Photo by Chris Hunt by Dave Ammons There exist a number of memorable fish in my experience. The little brook trout caught in a narrow, tumbling stream whose encounter caused us both to blush. A cutthroat from the depths of a mountain tarn so clear it reflected a Colorado sky all the way through to…
The author’s father, Steve, enjoys a laugh with dedicated steelhead angler Pat Wright on the South Umpqua River in Southern Oregon. By Mark Taylor I’ve been hearing the fish stories for years. “Lost a chromer today. Man, she was hot. Jumped six times.” “Hooked three and got a nice 7-pound buck. Pat got a 15-pounder.”…
By Mark Taylor BALDWIN, Mich. — My fellow passenger was friendly. “What is that?” she asked, looking at the 3-foot-long, cordura-covered tube in my grasp. “A fishing rod,” I said. “You’re going fishing in Michigan in February?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Like, ice fishing?” Actually, I was going to a meeting with TU’s Great…
“You take it on faith, you take it to the heart. The waiting is the hardest part. “ — Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers I made my plane reservations in December. I booked the little house across the street from the beach in November. It sits in the heart of a little fishing village in…
Fly fishing trophy hunters are all about traveling to far-flung places to chase big fish. Heck, we just highlighted a pair of videos that focus on chasing giant browns and rainbows in New Zealand, where both species of trout are interlopers in Kiwi waters. And then there’s Patagonia, where big trout swim in rivers where…
Photo by Chris Hunt By Chris Hunt I’ve got a trip planned to a remote little fishing village in Mexico later this winter, and one of the first things I was warned of when I reserved a little cottage on the beach was (after hitting Google Translate), “There is no cell service here.” I do…
By Dave Ammons My earliest memories of The Bend were of grand childhood adventures. We skipped stones, a challenge in riffles and rapids. We built rock rings to hold small fires where we cooked hot dogs on sticks freshly snapped and stripped from a willow on the bank. We s plashed at the water’s edge…
Todd Moen’s latest fly-fishing film is a story of three women and their fights with breast cancer. It’s a sobering reminder that, while the “river of life” moves on, some of us fall victim to the cruelest of conditions. And, yet, some find ways to persist, and for these three ladies, fly fishing proved to…
By Eric Booton It’s early and it takes some encouragement to get my wife out of bed and ready to roll. I amazingly manage to botch the breakfast burritos in the microwave and spill her coffee all over the kitchen. It’s a morning reminiscent of most summer or fall weekend in the Booton house, except…
The Steelhead Whisperer cradles the object of his affection on his home water during the recent steelhead season opener. By Sam Davidson It was with some trepidation that I paid my respects to a stream with a heavy reputation on the recent opening day of steelhead season. I should have had no worries, as I…
The Steelhead Whisperer on the legendary Trinity River By Sam Davidson Knowing full well the inexorable influence of superstition on fishing success, I have no excuse for my gross negligence which weighed heavily on our recent experience on the Trinity River. The warning signs were there, including this fine piece from TU’s Eric Booten on…
You can help restore the third most productive river for salmon and steelhead on the West Coast
By Chris Hunt There’s a stretch of the drive between my home in Idaho Falls and my former home in Colorado that often lulls me into a state of semi-consciousness—a state of being where driving becomes the innate foundation of my psyche while the rest of my mind wanders off into the mountains. Starting just…
Domenick Swentosky has it pretty good. An avid trout angler, he lives just outside State College, Pa., in the heart of some pretty killer trout country. Spring Creek, one of the region’s better known streams, is just a few minutes away. He gets on the water quite a bit, though not as much as he…
A bigger-than-average trout from a nameless creek, Sierra National Forest. By Sam Davidson For no good reason one of my favorite words is equinox. It sounds like a cool drum set, or a fancy word for a horse’s muzzle. Of course, the term (which stems originally from the old Latin aequinoctium, or “equal night”) means…
Tintina stumbles over first regulatory hurdle: Much more to come. While the DEQ has approved Tintina’s application for a permit, the process is only beginning. Make your voice heard today. < span>What can you do? 1. Write the Governor by clicking the take action button below 2. Post your support for the Smith on your…
Moments before the fateful spill, East Carson River. By Sam Davidson The defining moment of a recent road trip to fish some of the fabled streams along the east side of the Sierra came mere seconds after I snapped a photo o f TMP getting a good drift through a sweet reach of the East…
It hadn’t done much but rain in the Rockies straddling the border of Montana and British Columbia last July, and the weather had put traditional fly hatches off a bit. Instead of pale-morning duns and stoneflies bursting from the snow-chilled waters of the Elk River near the town of Fernie, huge green drakes were popping…
Photo by Rachel Andona By Chris Hunt A year ago, I was well into the British Columbian interior, motoring north toward my eventual destination at Deadhorse on the Arctic Ocean, a new camper in tow, many miles to go and about six weeks to get there and back. It was a marathon pocked by dozens…
by Eric Booton The midnight sun came and went. We are so accustomed to the unending daylight that we neglected to pack headlamps. We were already run out a fishing hole earlier in the evening by black bear and passing anglers were warning us of a momma brown bear with cubs. It wasn’t the most…
