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Fly tying: JC’s Electric Steelie Stone
Being a western angler, I'm not terribly familiar with the steelhead flies used in Great Lakes tributaries. Most western steelhead patterns are purple or pink or some color variation that just looks loud and gawdy. Higher up in the steelhead drainages, like here in Idaho, it's easier to get awa y from the "eggy" and…
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Video spotlight: Fly fishing the Bolivian Amazon
The things we do in order to cast to fish. We've all likely layered up in fleece and Gortex and wandered off to a snowy, ice-rimmed river to cast to trout. Others of us have put thousands of miles on our cars or trucks just to get to one special spot. Still others have jetted…
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Video spotlight: Spatsizi
I've been missing my little girl lately—she's off on her own adventures now after graduating from high school last spring. But we had some adventures in years past, and this past summer, we met on a little creek high in Idaho's Caribou National Forest for some fishing. The two of us have always had a…
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Short casts: Roadless battle over?; EPA cuts; salmon sex, and more
Some of America's wildest lands should staty that way if a legal decision last month in Washington has any staying power. The U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia threw out the state of Alaska's last-ditch effort to undermine the 2001 Roadless Rule, which protects some 50 million acres of public lands, including Alaska's…
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How big will you go with a click-and-pawl?
I spent most of the past few weeks fishing only with click-and-pawl reels. That was mostly just for kicks. I have nothing against disc-drag reels (What are you kidding? I love disc-drag reels), but every now and then I get into palming the reel myself. And let’s face it, a click-and- pawl reel sounds beautiful…
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Video spotlight: Hank Patterson and the Practicaster
When you craft a practice rod for fly fishing, you want to have a real professional review the product, right? So, it's no surprise that the Orvis' Practicaster—a miniature practice rod designed to help people work on the various aspects of fly casting—landed in the hands of the renowned Hank Patterson. As is common, Hank…
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Trout Tips: The windshield never lies
Editor's note: The following is exerpted from TU's book, "Trout Tips," available for online purchase and overnight delivery. I recently took a long drive through Kootenay, Banff and Jasper national parks along the border with British Columbia and Alberta. Throughout the entire drive, delicious, glacial-tinged trout water paralleled my path. Trouble was, save for the…
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