Articles

A fishing truck

Do I keep an old pickup truck on the road a little while longer?

by Todd Tanner - Monday, May 14th, 2018

Photo: Todd Tanner

I might not remember it like it was yesterday, but I do remember it. It was the Spring of 2000 and Jones flew into Bozeman in early April. We spent a little time at my house up on Skunk Creek Road and then jumped into my brand new Toyota Tundra — the limited edition in metallic grey, mind you — and headed for the Bighorn. I don’t remember which boat we pulled behind us, or where we stayed, but I do remember the unmistakeable new vehicle smell and the back seat crammed full of gear because I hadn’t had the cap installed yet.

All fly fishing books: $1

A sign of the times, literally

by John Juracek - Wednesday, May 9th, 2018

Photo: John Juracek

When I saw the cart and sign pictured above in our local library, I was shocked. After inspecting the titles resting thereon, I had to be picked up off the floor. Here were books by Lyons and Traver, Brooks and Bergman, LaFontaine and Schwiebert. For anglers of a certain age, those are names that resonate. They mean something. Their books mean something. To see these volumes selling for a buck a piece was unthinkable. Yet there it was: Trout, Ernest Schwiebert's magnum opus, ready for the taking at a mere $1.00.

Drop shot rigs on fly gear

Adapting conventional dropper rigs for fly tackle

by Cosmo Genova - Tuesday, May 8th, 2018

Photo: Stephen Longfield

Most of the best fly fishermen I know started off on traditional tackle, and many still look to their old gear for inspiration when putting together a solution to a fishy problem.

Flies tied to look and act like lures, custom rigs, and purpose-built leaders are commonplace in a fly fishing culture that is steadily moving away from its tweed-clad roots. One of my favorite nuggets of wisdom adapted from outside of the fly fishing world is the drop shot rig.

Raw sewage spills into Housatonic River

Officials reports leak less severe than originally feared

by Chad Shmukler - Friday, May 4th, 2018

A scene from the Housatonic River near Kent, CT, downstream of the spill (photo: Bob P.B. / cc2.0).

Ask any avid angler to name western trout rivers that are famous in modern fly fishing culture and they'll rattle off a dozen without pause, just by naming rivers in Montana. Then they'll throw in another dozen from the likes of Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado. Ask the same of the East, and you'll likely garner much less prolific results. It's not that eastern anglers don't have their fair share of good trout fishing, it's just that unlike the West, the East only has a handful of iconic rivers instead of a plethora.

Green

Colin Timothy O’Shea was crazy

by Todd Tanner - Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018

Photo: Michelle Dorsey Walfred / cc2.0

He dreamed of concrete and asphalt, Plexiglas and steel, and a single blade of grass that he saw from afar. His city dream, for that’s what it was, a reflection of his hard-earned urban persona, was peopled with friends and acquaintances and colleagues; some of whom he’d known for years and others who he’d only just met. A certain few were indistinct, wrapped in shadows that defied the streetlights, but he recognized them nonetheless, as if they were his brothers or his lovers, even his parents.