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Fishing for recovery and love
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, which meant getting super buff crutching across campus (and dealing with thick, nasty callouses on my palms),…
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We fish here so you can fish there
“We fish here so you can fish there.” So read the note that I sent to all of TU’s staff on Christmas Eve several years ago. The note included two photographs. One showed my colleague, Keith Curley, standing on a shopping cart and casting into a tributary of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C.; another…
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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 between their mouths and the salt remain intact. That…
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Hank Patterson’s Fish-cation from Hell
"Whoa, whoa, whoa ... Joel? Let's not waste any blood on a nymph." Yeah, it's a bit late for us to post the trailer for a Halloween fright-fest film—even if it's a trailer to a film that doesn't really exist. But Hank Patterson's newest fly-fishing spoof (with the egregious support from Orvis) that draws on…
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Adventure among Patagonia’s estancias
It was quite the juxtaposition, honestly. Not exactly what I had in mind for my first fishing trip to Argentina, but then, the whole experience had been somewhat surprising. There I was, casually sitting in the back seat of a Toyota Hilux next to a waifish equestrian from Pennsylvania, a tumbler of iced Irish whiskey…
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Shenk’s Minnow
As baitfish imitations go, Shenk's Minnow might be the most fun to tie. While other patterns, like Norm Zeigler's Schminnow, might actually be a little easier to craft, no other simple baitfish patterns calls for baby-blanket yarn in order to put it together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BGQ7VHFsFM Above, Tim Flagler ties the Shenk's Minnow with his own variations…
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No shame
A couple weeks ago a buddy posted on social media a picture of himself holding a large brown trout with a brief caption: “No shame.” No additional information was necessary. The other prop in the photo, the one in addition to the gorgeous 22-inch brown, was a spinning rod. The fish hit a large Rapala,…
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