Voices from the river
Is it spring yet?
As I’ve gotten older, this is the time of year I like the least — it’s cold, but it’s going to get colder. There’s snow now, but so much more to come
Women love to see other women on the water
I’ve been fishing the majority of my life. From a young age, I yearned to join my brother and dad on the river, so once I was old enough to safely wade solo, I did just that
Grayling giggles on the Gulkana
Her infectious grayling giggles mirrored the steady stream of top-water action so well that none of us had to look to know the story
Native stories, for fish and people, are still untold
Since 1867, an obelisk has stood in the center of Santa Fe’s downtown plaza to honor fallen Union soldiers in Civil War battles fought in New Mexico, as well as soldiers who fought against “savage...
First look at Denali
I’d come all the way to Alaska and saw more grayling than I’d ever seen in one place. And I didn’t catch a single one from this river. And I didn’t mind a bit
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Praying for rain on the Western Slope of Colorado
The thin, cool air and the end of high mountain wildflower season were calling my name.
The desert browns of the Owyhee
TU is leading a coalition of sportsmen to permanently protect the Owyhee Canyonlands The thing that strikes me most about the Owyhee River is the incongruity. This amazing trout stream springs from, and flows for many miles through, a desert. Okay, most of this...
Calm advice
Monday At 3 p.m., my iPad dings with a message from the Calm app. “Your inner peace is a gift that keeps on giving,” says the app. It’s tailor made for this audience of one, downloaded in the early days of the pandemic, back when we were all trying to...
Canjilon
Settlers quickly learned that the mountains of north central New Mexico were more difficult to penetrate than they looked. In these post-logging days, aspens and conifers coat them like suede, concealing cliffs and box canyons around every corner.
Is this Heaven?
I had just finished leveling the camper when Morgan pulled up in his white sedan. It’s a process—leveling the camper—made a bit more complicated thanks to a slightly hyper mutt running around while I work the jacks, wondering why we can’t just go straight to the creek
Prospecting blue lines
A trail generally follows the stream on its gentle course to Shoshone Lake. If you walk the trail, you might occasionally see a tiny brook trout finning in a deep, dark corner of the creek. More likely, if you’re not an angler and staring keenly through polarized lenses through clear water isn’t really your thing, you might notice a fish dart for cover as your shadow crosses the stream
Living off the land
In the summer, I think I could live off the land — with a bit more education. Wild raspberries and strawberries, wildflowers, wild trout, some wild onions, mushrooms and cattails would make a smorgasbord. The trout tend to come easily in the high-mountain streams I...
Desert rainbows
On a map, it doesn’t look all that far. A quick jaunt up the freeway. A race across a sea of potato fields and a good section of the Idaho National Laboratory, where plans are in place to build a dozen modular nuclear reactors to help power some 36 western communities starting in less than a decade. Finally, there’s the run up the river valley to where the desert meets the Lemhi Range
Summer is for sun(fish)
A couple of my favorite ponds were on Fort Story, a small military base in Virginia Beach. One was deep in the woods, reachable only by a sandy, 4-wheel-drive-required road
Drought and trout
There are many demands on water, especially in the West. Municipal water for drinking and other human uses, agricultural water to grow our food, recreational water to keep a thriving outdoor recreation industry afloat and numerous others. And all are important for the...
Looking for America
A drive deep into the West can heal the soul and freshen commitment to causes
From Brooklyn to Asheville
The road that led me to quit my job and fly fish in North Carolina that summer was as twisty as the Blue Ridge Parkway itself. But after seven cancer surgeries and radiation, multiplied with the strain of a big job in a big city, the cracks began to show
The slug
I hereby state for the record that I would much prefer to catch small trout, rather than larger fish. Not that size doesn’t matter, of course. So there are caveats. The first is that this predilection doesn’t apply to steelhead or salmon. The second is that it only...
Finding a balance between teaching and fishing
By Mark Taylor Beck had just made a nice cast, his lure landing in a shady spot next to the James River’s bank, when he did something you don’t expect from a 15-year-old. He admitted he was clueless “When I go to a store and look at all the fishing lures, I have no...
LWCF is more than just fishing access
After having my first child, I found myself in a small town with very little connection to the world outside my four walls. As new moms often do, I felt isolated and exhausted and overwhelmed. My daughter, who was not wired to be much of a sleeper, would spend the...
Purpose found in fly fishing
Find purpose through fly fishing
The hex hatch
Over the weekend I spent a total of 12 hours fishing. I landed two fish to show for it. It was nonetheless supremely satisfying. And no, I wasn’t fishing for steelhead. About 100 miles north of Lake Tahoe a lovely reservoir lies resplendent, framed by ponderosa pines,...
Cycling to the source of the Eklutna
At the end of May, a crew of spirited friends and I coasted out of Eklutna Lake campground with trimmed packs, tents and miscellaneous items strapped to our bikes, bound for the head of the glacial valley…or at least its vicinity. It was a fresh adventure for all, and for me, the opportunity to witness the East and West Forks of the Eklutna River beyond Eklutna Lake and set eyes on the glacier, where the Eklutna River begins
Virginia Trout Slam a surprising, and fun, challenge
The cast was too good. The drift was too good. There was no way this was not going to work. And it did. A trout dimpled the surface as it slurped in the little olive Stimulator. It wasn’t a big trout, but I played it carefully in the fading light of a sultry Virginia...
High mountain streams feed the soul
After some much-needed good news on the cancer front, I grabbed my cowboy hat and 1-weight and headed out the door. It was time to celebrate and I intended on doing just that by mountain biking and fishing (sometimes combined) on my gorgeous public...
Old memories with Dad … new ones as Dad
“It’s hard to hear him deny he has a family of his own, so I distract him away from that talk by sharing stories of fishing. I tell him about the adventures Owen and I are having and I reflect on memories he and I created together over the years. Occasionally I can tell he remembers one of the stories, but I know he enjoys hearing them either way.”
Teaching Dad
One would think my fishing addiction would be at least partially hereditary, and this is true, insofar as my father’s family fell in love with New Mexico upon first laying eyes on the mountains around the Moreno Valley. My grandfather and his...
Bonds of brothers
As age takes its toll, the memories become stronger By Drew Irby I was browsing through a collection of scanned photos the other day and came across a vintage pic from the family archives. I had been randomly thinking about what happened to certain friends from my...
An introspection about working with water and trout
By Andy Rasmussen I learned in school that rivers are the lifeblood of nature and civilization. Draining entire continents in their meandering course, the great river systems deliver lifegiving water and commerce to much of the earth’s surface. And as fishers we know...
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