Articles

No Steelheader

by Chad Shmukler - Wednesday, Dec 10th, 2014

It's 18 degrees. The mid-thirty degree temperatures that were forecasted to offer relief from the previous day spent in the teens and twenties are hours away, if they show at all. The wind has picked up and the morning sun is hiding behind the hillside, refusing to arrive and offer even the most minor respite from the biting cold.

The feeling in my fingers is gone. I'm having trouble pinching the running line against the cork handle of my spey rod and when I sweep the set anchor, the line slips through my hands and and the head and sink tip fall limply to the water in front of me. As I dejectedly look down at my lifeless digits, I notice that two of them are encrusted with ice. I lament, again, not bringing my gloves. I've never been able to fish effectively with gloves, due to the lack of dexterity they present when handling line. But, paralyzed hands are even less useful than fabric-clad ones, leaving me wishing for the warmth.

I try again, with better results. The anchor is set in place and despite the cold and my rustiness, I load the rod well and it launches the head forward. Thirty or so feet along its trajectory, the line bucks to a halt and falls awkwardly to the river's surface. Ice sheathing the rod's largest stripping guide has captured the thin running line that traverses its center, pinching the line and refusing to allow it to move.

Small Town Turns Out Big for Browns Canyon

by Kyle Perkins - Tuesday, Dec 9th, 2014

Hundreds of people turned out Saturday in Salida, Colorado, to show support for a Browns Canyon National Monument. The droves of green “I support a Browns Canyon National Monument” stickers were visible evidence of the overwhelming support, along with speaker after speaker urging administration officials to designate the canyon now.

Don’t let anyone tell you this is a top-down executive overreach. Local residents and stakeholders, frustrated by years of congressional fiddling, made it clear that this is a grassroots effort and that they want to get this special place protected.

The stretch of the Arkansas River that veers from the highway south of Buena Vista and rushes through a steep canyon full of Gold Medal Water fishing, amazing white water rafting, and pristine backcountry habitat is truly a unique place. Floating and finding pocket water within the canyon can produce over 20” trout, and the population of elk, deer, bighorn sheep, mountain lion and black bear create a healthy habitat for hunting and wildlife in general. This 22,000-acre rugged canyon is a truly wild place that I have visited more times than I can remember.

Denali Looming

by Chris Hunt - Monday, Dec 8th, 2014

It’s an almost ungodly sight. It doesn’t seem real. Not when you catch that first glimpse, and not when you’re standing there among a throng of tourists at the Talkeetna overlook, each of whom is asking the same question: “Is that really Denali?”

It can’t be real, can it? Those rocky crags in front of it… the ones that look like the Tetons—only bigger—they might be real. But that massive white-cloaked behemoth of a mountain behind them? That’s not real. It can’t be.

But Denali is real, all 20-some-thousand feet of it. On rare clear days, it is the Alaska skyline—a massive preserve of rock and ice that looms menacingly over the interior like a moody schoolmarm just waiting for a reason to be cranky.

RIO's Award Winning Permit Fly Line Available, Mostly

by Ben Kryzinski - Friday, Dec 5th, 2014

Not long ago, RIO released its new saltwater fly line designed specifically for fishing for permit -- which was awarded Best New Saltwater Fly Line at IFTD 2014 -- and has no trouble moving them off the shelves. Retailers have reported the lines selling faster than RIO can make them. This is most certainly good news for RIO, but perhaps the even better news is that so many lucky anglers are off chasing permit, toting RIO's new line along for the pursuit.

RIO designed its new permit line to handle the needs of permit fishermen and has spent the last year or so testing the line and tweaking its tapers in places like Belize, Mexico and other permit-rich locales. According to RIO's Simon Gawesworth, the line is designed to be stable at long and short distances and to allow anglers to pick up line, load their rods quickly and deliver typical permit flies (like crab patterns) with accuracy. These demands are typical of permit fishing, where the name of the game is often not just about getting your initial cast on the spot, but being able to quickly and accurately retarget a moving fish.

U.S. Forest Service Commercial Filming Directive Raises Concerns and Hackles

by Tom Sadler - Monday, Dec 1st, 2014

The Williams River, a trout stream in the Monongahela National Forest which was recently featured in a report as one of Trout Unlimited's "10 Special Places", which in a new report highlighting outstanding public fishing and hunting areas in the Central Appalachian region that are at risk from shale gas drilling-related activities.

You may recall reading something about a proposal from the U.S. Forest Service about commercial filming in wilderness areas on National Forest Service lands. An interim directive had been around for a few years and had garnered little notice. The Forest Service felt it was time to make the directive permanent so they started a rule-making process.

The rule-making caught the attention of many in the public who wrongfully assumed it would apply to them, apply to all public land and that they would have to pay to take pictures and videos on public land. While that was never the case, the organization I run, the Outdoor Writers Association of America, was very concerned because of the potential violation of our First Amendment protections from prior restraint.

In our statement, OWAA President Mark Freeman, outdoors columnist for the Mail Tribune in Medford, Oregon said, “Allowing forest supervisors to decide which journalists get to report in wilderness areas and what stories they can or can't tell smacks of censorship and prior restraint. Restraining journalists and their reports was not intended to be part of the act's restriction of commercialization of wilderness areas."