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Remembering Duane Cook and his service to people
I remember being a boy and watching my mother and grandmother yell at the television, as though the Vietnam War was Nixon’s fault and Kennedy and Johnson never existed. At the Memorial Wall in D.C., I remember tears rolling down my good friend’s face the moment he located the name of his father, who died when my friend was but two years old and had yet to commit his dad’s face to memory. My fishing buddy who worked at…
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Some of the wildest fishing destinations on earth
An angler tangles with a Dolly Varden on Alaska's Stikine River. Chris Hunt photo. How can I adequately capture the essence of fishing the world’s wildest fisheries in a few sentences when only a book might do them justice? I can’t. But it’s fun trying, so what the heck… Tasmania, Australia Overlooked, under-appreciated and wide open, the…
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The cult of the invasive fish
Growing up in the Denver suburbs, one of my favorite childhood haunts was a public park a short bike ride from home. It sported the sketchy jungle gym with the sharp, rusty edges, the little spring loaded ridable critters that, with enough momentum, could send a small child into orbit, and a small lake that…
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The gift of the skunk
One learns not to expect much when fly fishing during the winter months. At least around here, or if you’re me. Regardless of the season, sometimes you step into a river and just know something’s off. The water’s not moving right, or the sound of the wind rings particularly empty and distant. I envy steelhead die-hards their familiarity with this feeling, the impending, inevitable void, and how they march into it undaunted. A guy I know…
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Welcome to winter steelhead fishing
Dean hollered from upstream as a steelhead took his fly, then hollered again a moment later as the fish released it. At another spot Dean had a nice fish on for perhaps a minute, his rod bowed and bobbing. But that steelhead, too, practiced detachment. Welcome to winter steelhead fishing.
Molly the water dog and Jenny Weis on Oregon's Umpqua River, before everything blew out. By the third day, it seemed a foregone conclusion that at least one of our three-person party would feel the chilly fingers of a stream no longer kept at bay by their waders. The ubiquitous blackberry vines armoring the banks…
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Sighs of relief
Do you make your sighs of relief audible? I sure have been lately. Snow is currently falling in Southwest Colorado and it is piling up. Ahhhh. I can breathe a cautious sigh of relief for the trout in our watersheds. I can nearly hear the trees and plants sigh for the water nourishing their roots. On a personal note, I’m…
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Wild, scenic and fishable
New legislation from Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley would better conserve some of Oregon's best waters for native salmon, steelhead and trout. Today, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon introduced the River Democracy Act of 2021, which would create new Wild and Scenic River designations for a number of stream segments in Oregon where TU…
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