Articles

Finding Buddha on the Sauk

What do you mean you cannot buy beer before 6AM?

by Jon Tobey - Wednesday, Apr 26th, 2017

Photo: Dave McCoy

I work like a dog between two jobs and never get to do any of the things that I'm working so hard to get to do. So when my buddy Buddha asks about fishing the Sauk before closing day tomorrow and do I want to come, I answer “hellyeah.” I refinish floors until midnight, pack, go to bed, get up at 3 and pace until 5:30 when I can take off.

The show circuit

How fly fishing expos help protect and build a future for anglers

by Kris Millgate - Tuesday, Apr 25th, 2017

The East Idaho Fly Tying and Fly Fishing Expo hosts 140 fly tiers in Idaho Falls, Idaho (photo: Kris Millgate).

I’m the minority in age and gender at this show, but I don’t mind. I know a majority of the faces at the East Idaho Fly Tying and Fly Fishing Expo and they all have a smile and story for me. I talk hockey with Arn, drones with Roger and beer with Lonnie. All this before I make it halfway around the fly tying tables.

Review: Stickman N0 fly rod

Stickman's high-sticking, Euro-nymphing specialist sets the benchmark

by George C Costa - Friday, Apr 21st, 2017

The Stickman N0 nymphing rod in Forest.

When talking about their own rods, Stickman claims there are “no game changers here.” Are the folks at Stickman being intentionally modest? Or are they just lousy marketers? Perhaps neither, as Stickman claims it “like[s] the game just the way it is,” and only wants to build the highest performing (and prettiest) rods it can using the best available materials and construction. Sounds like an admirabe goal, no?

Review: G. Loomis Asquith fly rod

Loomis returns to the spotlight with a thousand-dollar splash

by Chad Shmukler - Wednesday, Apr 19th, 2017

Fishing the G. Loomis Asquith on a rainbow-stacked side channel on Kamchatka's Savan River (photo: Earl Harper).

G. Loomis has a long pedigree of making some of the finest fly rods on the market. It’s a pedigree that began with founder and original rod designer Gary Loomis and continued relatively unabated with fly casting freak-of-nature and Rajeff brother, Steve Rajeff. If you’re not familiar with the Rajeff brothers, they’re sort of like the Hanson Brothers, except they don’t have stupid haircuts and they’re actually good at something. Oh, and they can toss casts to the goddamned moon.

Banging the golden drum

Every angler has a mystery fish

by Tom Davis - Tuesday, Apr 18th, 2017

Photo: Jim Bauer

Every angler of some experience is haunted by a mystery fish. Not simply “the one that got away”—the barefoot kid with the cane pole has been through that—but an encounter with the unknown, a temporary connection to an extraordinary force. Like a voice on the phone you can’t forget, or a stunning profile glimpsed in silhouette, it wants identity. Reeling in the lifeless, empty line, you tell yourself that you would have been satisfied just to see it, that a moment of recognition would have made all the difference.

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