One day this past summer during a family trip to the mountains of Colorado, my son and I parked at a trailhead, slipped into our backpacks, grabbed our fly rod cases, and began a seven-mile hike to a small, isolated subalpine stream high in the Rocky Mountain backcountry, into a land that seemed worlds away from our home landscape on the Oklahoma prairie. The goal - ambitious by our non-resident, flatlander standards - was to catch (and immediately release) native cutthroat trout.

Over time, our annual photo contest has grown from a simple prize giveaway to a much more significant event that in recent years has allowed us the privilege of not only putting great gear in the hands of anglers-turned-photographers (or vice versa), but of sending those folks to a fantastic destination to ply its waters with that gear. This year, the contest has taken on additional importance as it has also become also become a vehicle for educating the angling public about important issues facing our fisheries.