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Early snow isn’t a deal-breaker
I dread mornings like this every year. Sometimes it holds off for a few more weeks, or even a month or longer. But this year, winter showed up early. As I type this, it's snowing. And not just a little snow. We have a good 10 inches of heavy, wet snow in the yard —…
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The water we don’t fish
I still slow down as the car crosses over a river or a stream, and instead of planning and executing an afternoon of fishing, I've found myself photographing covered bridges and watching wild brown trout fin in the current under the shadows of these New England staples
I'm in northern Vermont at Jay Peak Resort, a sweet little year-round resort nestled up against the Canadian border. But I'm not fishing. And, honestly, I'm not sure why--I could have easily tucked a little 3-weight rod into my luggage, or even carried a rod onto the plane. Instead, on little day-trip drives around the…
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Choosing a rod is about the flies, not the fish
I had always assumed that an angler chooses a fly rod based on the type of fish they wanted to chase. Turns out, that’s not exactly true. Sure, a 5-weight is probably still the gold standard “trout rod,” but that has less to do with fighting the fish, and more to do with the range of…
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TU 2021 Sweepstakes winners announced
Healing Waters Lodge, Twin Bridges, Mont. Congratulations to the winner’s in TU’s latest Sweepstakes event. The Grand Prize winner, Y. Makita of New York, gets a four-day, five-night adventure for two at Healing Waters Lodge in Twin Bridges, Mont. First-prize winners P. Schmalz, R. Gneiser and M. Clemente each will be awarded a Winston AIR…
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Whittlesey Creek National Wildlife Refuge gives hope to coaster brook trout
For two decades, Whittlesey Creek National Wildlife Refuge has been the site of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service efforts to restore self-sustaining populations of coaster book trout. Trout Unlimited has been a partner in the work. The efforts haven't been successful, but have increased knowledge about this unique form of brook trout and what could be needed to restore the fish to Lake Superior tributaries.
Of the many forms of brook trout, one of the more unique is the coaster. Coasters are potamodromous, spending much of their adult lives in nearshore waters of the upper Great Lakes and then migrating into streams to spawn. They can grow to larger sizes than brookies that live their entire lives in streams, and…
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What’s the greatest fly-fishing technological advance in the last 75 years?
While fly fishing is still a very traditional sport involving simple tools—primarily a stick and a string—there have been a number of technological advances that transformed the sport. What would you rank as the most significant, say from your grandparents’ era to present? No doubt, graphite materials and space-age resins have changed fly rods dramatically,…
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Boat Books: Drift Boats and River Dories
Roger Fletcher's book, Drift Boats and River Dories sat on my shelf for many years before I actually picked it up and leafed through it. Why I waited so long I couldn't tell you — I think at first glance it looks like a dense, "how-to" dictionary on wooden boat building. Which it is. In…
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