By Mark Taylor I have a friend who is an artist at the fly-tying vise. I mean, literally an artist. His creations don’t end up in the water, let alone in a fish’s mouth. They go into shadow boxes. Other friends actually fish their fancy flies, including articulated streamers that can take an hour each
By Eric Booton I learned a memorable lesson while on an overnight camping trip with a group of friends during college. We camped next to a small and freshly stocked reservoir in a quiet, Colorado valley. The fishing was easy and trout were on the menu. The following morning was complete with consequence, not just
“History is written from what can be found; what isn’t saved is lost, sunken and rotted, eaten by earth.” —Jill Lepore By Dave Ammons Hey, I found your fishing rod. It was early morning during my daily walk up the road as the lig ht was breaking across the canyon walls. I passed the day-use
By Chris Hunt The desert of southern Idaho is immense. Sliced ear to ear by the Snake River, this place is defined by fire. Some of the lava flows in Craters of the Moon National Monument are only 2,000 years old. Others are leftover from the last big blast from t he Yellowstone “hot spot”
Taking a break for a warm coffee on a dreary day on Virginia’s Smith River. (Sam Dean photo.) By Mark Taylor My friend Aaron reached out the other day with an invitation. “Got a seat in the boat for you.” A couple days later we were floating down Virginia’s Jackson River in Aaron’s new Boulder
By Eric Booton A handful of my fellow Southcentral Alaska trout bums manage to fish year-round on one of the larger river systems that remains mostly open. Frigid waters flow between ice shelves, their invitingly shallow depths a recipe for cold toes and frozen boots. The sun creeps above the ridgetops providing a brief amount
“The friends I can count on, I can count on one hand”. — Anonymous I have a fishing buddy who’s fond of sayings and that particular one has resonated with me. He’s always been one of the guys I have counted on. Not sure he can say the same thing about m e. We are
Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again. – —Gautama Buddha By Sam Davidson Recently I saw a post on social media reminding people that as spring comes on strong, so do snakes. The post offered visual proof (see above) of this, in the form of a
Photo by Mike Sepelak By Chris Hunt FOLKSTON, Ga.— I’ve never been a boat guy, choosing instead to find my best fly fishing using my two feet, usually after driving to the end of the road, and then wandering on a bit farther to the water few others bother to reach. It’s a preference thing.
By Chris Hunt The first time I visited a blackwater swamp, I was probably about 12. My dad rented a little jon boat from the marina near Uncertain, Texas, and he manned the tiller as we glided over the glassy waters of Caddo Lake. I was instantly enchanted. At the time, 35 years ago, East
“Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountai n day; whatever his fate, long life, short life,
By Chris Hunt I got lost last night. Not your traditional, “I have no idea where I am,” kind of lost. But lost just the same. My daughter is home for a scant month between jobs—she’s returned from Colorado’s ski country and is a month away from her next gig at Colter Bay on Jackson
TU’s Brian Johnson, the Steelhead Whisperer, and Scott Yates at the end of the steelhead season on California’s central coast. By Sam Davidson The steelhead season ended almost exactly the way it began. I spent both the opener and the close at the same place, with the same crew. With the same results. Which is
The Arroyo Seco River. By Sam Davidson Not long ago, on an unseasonably warm Saturday, I went fishing in the desert. Well, technically the Arroyo Seco River isn’t desert—the fishable section flows through a rugged canyon sheathed in cha parral. But it might as well be in the desert. It’s hot and dry there much
By Dave Ammons On her 60th birthday my mother led me to the summit of Mt. Elbert, the highest among Colorado’s fourteeners. She was a mountain goat, small and sinewy, always seeking challenges in the wilderness. She was also determined, reticent to concede to limitations, and stubborn to the core. Not long after that climb
By Eric Booton There is a general rule of thumb that many of us live by: the bigger the challenge to access the fishing hole, the better the fishing is likely to be. With that in mind, a 30-minute flight on an Alaskan “bush” plane, plus a 45 minute drive in a beater truck on
As anglers, we have more in common with these folks than you might think. By Chris Hunt Years ago, when I first started working in advocacy for Trout Unlimited, one of our focus issues had to do with off-road vehicles and how some riders tended to take liberties on our public lands by pioneering new
Sometimes the fishing is secondary to other priorities. The author of this fine reminiscence with his father, Gordon VeneKlasen. By Garrett VeneKlasen Feb. 5, 2018 Twenty years ago today, the single engine plane my father was piloting went down in the mountains east of Taos. I remember that day like it was yesterday. Dad was
The one that got away. In November, I made the bi-annual stumble across the lawn, ungracefully lugging fly rods, waders and tackle to the shed to make way for ski gear in our indoor gear closet. Since catching the last fish on the fly of 2017 (a respectable leopard spotted rainbow trout from a small
I love Montana. I even like Bozeman. Sometimes those are two different things, as lots of Montanans will be happy to tell you. If I were going to pick a place where I could be close to Bozeman and still feel like I was in “real” Montana, I’d stay with some friends at their ranch
