Articles

Barracuda, bonefish on decline in the Florida Keys

by Mike Hodge - Friday, Apr 3rd, 2015

Photo: Dan Decibel

Bonefish are on the decline in the Florida Keys. So are the fish that eat them. Barracuda, once a traditional target of winter flats fishing, are now scarce.

“I just started guiding in 2000, which is not long in the whole scheme of things,” Key West guide John O’ Hearn said. “In the winter you could go to any flat and have a few cudas on it, even if it wasn’t a good flat. You could go anywhere and there would be barracudas. Over the years, you had to get better and better [at finding them]. There are places still with good barracuda fishing. You just have to keep working harder and harder.”

With so few fish, O’Hearn and other colleagues in the Lower Keys Guides Association started a Save the Barracuda Campaign and urged the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission to implement harvest regulations to protect the saltwater predator.

Half-pounders in Sasquatch country

"I want to report a bigfoot encounter."

by Chris Hunt - Thursday, Apr 2nd, 2015

It was a typically misty autumn night in October 1998, and I was busy putting the Times-Standard newspaper to bed along with handful of folks on the copy desk when the phone rang.

“Newsroom,” I answered quickly, annoyed that someone would be calling within minutes of the copy deadline.

“Yeah,” a shaky male voice on the other end of the line said, somewhat hesitantly. “Is this the newspaper in Eureka?”

“Yep,” I said, phone to my ear, eye on the newsroom clock.

“I want to report a Bigfoot encounter.”

Jill, guys from GEOFISH finally kick some bass

by Mike Hodge - Wednesday, Apr 1st, 2015

Jill on location in Belize for GEOFISH.

Brian Jill has fished more than two dozen countries far and wide. Big Bass in Mexico? Check. Majestic Browns in New Zealand? Check. Tantalizing tarpon in the Yucatan? Check. If there are big fish to be caught, chances are Jill and his three best buds have found a way to film it. First, there was the Trout Bum Diaries, then GEOFISH and GEOBASS, which was released in 2014.

But there’s more. Jill says the crew wants to continue to churn out sequels of GEOBASS, which initially featured trips to Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Botswana and Papua New Guinea among others.

“You’d think we’d be burned out on traveling,” Jill said. “I don’t know. We get a chance to come home [and recharge]. It’s in our blood to keep looking for (new places). It’s that explorer gene. That’s the best way we can explain it really, when people ask us. It’s that explorer gene that’s inside of us that needs to see what’s around the next corner and what’s out there.”

Three crises of the strip

Who will sing of the Butt Monkey arcing through the dawn toward a cutbank?

by Dave Karczynski - Monday, Mar 30th, 2015

Photo: Dave Karczynski

In one of my favorite pieces of last-century fishing writing the British fishing theorist and statesman Sir Edward Grey uses the phrase “crisis of the rise” to describe the challenge and urgency of dry fly fishing. I really dug that phrase when I first encountered it in my mid 20s—perhaps because it conferred onto my practice of fishing a legitimacy and seriousness too easily obscured by a trunk full of Cliff Bars and energy drinks, by a water-wrecked cell phone that could only receive calls, by a selective animus toward personal hygiene (the hex hatch, the hex hatch, the hex hatch). In those unboated, 4-weight, small stream days, I either fished dries or swung streamers or wets, and during the off-season I could always find an interesting piece of writing that spoke to the metaphysical essence of those regal approaches, something to read next to a clanking radiator on a cold Michigan night: Gordon or Grey or Voelker or Haig-Brown.

But what about the stripped streamer? Who will sing of the Butt Monkey arcing through the dawn toward a cutbank? The Double Nickel swiveling at last light past a logjam?

Brothers and sisters of the frayed fingerguard, the clawed line-hand, the aching rod-shoulder, it is time to elevate the stripped streamer to the high pantheon of angling techniques. It is time to speak of the three fundamental, even existential, crises of the strip.

New fly fishing apparel co, Western Rise, prepped to launch

Another new gear company with some unique debut offerings.

by Chad Shmukler - Friday, Mar 27th, 2015

There are no shortage of companies creating gear for anglers these days. And, if it weren't for the fact that the stuff that many of the industry's most prominent brands are turning out lately is perhaps the best anglers have ever had access to, consumers would probably be less excited about new brands entering an already full space. Brands like Patagonia, Simms and Orvis have raised customer's expectations, and gear that not only works well but also lasts long and looks good is now the benchmark for the industry. Add in the fact that the makeup of the angling community is growing ever more diverse, and you've got a recipe for increased angler demand for hard working, long lasting gear, despite the existing bevy of options on the market. Given such, it is likely that new apparel company Western Rise, will get its fair share of attention when it launches its debut spring line any day now.

Should you chose to, you can go to Western Rise's website and read their marketing speak about what they're all about -- stuff like making apparel that "embodies this spirit of excitement and adventure" or that is a "tribute to the wandering soul of man" -- but you'll likely get more from a look at the sneak peeks they've offered at some of their coming products.