Articles

A public lands betrayal

Congress and the Trump administration have thrown sportsmen and women under the bus
Photo: BLM

I once watched three tawny mountain lions glide down a snow-dusted hillside. The closest jumped up on a fallen log perhaps 40 feet away and then, without so much as a sound, leaped off and disappeared into the depths of the forest. Another time, an entire family of otters swam over to investigate my fly casting as I waded the icy currents of a beautiful Montana stream.

Where is my fly?

Knowing where your fly is fishing is half the battle
Photo: Josh Stewart

John looked back and glared at me through his copper lenses. He was frustrated, exasperated and worn out. I’d just told John, for the third time, to drift his fly on the inside of a large midstream boulder. But his cast and the resulting drift were far away from the mark and even further away from any chance of hooking a trout. So I started to speak the sentence again, a little lighter this time, with a little more empathy.

“Just drift your fly on the inside of . . .”

John interrupted. He shook his head in anger and leaned in toward me.

Because manatee

It is the tropics’ least-threatening creature that has unleashed the most terror upon my soul
Photo: A. Wells / cc2.0

As backcountry anglers, we stumble upon some pretty impressive wild creatures while we fish. For me, seeing bears in the Alaskan rainforest, gators in the swamp or sharks while wading the flats is almost as much fun as actually fishing.

The only way to fry

For sportsmen, cast iron has always been the standard by which all cookware is judged
Photo: Allan Thinks / cc2.0

In those days the shore lunch went into the boat in two parts. There was the sturdy wooden box, painted forest green, with the hinged top, the hook-and-eye latch, and the rope handles on both ends. This went in the stern, next to where the guide sat, and it held the eating utensils, the cans of pork-and-beans, the bricks of lard, the breading and seasonings for the fish—everything except the cookware. That went into a burlap sack, which was tucked up under the bow.

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