Stop! Before you start copying and pasting Amazon links and fly shop web pages, hear me out. It is wish list season. The holidays are approaching. Christmas music and decor are taking over like some abominable mistletoe/tinsel/kudzu hybrid. Everyone from your spouse to your parents to your kids to your aunt Myrtle wants to know …
Trout are creatures with paper-thin fins and gossamer bones. Their optimal temperature and dissolved oxygen thresholds are relatively narrow. Touching their scales with dry hands or laying them upon the bank can render them susceptible to deadly infection. Trout are survivors, but they are fragile. It isn’t just fish, though: A creek, sustaining all manner …
There are places that respectable anglers don’t venture near. These forbidden locations are just on the edge of everyday life. The normal places that one might pass on the way to go fly fishing. What keeps grown men and women away is fear. The kind of fear that stems from the oh-so-familiar knowledge that what …
There is an intimacy in the Appalachian Mountains. While few segments of the topography are severe like much of the Rockies out west are, there is a tangible closeness in the hollows and valleys of the eastern mountain range. Perhaps it can be attributed to the contrast that Appalachia provides. With only a short drive …
For most anglers, fly fishing is an activity reserved for the margins of life. It is fit it in when it can be: between work, family obligations, school, and all the other obligations that rightly get top billing. Fly fishing might get penciled in for a day or weekend now and again, but mostly it’s …
This is about as late in the day as I’ve ever posted on the site. But it’s happening because the family and I have been in the woods of New Hampshire since this morning. It’s a remarkably mild fall, and we were able to enjoy a beautiful White Mountain autumn without jackets or mittens. Similarly, …
What do you have planned for three months from now? I can assure you that you have a lot planned for the time between today and three months from now. The last major fall fishing trips, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and everything that goes along with the holiday season is coming up in the next 90 days. After …
Back in the spring I was paddling the shallows, casting into likely spots to see what kind of fish I could get into. This pond – a slow part of a river, actually – holds largemouth, smallmouth, chain pickerel, yellow perch, stocked trout and salmon, and a handful of other species. I had already landed …
There is an inherent symmetry in the fall run of steelhead within the Great Lakes system. There is cool rain, and the fish move from the lakes into the tributaries. There is a run of fish, and the anglers move from the trout streams into the tributaries. The fish shed their silvery sheen, and the …
I love fishing small streams, and I am not alone. The pay off from the whole experience of fly fishing on a small stream equates to a lot more than just catching fish. Usually you are alone, in beautiful places, and away from it all. Usually, you are only catching small fish. But, there is …
