Last week, we highlighted the most popular Hatch Magazine stories of 2018 as "voted" by our readers—voted, that is, by readership. Those top 10 stories of the past year were a mixed bag including everything from fishing tips and gear news to conservation journalism and other topics. In addition to those that bubbled to the top of the list of reader favorites, we asked our editorial staff and contributors to pick their favorites from 2018.

What they came up with is similarly varied—travel stories, fishing and hunting tales, conservation coverage, political coverage and more. Here are their selections.

Fishing

• Middle Lake

Tom Davis relays the bright memories of a fishing trip tangled with others which are brutal, honest and dark.

• The fishing lodge

Chris Hunt offers a glimpse into anglers' heaven.

• How to capsize a sailboat with a wooly bugger

"Despite a very hard-earned engineering degree, I can’t quite get the physics to add up," says Jon Tobey. A true story.

Hunting

• Blood Brother

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At times wrenching and difficult to read, Johnny's Sain's "Blood Brother" explores the relationship between a hunter and his prey.

• The glove

Nobody deserves misery but sometimes it's just your turn.

Nature

• Pilgrimage

A long overdue journey to Aldo Leopold's famous shack.

• How to save the world

All you need is a mason jar.

Miscellaneous

• Lose a loved one, gain a new one, and the water welcomes them both

Myers Reece on life cycles and renewal.

• The fish in the sea

A catch is always in some sense an ending, but a loss can mark the beginning of something.

• Dead man

There's something just a bit unnerving about having a dead man talking to you.

Conservation/News

• We are starving the last of our Puget Sound killer whales to death

Dylan Tomine sheds light on the dismal, shocking situation facing Puget Sound's population of resident killer whales. Today, only 75 remain.

• Your rivers and lakes up for grabs

• Ted Williams offers an in-depth exploration of the public lands debate and what happens to lands and waters that are transferred to state control.

• How federal agencies go from respected to reviled

Chris Hunt explores how once respected federal agencies become reviled by large segments of the American population.

Fiction

• Destroying Angel

Fly fishing fiction allows a writer to tread on ground that's unavailable to journalists and the vast majority of writers drawing from personal experience. In the case of Destroying Angel, that ground is noire murder mystery. That's not to say that murder mysteries entangled amongst the world of fly fishing don't happen in real life, we just haven't had an account of one turn up in the submission box yet.

• Outsiders

A post apocalyptic future in where most of human civilization exists under a dome and where exposure to the sun requires pigment-altering injections or full-time covering of every inch of skin with high-tech fabric protection? Also new ground.

Politics

• Love the outdoors? Here are 8 senate races where we can make the difference

As part of Hatch Magazine's earnest election coverage, we produced several detailed pieces exploring the records of candidates in 2018 races all around the country.

• Dirty dozens: Who to vote out this November

The purpose of each of these articles was to help sportsmen and women educate themselves on how to vote for the issues that matter to them, despite the increasing complicated and convoluted political landscape in our country.