Articles

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.

Costa wants you to kick plastic

We're tossing 20 billion plastic bottles a year into the ocean.

by Chad Shmukler - Friday, Mar 6th, 2015

I can remember traveling through the south in my early twenties and asking the clerk at a roadside gas station if the store sold bottled water, only to receive in return a perplexed gaze and the helpful advice that "Hon, water's free." And that wasn't all that long ago. Even though my sore back, stiff knees and injuries that linger far too long cause me to joke about being an old man, still a few year shy of 40, I'm really not particularly ancient. But even for someone my age, it's easy to remember when bottled water was a niche product, scarcely available and only in 1 gallon containers. It was the stuff you picked up at the supermarket before snowstorms or hurricanes, or maybe filled your bomb shelter with. It wasn't the thing you grabbed every time you stopped at a convenience store, or every time you hit the trail for a run. These days, bottled water is ubiquitous to say the least and the plastic that contains it and other beverages, forms our grocery bags and so on is causing some serous problems.

A new effort by Costa sunglasses is hoping to shed light on the issue, build awareness and get lots of us to kick the plastic habit. Costa has created a video to fuel its campaign, which shares these facts: each year over 200 billion plastic bottles are manufactured, 35 billion here in the U.S. Of that massive number of bottles, a whopping 10% end up in our oceans. That number goes a long way to explaining the 5 massive, floating garbage patches found in oceans around the world (which the video also discusses), some of which are twice as large as Texas.

RIO continues specialty line expansion with Tarpon Quickshooter lines

by Ben Kryzinski - Tuesday, Mar 3rd, 2015

RIO has been steadily adding to its lineup of specialty fly lines, especially in the tropical saltwater arena. Over the last year or so, RIO has added its award-winning permit line and GT (giant trevally) lines to its specialty tropical saltwater offerings. Yesterday, RIO announced the addition of two new specialty lines aimed at tarpon anglers.

The two new tarpon lines, the Tarpon Quickshooter floating and Tarpon Quickshooter floating/intermediate join not only RIO's lineup of tropical saltwater lines, but also mark its second release of what it calls "Quickshooter" style lines (in addition to its Bonefish Quickshooter lines).

The One That Got Away

by Ben Kryzinski - Monday, Mar 2nd, 2015

Dam removal in America receives a great amount of attention these days, thanks in no small part to a growing group of activists, filmmakers and other advocates that have been fighting to free rivers all across the country from the negative impacts of dams. Concerns about the impact of hydroelectric dams and other similar projects aren't only being raised here in the United States, however. In Europe, many of the same battles are being waged, with varying levels of success. The One that Got Away, a documentary film out of Austria, details the efforts led by a group of anglers, scientists and others that share a passion for the Mur River and its Huchen (or Danube Salmon), a threatened member of the salmon family that grows to impressive size.

Similar in appearance to the Mongolian Taimen, the Huchen is endangered throughout its limited range. The Huchen has been in sharp decline for the past 100 years, due mostly to habitat destruction and fragmentation. According to the IUCN list of threatened and endangered species, "The main current threat to the species is the flow regulation from hydropower dams which impact the species, and their prey's, habitat and pollution. Documented self-sustaining populations are very few."