Articles

Mom has a meth lab in the basement

Author Ann Miller in episode 3 of Reading the Water

by Hatch Magazine - Monday, May 13th, 2024

Photo: Joe Cummings

What does an avid fly angler do when they can’t find a comprehensive guide with information about insect hatches, taxonomy, behavior, and flies to match those hatches in their part of the country? Well, if you’re an aquatic biologist and writer like Ann Miller, you build streams in your basement and garage, analyze and photograph the bugs as they develop through their lifecycles, and then write the most comprehensive and authoritative books on the subject.

Redemption

This isn’t the sort of thing that happens on my home water

by Tim Schulz - Thursday, May 9th, 2024

Photo: Tim Schulz

I leave Glenn’s Sweetgrass Rods shop a little after 3 p.m., putting me in Livingston around 5. Physically, I stand more than a half-foot taller than Glenn Brackett. Figuratively, the man towers above me like an enormous redwood from his native California. His artistry is beyond reproach, but his humanity and decency make him a giant. Like Glenn’s, all our lives are the sums of everything we do and everything we don’t.

Thank you, suckers

Quit sneering, suckers are cool.

by Stephen Sautner - Friday, May 3rd, 2024

Largescale suckers in a stream in Montana (photo: Glacier NPS).

When I was in 10^th grade, I bought a fiberglass fly rod and Pflueger Medalist reel and decided to try my luck at fly fishing for trout. It felt like a natural progression, having already spin-fished for bluegills in ponds, and bait-cast for bass and pickerel in lakes. Now it was time to cast flies into rivers for pretty fish that ate bugs. But I knew little about how to catch trout, except from what I had gleaned from a few Field and Stream articles with banner headlines like: “Ten Tips for Giant ‘Bows!”

Fly fishing is always a numbers game

The only way to win is to not play

by Tim Schulz - Wednesday, May 1st, 2024

Photo: Tim Schulz

About one hour ago, I mixed three tablespoons of Miralax with eight ounces of Gatorade and downed the concoction like a college sophomore knocking back a Jägerbomb at an SEC tailgater. Then I set my iPhone’s timer for fifteen minutes. Since, I’ve mixed, rinsed, and repeated every time the three-chord mandolin riff blasts from my phone.

Environmental stewardship and a good piece of pie

The life of conservationist Bill Kodrich

by Jack Donachy - Tuesday, Apr 30th, 2024

In the 1960s, the Clarion River in Pennsylvania didn't offer anglers much besides a few stunted panfish. Now, trout, bass, walleye and musky are part of the catch. Over 50 miles of the river have earned federal Wild and Scenic status, and it has been named Pennsylvania's River of the Year four times — thanks in no small part to Trout Unlimited, other conservation groups and dedicated stewards such as Bill Kodrich (photo: Jack Donachy).

It wasn't so long ago that I was at the stage in life where a number of iconic figures in the art and entertainment world I'd grown up with had begun to pass out of this world. I am far from being a celebrity hound, but as I scanned the headlines each morning, it was sad and mildly shocking to see that an actor, singer, writer or other celebrity I'd long admired had been admitted to a hospital for the kinds of illnesses that portend the end, or that indeed the end had come.