Articles

An open letter to America's anglers

We love America. We love our landscapes, and our sporting traditions, and our rich outdoors culture, and our fisheries, and we’re willing to fight for it.

by Todd Tanner - Tuesday, Mar 17th, 2015

Sunset on the Yellowstone River (photo: Tim Saunders).

We love to fish. We love it. Not in that juvenile, sloppy-wet-kiss way that so many of us remember from high school, but with an “I come alive with a fly rod in my hand” love that’s grounded in maturity, appreciation and respect for our angling traditions. We’ve been fishing for decades and there are very few other activities that bring us so much joy or help us connect to the natural world on such an elemental level.

Unfortunately, those of us who love to fish, and who see the necessity for protecting our landscapes and waterways, are coming under attack. It turns out - and no, we’re not making this up - that we are “radicals.” As Ty Hansen pointed out in a recent Hatch Magazine piece, the energy and resource extraction industries are targeting hunters and anglers. Those of us who support conservation are being portrayed as extremists and radicals.

So what is a radical? Seriously, what does it mean? Is protecting our favorite trout stream a radical act? What about defending an Alaskan salmon river from a mining company? Or how about passing on a healthy natural world to our kids and grandkids? Because those of us who want to share clean water, clean air and healthy landscapes with future generations are being ridiculed and marginalized. It’s almost as if our love for the great outdoors is standing in the way of “progress.”

Tenkara as a teaching tool

Many are beginning to see tenkara as the ideal introduction to fly fishing.

by Tom Sadler - Monday, Mar 16th, 2015

Photo: Daniel Galhardo

Stand around with a group of fly fishers and mention tenkara and the response can be both enlightening and entertaining. Tenkara evokes strong responses from some while it is ignored by others because it doesn’t fit the more common image of modern fly fishing.

But, haters are going to hate and I have no interest in getting into a prolonged discussion with haters of any stripe. On the other hand, every day more and more people are looking into tenkara and becoming interested in fly fishing because of it.

Night fishing: choosing the right fly

by Chad Shmukler - Friday, Mar 13th, 2015

Photo: D. Giles / cc2.0

Fishing at night can be a foreign experience for the uninitiated. The nightscape on a river can seem like an alien world compared to its daytime counterpart. Disorientation can make even the simplest tasks seem monumental, including choosing a fly. But, while normally routine operations like walking down the riverbank or tying on extra tippet can become vexing conundrums, the process of selecting a fly at night is much the same as it is during the day.

Frozen toes

by Todd Tanner - Thursday, Mar 12th, 2015

Photo: Mark Raisler, Headhunters Fly Shop.

We hit the river around 1:00 in the afternoon this past Saturday, with a three hour drive in the rearview mirror and the various necessities of early March fly fishing - the waders and the synthetic long johns and the fleece pants and the heavy wool socks and the Nano-Puff jackets - all in place.

It didn’t matter. While the air temperature was decent, the water was down in the mid-30s and wading conditions that were fine for a grown man were bone-achingly, foot-numbingly cold for a 9 year old boy with no body mass to speak of and the fat reserves of your typical anorexic super model.

We slid down the muddy brown bank of the side channel, stepped into the Missouri, and picked our way slowly across the current on a wide gravel bar, his hand in mine, both of us holding tight, knowing that if he went in the river, even here in the shallows, he’d be hypothermic before I could get him back to the truck.

Before it melts

by Chris Hunt - Monday, Mar 9th, 2015

While the Eastern Seaboard has been pounded and buried by winter storm after winter storm this year, here in West, things have been pretty mild, at least in the lower-elevation areas where, even in the worst years, die-hards rarely put their fly gear “away for the season.”

Since we’ve avoided most of the Arctic blasts that have blown through the Northeast -- each one carrying the “storm of the century” warning and a kitschy Weather Channel name (Winter Storm Thor? Really?) -- fishing this year has never really stopped. Yes, it’s still winter--a drive over Teton Pass will convince anyone of that--but it’s almost spring, and, should the mild weather continue, we’ll be in the throes of a Westerner’s least-favorite time of the year -- mud season -- before you know it.

But, between now and when the high-country snow really starts to melt and wash down every gully and gulch, some of the best trout fishing in the West takes place. It’s that sweet spot before runoff and after the worst of the season’s cold abates. It’s all about blue-bird days with snow-lined riverbanks. Icy mountain guardians watching over greening valley meadows. Days that start in fleece and end in a t-shirt.