Articles

Gear we love right now: January 2023

What's working on and off the water, right now

by Hatch Magazine - Friday, Jan 6th, 2023

Casting for permit with the Scott Wave 9-weight (photo: Chad Shmukler).

Fly anglers are overloaded with gear choices—rods, reels, boots, waders, lines, packs, bags, boxes, vests, apparel and more. It seems harder and harder to know what's worth coveting and what's worth ignoring. Gear reviews are a great way to explore in-depth what might be right for you, but not every piece of gear is suited to a full-length review and, even if it were, there's simply too much of it to get to. With that in mind, we periodically showcase what's working for us right now, to hopefully offer more helpful feedback on gear that's worth a second look.

Tom Rosenbauer Q&A at The School of Trout

A fireside chat with one of fly fishing's most knowledgeable anglers

by Chris Hunt - Wednesday, Jan 4th, 2023

Photo: Chris Hunt

The fire burned low under a moonless night sky at Harriman State Park, and, for the chief justice of American fly fishing, court was in session.

The gathering was privileged. Attendees had traveled from all over the country and set aside a week of time to, amongst other things, hear Justice Tom Rosenbauer address the audience of acolytes and apprentices — this was the collective Class of 2022 of the School of Trout.

When the cupboard is bare

Pheasants, trout streams, duck marshes, and climate change

by Chris Madson - Tuesday, Jan 3rd, 2023

Typical CRP cover in southwestern Nebraska in 2017. This year, The U.S. Department of Agriculture allowed most of the CRP plots in drought-stricken Nebraska to be hayed, drastically reducing cover at a time when wild animals on the High Plains need it the most (photo: Chris Madson).

Freya the Brittany and Finn, her apprentice, had slept through the drive on the right side of the front seat in the wee hours of the night, but, the second the tires hit gravel, they were up and focused, studying the strips of grass along the section road, twitching every time a meadowlark rose out of the ditch.

It was our first day on a series of public-access areas that had been very kind to us over the years. The dogs’ enthusiasm was infectious— I could feel the old surge of adrenalin as we topped the last rise in the first soft light of the morning.

The 10 most read articles of 2022

Reader favorites from the past year

by Hatch Magazine - Sunday, Jan 1st, 2023

Photos: various.

Every year, we pause to look back at the stories from the previous trip around the sun that most captivated our readers. As it is with most years, 2022’s favorites list features a mix of tips, destination features, conservation stories, gear coverage, and more.

Here are the 10 Hatch Magazine stories of 2022 that saw more eyes than all the others.

Improve your fly casting

Have more fun, catch more trout

by Todd Tanner - Thursday, Dec 29th, 2022

Photo: Jeremy Roberts / Conservation Media.

Whenever a thoughtful, well-written story on fly casting pops up on the web, you can bet that some folks will be incredibly appreciative of the information. They’ll embrace the challenge of becoming better casters and soak up everything there is to learn from the piece.

Others, though, will dismiss fly casting as an unnecessary skill; one that simply isn’t relevant to their trout fishing. They’ll proclaim that they already catch plenty of fish and since “trout-in-the-net” is their metric of choice, fly casting must, of necessity, be overrated.