Articles

Is the written word the reason humans have placed the planet in peril?

Review: The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram
Image credit: Penguin Random House

My definition of hunting and angling literature is broad. I believe that hunting and angling — our last tether to the hunter/gatherers we are at heart — are the most “human” of activities. They were the foundation for the first human cultures and, even in our corporate-agrarian food system, still influence so much of who we are both directly and indirectly. So books that dive into those ancient blood ties we share with other animals and the landscape itself are fascinating to me. They offer insight into the human condition and often provide a rough map to what I think is a better way.

Carp! What are they good for?

Plentiful, big and adaptable, carp are an important food and game fish
Photo: John Chaffee

I'm not deluded. I know they don't belong here. I know they're not good for much of anything.

Unless the thrill that comes with the scream of the reel and sight of my backing escaping through the tip-top of my favorite 7-weight counts as "good." But if that's the case, I'm pretty damn selfish.

Cody Dial walked into a Costa Rican jungle and never walked out

Review: The Adventurer's Son by Roman Dial
Photo: Bruce Thompson

In July of 2014, Cody Dial walked into the Costa Rican jungle in Corcovado National Park and was never heard from again. It took nearly two years before his remains were found, tucked away in a small canyon that his father, Roman Dial, had passed by more than half a dozen times in the years he spent searching the jungle for his son.

Into the marsh

Chasing treasure in a vanishing paradise
Photo: Lefty Ray Chapa

As the sun rose over Bayou LaFourche on a steamy Tuesday morning several years back, just outside of Cocodrie, La., Capt. Blaine Townsend and I readied a couple of fly rods and prepped his flats skiff for a day in the south country's marshy wilderness.

Broad coalition asks governors to save salmon and steelhead

But fails to mention dam removal, an essential element to recovery
Photo: Richard Hover

The Northwest loves its cheap hydropower. But it also loves its salmon and steelhead. Unfortunately, something’s got to give—dams across the Columbia and Snake rivers have proven deadly to migrating fish, and years upon years of government-ordered efforts to recover salmon and steelhead have failed.

Taxpayers have footed a $17 billion bill and have virtually nothing to show for it.

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