Articles

Hidden in the tall grass

Stumbling out of insulation

by Johnny Carrol Sain - Wednesday, Jul 6th, 2016

Photo: Johnny Carrol Sain

It’s just a weedy field full of the normal browns, blondes and greens of summer. Black-eyed susans and plains creopsis offer splashes of yellow throughout. The sun is cresting over cottonwoods and willows as the first rays illuminate what look like tiny puffs of white smoke across the field. The puffs shimmer in an unseasonably cool summer breeze. I’m puzzled at first. Even after looking over countless fields at sunrise in my four decades on Earth, I’m not sure about what I’m seeing. A second later it hits me. They’re webs. I’ve found a spider metropolis.

The cotton hatch

How legendary days reduce learning curve

by Kris Millgate - Friday, Jul 1st, 2016

Idaho’s South Fork of the Snake River hosts the largest cottonwood forest in the West. The trees release cotton into the air right about the same time big bugs hit the water (photo: Kris Millgate).

The temperature is high, the bug count is high and spirits are running even higher. I hear hollers up and down the canyon and I know our timing is prefect. We’ve hit the big bug hatch on Idaho’s South Fork of the Snake River and we are fishing one of the legendary days of wet-wade season, those few summer weeks when anglers shed coats and waders to fish in shorts and flip flops.

​In all reality, legendary days are talked about more often than they are experienced. I haven’t hit a legendary day in years, but I’m hitting one now and my senses are on high alert.

No Su Dam: Alaskan governor cancels Susitna River hydro project

Flawed mega-dam proposal falls victim to wide public opposition, Alaskan budget crisis

by Chad Shmukler - Thursday, Jun 30th, 2016

Photo: Travis Rummel

After years of tireless advocacy from groups like Trout Unlimited, the Susitna River Coalition and others, the ongoing effort by the Alaskan government to put a mega hydroelectric power dam on the Susitna River has come to an end. Yesterday, Alaskan governor Bill Walker announced that, as part of $1.5 billion in extensive budget cuts, the Susitna-Watana Dam project would be cancelled.

The Susitna is the nation's fourth longest undammed river and is home to Alaska's fourth largest king salmon run. The dam, if completed, would have been the second tallest in the United States.

Anticipation

Seeking pike in the remote, Canadian sub-Arctic

by Chris Hunt - Tuesday, Jun 28th, 2016

Photo: Chris Hunt

The charter terminal at the Winnipeg Airport is manic this morning. We’re part of a group of anglers awaiting the conclusion of a long journey—one more flight on a tough little turboprop, and we’re there.

Reindeer Lake.

The guys mill around the terminal, watching as the crew weighs and organizes a cargo hold burgeoning with fishing gear. One rod case is a good 12 feet long, spurring me to remark to my buddy Mike, “Who’s fishing with the pole vault?”

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