee River near Dorset, Vt. This year’s projects are part of a larger effort by TU, the Poultney-Mettawee Natural Resource Conservation District, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Natural Resources Conservation Service to reconnect over
The author and his daughter, filling buckets on Yellowstone’s Lamar River. By Tim Frahm When my daughter was in third grade (she’s in sixth grade now), her class practiced a regular exercise they called “filling buckets.” This involved being kind or thoughtful or in other ways a good friend to each other. The outcome of
Photo by Chris Hunt By Chris Hunt < p dir="ltr">There’s something primal about dark water shrouded by cypress. The color of strong coffee, these stained swamps of the South nurture mystery and offer refuge to critters that hang on in acid-tinged water filtered through layers of eons-old peat and sand. The gators come to mind
Photo by Chris Hunt By Dave Ammons The size of the ponderosa pines in Silent Forest is testament to the vigor of mother nature. These are clearly not discontented trees, rising a hundred feet with red-barked girth that my outstretched arms cannot encircle. The entire forest is rooted in satisfaction as it climbs the steeply
“Thank you No. 3. See you next time,” I whispered to the warm cabin as I closed the door of one of my favorite public-use cabins in Southcentral Alaska and turned to soak in the view from the deck with my wife and two dogs. It’s my trusty routine to thank the public resource that
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
William Conrad as Marshall Matt Dillon By Chris Hunt Years ago, when I worked as a journalist on the North Coast of California, I got into the habit of falling to sleep to the sounds of old-time radio. Stan Freberg—a Radio Hall-of-Famer—hosted a nightly show on one of the AM stations we could pick up
A handful of the large crew that fished Virginia’s Smith River prior to TU’s national meeting in Roanoke. By Mark Taylor As Trout Unlimited’s annual meeting drew near, a few of us involved in the meeting anxiously watched weather forecasts. We wanted rain. Not during the meeting itself, understand. But prior to it. It’s been
By Eric Booton Fall never fails to be one of my favorite times of the year. The change in colors livens up the scenery before the cold and darkness take hold. I find great satisfaction in tromping through the fallen leaves dusting the trail. The salmon fill the rivers with a feast of eggs and
Photo courtesy of FUDR By David Kinney A new long-term deal is in sight on the Upper Delaware, and its drafters say it would address concerns about the effects of erratic flows and high temperatures on the river’s wild trout fishery. The broad outlines of the 10-year agreement were announced this week at a meeting
Al Kittredge of the Smith River chapter of Trout Unlimited displays a 24.8-inch brown trout collected from the river during an electroshock sampling trip in June. The fish was released after it was measured. By Mark Taylor We all know that one decision or event can radically alter our life’s path. Halfway through my senior
