Fly fishing trophy hunters are all about traveling to far-flung places to chase big fish. Heck, we just highlighted a pair of videos that focus on chasing giant browns and rainbows in New Zealand, where both species of trout are interlopers in Kiwi waters. And then there’s Patagonia, where big trout swim in rivers where
Photo by Chris Hunt By Chris Hunt I’ve got a trip planned to a remote little fishing village in Mexico later this winter, and one of the first things I was warned of when I reserved a little cottage on the beach was (after hitting Google Translate), “There is no cell service here.” I do
By Dave Ammons My earliest memories of The Bend were of grand childhood adventures. We skipped stones, a challenge in riffles and rapids. We built rock rings to hold small fires where we cooked hot dogs on sticks freshly snapped and stripped from a willow on the bank. We s plashed at the water’s edge
Todd Moen’s latest fly-fishing film is a story of three women and their fights with breast cancer. It’s a sobering reminder that, while the “river of life” moves on, some of us fall victim to the cruelest of conditions. And, yet, some find ways to persist, and for these three ladies, fly fishing proved to
By Eric Booton It’s early and it takes some encouragement to get my wife out of bed and ready to roll. I amazingly manage to botch the breakfast burritos in the microwave and spill her coffee all over the kitchen. It’s a morning reminiscent of most summer or fall weekend in the Booton house, except
The Steelhead Whisperer cradles the object of his affection on his home water during the recent steelhead season opener. By Sam Davidson It was with some trepidation that I paid my respects to a stream with a heavy reputation on the recent opening day of steelhead season. I should have had no worries, as I
The Steelhead Whisperer on the legendary Trinity River By Sam Davidson Knowing full well the inexorable influence of superstition on fishing success, I have no excuse for my gross negligence which weighed heavily on our recent experience on the Trinity River. The warning signs were there, including this fine piece from TU’s Eric Booten on
You can help restore the third most productive river for salmon and steelhead on the West Coast
By Chris Hunt There’s a stretch of the drive between my home in Idaho Falls and my former home in Colorado that often lulls me into a state of semi-consciousness—a state of being where driving becomes the innate foundation of my psyche while the rest of my mind wanders off into the mountains. Starting just
Domenick Swentosky has it pretty good. An avid trout angler, he lives just outside State College, Pa., in the heart of some pretty killer trout country. Spring Creek, one of the region’s better known streams, is just a few minutes away. He gets on the water quite a bit, though not as much as he
A bigger-than-average trout from a nameless creek, Sierra National Forest. By Sam Davidson For no good reason one of my favorite words is equinox. It sounds like a cool drum set, or a fancy word for a horse’s muzzle. Of course, the term (which stems originally from the old Latin aequinoctium, or “equal night”) means
Tintina stumbles over first regulatory hurdle: Much more to come. While the DEQ has approved Tintina’s application for a permit, the process is only beginning. Make your voice heard today. < span>What can you do? 1. Write the Governor by clicking the take action button below 2. Post your support for the Smith on your
Moments before the fateful spill, East Carson River. By Sam Davidson The defining moment of a recent road trip to fish some of the fabled streams along the east side of the Sierra came mere seconds after I snapped a photo o f TMP getting a good drift through a sweet reach of the East
It hadn’t done much but rain in the Rockies straddling the border of Montana and British Columbia last July, and the weather had put traditional fly hatches off a bit. Instead of pale-morning duns and stoneflies bursting from the snow-chilled waters of the Elk River near the town of Fernie, huge green drakes were popping
Photo by Rachel Andona By Chris Hunt A year ago, I was well into the British Columbian interior, motoring north toward my eventual destination at Deadhorse on the Arctic Ocean, a new camper in tow, many miles to go and about six weeks to get there and back. It was a marathon pocked by dozens
by Eric Booton The midnight sun came and went. We are so accustomed to the unending daylight that we neglected to pack headlamps. We were already run out a fishing hole earlier in the evening by black bear and passing anglers were warning us of a momma brown bear with cubs. It wasn’t the most
By Chris Hunt We had a moment this week, my youngest brother and I. As we struggled through the instructions that came with the Sam’s Club charcoal grill we’d hustled to the store to acquire while three juicy ribeyes sat stoically on the kitchen counter, we connected through music and memory. We have one thing
The Steelhead Whisperer stalks a lonely Central California beach. By Sam Davidson
Outgoing president of the Southcentral Alaska TU Chapter, Shannon Carroll, waiting for the tug of a steelhead. By Eric Booton I tossed and turned all night. The image of the chrome sides of that fish on it’s first jump forever etched on my brain and I fear, doomed to haunt me until I get redemption.
By Chris Hunt Sometimes, being by yourself is all the company you need. Stretched out in a camp chair in the night-time chill of the high desert, the crackle of a small fire and the enthusiastic yips from a family of coyotes break the wild silence. The full moon is about to appear over the
