Articles

Crawdads

Mudbugs are a fixture in many of the rivers and creeks where we chase fish
Photo: Johnny Carrol Sain

The most humble of waters call to me. Chocolate-milk-colored seeps and tinkling rocky rivulets no wider than a long stride are the most persuasive. I know the denizens of those tiny waters, and they call as well. They whisper of a time that seems not long ago when all I wanted could be found at the end of a long dirt driveway or just beyond the next creek riffle.

I wanted crawdads.

Best fishing sunglasses for 2019

Our ever-evolving picks for the best lenses to help you see the fish you're chasing
Photo: Chad Shmukler

Once again, it's been a couple of years since we last updated our picks for the best fishing sunglasses you can take with you to the water, whether that water is a sun-drenched, crystal clear freestone river, a tree-lined spring creek, a murky bass pond, a saltwater flat or the deep blue ocean.

The mountains are calling

The gobble of a wild turkey is a blend of science and magic
Photo: Johnny Carrol Sain

I always have to convince myself that the first gobbler I hear in the spring was really a gobbler. It wasn't a woodpecker hammering on a hickory, or a distant barking dog. It was a turkey. The mystique -- much bigger than the turkey -- engulfs the real-world science going on in the woods, and the mystique is in the gobble. It's magic. That thundering warble doesn't seem real. And it can't come from the throat of a bird, can it?

Preacher

Think of this story as fiction ... or the incoherent ramblings of a coot-crazy fisherman
Photo: Todd Tanner

I want you to think of this story as fiction. Fiction, or the incoherent ramblings of a coot-crazy fly fisherman. Maybe even the deliberate fabrications of a man without much use for the truth.

That’s wrong, of course. I’m going to write it down just the way it happened. But it will be better for everyone if we treat this particular account as a tall tale.

3 flies for prospecting in high water

Patterns to help find fish in heavy flows
Photo: Alex Knull

I drove along the South Fork of the Snake this past weekend on my way to do a quick repair to my daughter’s truck over in Grand Teton National Park, and the river is cruising. In fact, every creek and stream we drove over was bursting with full-on spring runoff.

A weekend of cold rain really got the snowmelt moving, and, while everything is green and glorious, the moving water in my stretch of the Rockies will make fishing a bit more challenging for at least a few more weeks.

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