Voices from the river
Fishing for recovery and love
Fly fishing happens in spectacular places I’m certain there’s nothing glamorous nor fun about breaking your knee, yes, your knee. In college, I shattered my knee (tibial plateau) while skiing in Canada. After two major surgeries, I was on the slow road to recovery,...
Students Adopt-A-Trout to Learn Science
By Diana Miller The anatomy lesson is always one of my favorite parts of the Adopt-A-Trout program. Students tend to divide into two groups: those enthralled and those grossed out. The Adopt-A-Trout program in Wyoming is a partnership between Trout Unlimited and the...
Steelhead days
Among the many charms of autumn is the advent of steelhead runs in many rivers. Where I live, on the central California coast, most streams aren’t yet connected to the ocean—until the rainy season begins in earnest, the sandbars that have set up over the summer...
Fitting it all in before it snows
Fall beauty in southern Colorado Fall means trying to do a little bit of everything before the snow flies: the last mountain bike rides on dirt, climbing peaks to glass for elk, leaf peeping before they turn brown and litter the ground and of course,...
That guy…
We’ve all been there. It’s summer. We’re headed somewhere fishy and the sooner we get there, the sooner we can assemble the 4-weight and hit the water. We’ve squeezed a weekend’s worth of beer and grub into the back of the SUV, and we’re ready to stand knee-deep in a...
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Where gravity does the work
Chad turned to his wife Erin, “If I don’t make it back, I died doing what I love.” It was well-spoken and sealed with a kiss. The Class III rapids of the canyon are far from the roughest or most consequential white...
How to pack for a trip to Bristol Bay
The flights are booked, the lodging is arranged. You’re going to Bristol Bay. Dang, I’m jealous.
The hype is real: A day on the Upper Delaware
“Wait? What? You’ve never fished the Delaware River?” If you live in the East and are an avid (borderline obsessed) trout angler, this is the kind of thing you will hear from peers if you admit that you’ve never wet a line in one of the East’s most famous trout...
Hard work has payoffs
Hermosa Creek surrounded by gorgeous San Juan mountains I recently went out with the Five Rivers TU chapter in Durango, Colo., to help plant willows along the banks of the Hermosa Creek. (Full disclosure: I’m on the board of the chapter). Closing in on the final...
Longtime conservation officer now focused on steelhead and salmon
A fly fisherman searches the water of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho waiting for the elusive tug on the end of his line from a steelhead. Josh Duplechian/Trout Unlimited As a conservation officer with the Idaho Fish and Game Department, Eric Crawford’s...
Guiding the guide
Last Sunday we decided we’d go fishing. It was dumping rain, but being outside on weekends is almost always better than in, and we figured we may as well pursue an activity that already involves gear made to keep you dry.
When the old boat is the right boat
The canoe had been sitting for a while. For the better part of two decades it had served me well, dutifully getting me down Appalachian rivers on trips during which trout, bass and sometimes even ducks and geese were the quarry. But then, about two years ago, I...
Fly fishing contortionist
It’s impressive to think about what our bodies do for us while on the hunt for trout. Clawing our way through thick brush, scooting down steep slopes or lunging to jump from boulder to boulder touches on only some of the contortions we make while fishing. ...
Corridors paved with water
When teaching guide clients how to read a stream, I stressed three basic conditions that dictate where a trout will hold: access to food, access to safety and access to shelter from energy-sapping currents. A healthy and stable abundance of any or all of these...
Boy Scout
Editor’s note: A variation of this piece first appeared in Hatch Magazine. Preparedness was never my thing. There’s a reason I made it to Webelo, but didn’t matriculate farther through the Boy Scout system. You can only show up at the den meeting without your...
Getting out there
Allegra, Grant and I emerged from the densely wooded trail, stepping out onto the wooden bridge for our first view of Resurrection Bay. Mountains jutted up from the water as the evening sun shone through Tonsina Creek valley, and ravens flew overhead. Spawning silver and chum salmon pooled up in riffles below us, and our noses filled with the decaying fish that came before them, soon to be the ravens’ feast.
The stress of an ‘un-seasonable’ summer in Alaska
Climate scientists have been correct so far and it is likely that we will see this un-seasonable weather pattern more frequently. The question Alaskan anglers should be wondering is, how resilient are our world class fisheries?
We’re all landowners
It’s no spectacular feat of modern engineering, but it represents one of the greatest achievements in the history of conservation. The Roosevelt Arch, constructed to mark the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park just outside of Gardiner, Mont., captures the...
Fishing with The Medic
For some years I have used the fall equinox as an excuse to spend a night or two in the Sierra Nevada, sleeping on the ground and fishing for trout in a small tributary to the upper San Joaquin River. This year, I made the grievous error of inviting my brother to join...
Fishing and aging
Aging. We all do it — every minute and second of every day. Why is wisdom gained only with age? Hitting a rather large, round number earlier this year, I’ve been reflecting on life — how to spend more time living my life, how to spend more time with the people I love,...
At home on the Tongass
My father once told me that “home is where you hang your hat.” I believed it, for a time, at least. I mean, as a young boy, who was I to argue with the wisdom of a grownup? I’ve come to realize, though, that “home” is where everything seems to fall into place...
Point No Point
The deviation from the plan started when the app we were using to navigate across downtown Seattle in morning traffic guided us down appallingly skinny, twisted streets and a scenic tour of old neighborhoods that did not, in the end, deliver us to the ferry any more...
Two 20-something women put their heads together to protect the Tongass
If you’ve followed along with Trout Unlimited’s campaigns in Alaska over the past few months, you know that from Pebble Mine advancements to Roadless Rule rollbacks, incredible places like Bristol Bay and the Tongass National Forest are at great...
Think it’s going to be a great day? Think again.
There is a risk to presuming that the first few minutes of a fishing outing will portend how the entire day will unfold. How often do we struggle early, and then rally? How often do we dominate early and then fade? But we often can’t help ourselves,...
Coaching an elder to success
“One more cast,” I say to my brother from the bank above the Frying Pan River. A monster trout is rising with regularity and taunting my brother’s last nerve. I’ve been coaching him to place his fly in the exact spot from his perch on the opposite side of the run...
The mouse-muncher
I can feel myself shaking but for some reason I still hold my hand out for visual verification. The sort of tremble a fish hasn’t left with since putting a rooster fish in the net or landing my first steelhead. My adrenaline is spiked and the only way my grin could...
Out of sight, out of mine?
An abandoned mine overlooks Lion Creek drainage near Empire, Colorado By Randy Scholfield We are bouncing along in four-wheel drive vehicles, high in the Clear Creek watershed west of Denver, overlooking beautiful forest vistas and steep hillsides laced with snowmelt...
Thistles and cutthroat trout
With such abundant water throughout Southwest Colorado this year, invasive plants are thriving. While Canadian and musk thistle, mullen and even spotted knapweed provide gorgeous colors dotting the landscape, I can’t help but cringe every time I see a field (or...
Rapanos
Interpretive sign on the Carmel River, spring 2019. It was while walking a seasonally-dry side channel of my local stream, the Carmel River, over the weekend that I started thinking about a guy from Michigan named John Rapanos. You should know this name, because this...
2019 Fall Appeal
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