Latest Blog Posts

Burn pile

If we get done by noon, we can run down to the pond, sit in the shade and catch some fish

by Chris Hunt - Thursday, May 1st, 2025

Photo: Jalexartis Photography / cc2.0.

Growing up on the fringes of the Deep South, in the East Texas piney woods region, there was always a tricky summer ballet we had to perform. It was a careful balance between wandering down to the local pond — where we’d sneak through the woods after carefully climbing through a barbed-wire fence erected to keep us out — to chase bass and bream on sticky summer days and handling the “chores” that came with living on three-quarters of a pine-tree pocked acre.

You're gonna need a bigger flat

Shark smarts gone wrong

by Stephen Sautner - Thursday, Apr 17th, 2025

Photo: Eric Christensen.

A Bahamian bonefish’s work/life balance is pretty simple. Swim into water so skinny that sharks and barracuda can’t eat you, then spend the rest of the tide grubbing around for food. Keep those big bonefish eyes peeled for osprey or other overhead predators. Repeat with each flood. Remember, knee-deep is too deep; that’s where the bad fish live.

After the wake

Answering why is difficult when the answers to most of our questions beget more questions

by Tim Schulz - Wednesday, Apr 2nd, 2025

Photo: Uncredited.

About ten years ago, two deaths in my family sent me searching through old boxes and files for a picture someone had taken during a camping trip in southern Illinois around 1970. My obsession worsened for about a month until the person most affected by those deaths sent me a scan of the photograph.

Public lands and talking heads: Same as it ever was

Too often, when we discuss real issues, our positions are supplied to us

by Chad Love - Thursday, Mar 27th, 2025

Photo: Chad Love.

“I do not understand, myself, what the necessity is for the government entering into the show business in the Yellowstone National Park. I should be very glad myself to see it surveyed and sold to private enterprise.”

— Senator John James Engalls (R-Kansas), 1883

“Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever way, same as it ever was.”

— The Talking Heads, 1981

Sick fishing

Cigars, I told myself. It’s just the cigars.

by Chris Hunt - Monday, Mar 17th, 2025

Photo: Chad Shmukler

That first ominous little tickle in the back of my throat came on the morning after a fairly raucous evening of hand-rolled cigars, butter-smooth rum and, of all things, the hideous mixture of vodka and Red Bull. It was one of those nights that, at my age, you only endure on a far-flung fishing trip away from the steady influence of someone who has your best interests at heart. I remember looking around the dark balcony of the flashy, noisy and generally chaotic nightclub and thinking to myself, “What the hell am I doing here?”