by Johnny Carrol Sain - Saturday, Apr 30th, 2022
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.
by Spencer Durrant - Friday, Apr 29th, 2022
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.
by Tom Davis - Monday, Apr 25th, 2022
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.
by Todd Tanner - Saturday, Apr 23rd, 2022
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.
by Ted Williams - Thursday, Apr 21st, 2022
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.
In much of rural America, the town dump remains the great equalizer. Sometimes known as the more sanitary sounding “transfer station,” it’s the place that virtually...
It felt like a slower-than-usual day. But then, on the morning after, I noticed a tender area a few inches to the right of my belly-button—not coincidentally, the place...
Killing native wildlife, defined by the ecologically challenged as “varmints,” is a popular American tradition, especially when organized into social events in which...
Korkers new Stealth Sneaker is a hybrid of the wading shoes we’ve seen grow in popularity lately and the tried-and-true wading boots...
There’s a creek freak in every fly fisher, even if it's compartmentalized away, deep in the emotional recesses of our psyches. Most of us who have fly fished for years —...
Fall is officially upon us, and fly-fishing gear manufacturers are pushing new rods, reels and other goods out to consumers this month. From a handful of new reels — both...
