“From the very first day of this section, we could see all the way to where we would be in three days. Across a wide, high desert valley we could see a pass that we would eventually cross over to stay on the divide. To our right and in front of us there was a mountain range that the CDT climbs up into twice.”
Fly fishing is arguably the ideal pastime for someone with obsessive tendencies. Inches matter on the stream, as do thousandths when it comes to spools of tippet or fly-tying thread. A guy I once fished with said he never saved leftovers from home-cooked meals; it was a sanitary thing. Sure
Stewing in the sun and smoke of the late-August afternoon, even the temptingly titled Shady Island River Park was overmatched. Cottonwoods lining the shore of the Gunnison River offered only modest relief as the mercury climbed north of 95 degrees, and soon enough the haze of Colorado’s largest recorded wildfire would overcome our little oasis as well. To make matters worse, the water was too warm for fishing. The harsh realities of climate change were suddenly inescapable
If the determining factor in the effort to save the native Yellowstone cutthroat trout of Idaho’s South Fork of the Snake River is how hard cutthroats fight at the end of a leader … well, then, the fight is already lost
Our best grizzly sighting happened on the last day just 8 miles from the border. We were excited and walking fast. My cousin Ethan was walking ahead and staring at his phone. He apperantly did not notice the bear walking up the road. After we caught his attention, his first thought, he later told us, was “Oh cool, a bear.” Followed shortly by, “Oh crap, a bear!”
Removal of century-old dam in Missoula, Mont., opens creek for native fish passage The opportunity for native westslope cutthroat and bull trout to move unimpeded up and down Rattlesnake Creek in Missoula, Mont., is close to reality. Contractors hired by Trout Unlimited, Montana Trout Unlimited, the City of Missoula and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks,…
“It wasn’t pretty, and it certainly wasn’t easy, but with my line tangled over and over again, I dabbed and flipped my fly until that hungry little guy grabbed it. It was 9 a.m., the race was on, and it was time to get on the road to our next location.”