Articles

Review: FENIX HM65R rechargeable headlamp

Is Fenix's HM65R the ultimate guiding light for outdoor goers?

by Johnny Carrol Sain - Saturday, Apr 30th, 2022

The Fenix HM65R rechargeable headlamp (photo: Johnny Carrol Sain).

Wars and rumors of wars. Pandemic. Supply line failure. Shifting climate.

The Four Horseman of the current apocalypse (how many have we had now?) vary a bit from their Biblical forerunners, but uncertainty is certainly in the air nowadays. And though fear is the mind-killer, uncertainty is fear’s dark and unfathomable mother. You’d think we’d be more comfortable in her presence nowadays. She’s only been here since the beginning.

How to make your own killer fly

You don’t need to be a fly designer to come up with your next great pattern

by Spencer Durrant - Friday, Apr 29th, 2022

Photo: Spencer Durrant

The wind howled from the West and snow fell sideways, which made trout fishing rather pointless. It was the kind of spring weather that you just can’t fish through; you have to wait it out. So I stayed home for the better part of a week, tying flies and filling boxes full of patterns I’ll need when summer rolls around. I kept looking out the window, hoping for a break in the weather and warm enough temps to coax a blue-wing hatch into existence.

Living with hunting dogs

The unique bond between working dogs and their owners

by Tom Davis - Monday, Apr 25th, 2022

'A Pheasant in a Plum Thicket' — watercolor by Eldridge Hardie, 1989 (courtesy: EldridgeHardie.com).

The guy’s name was Charlie, I think. The one time I met him, at the now long-defunct Gustav Pabst Invitational Hungarian Partridge Shoot (a.k.a. the One Box Hun Hunt), he showed up in a Jaguar sedan with his German shorthaired pointer riding shotgun. That was pretty cool, but what made an even deeper impression—and permanently endeared Charlie to me—was that after a full day of bird hunting in the fencerows and stubblefields of east-central Wisconsin, he opened the door of the Jag and let his wet, muddy, stinky dog jump right in.

Should you hire a fishing guide?

To book a guide, or not to book a guide — that is the question.

by Todd Tanner - Saturday, Apr 23rd, 2022

One of the best guides to ever work in the business, the late Monte Becker, from the River of Dreams basecamp (photo: Earl Harper).

As we were finishing up our annual School of Trout class in Idaho last fall, a student brought up the subject of fly fishing guides. He wanted to book a guide for a couple of days on the Henry’s Fork before he headed home, and he decided to ask for my opinion. It’s been quite a while since I wrote about fly fishing guides, so it’s probably not surprising that our conversation nudged me to type up this particular piece.

Fish are wildlife too

Fish are vital parts of a complicated machine we don’t begin to understand even as we tinker with it

by Ted Williams - Thursday, Apr 21st, 2022

An advertisement for 'golden rainbow' fishing in Rhode Island (photo: NFS).

For most Americans fish don’t count as wildlife. They’re slimy, cold, featherless, furless, silent and, save for anglers, generally unseen. In my last Hatch Magazine article, “A Plague on All Your Trout,” I quoted Wilderness Watch, which passionately defends icons of wilderness like grizzlies and wolves but dismisses icons of wilderness like Gila trout. I don’t mean to pick on this group because it does some good in its own way. But its condemnation of Gila trout recovery, mandated by the Endangered Species Act, provides the best example I’ve seen of how much of the public and environmental community perceive fish: “It is both sad and ironic that it was Aldo Leopold who convinced the Forest Service to protect the Gila [National Forest] as our nation's first wilderness in the 1930s — now, it is in danger of being converted to a fish farm for recreationists.”

I wasn’t lusting for 7-inch trout in 1994 when I flew from Boston to Albuquerque, trekked into the Gila Wilderness and waded up Black Canyon Creek. This recreationist didn’t even tote a rod.