Articles

Review: Simms G4Z Waders (2024)

Simms' latest iteration of its longtime flagship wader is unquestionably its best

by Chris Hunt - Sunday, Mar 31st, 2024

The G4Zs on duty in northeast Iceland (photo: Chad Shmukler).

For anglers who fish hard, their gear is everything. It keeps us warm. It keeps us dry. Sometimes, it keeps us upright — on our feet — when the river or the terrain has other ideas. It helps us achieve that desired connection with the fish we’re after. Good gear adds joy to fishing. That’s what it’s supposed to do, and those who scoff at the idea that quality gear is a significant component to good fishing might need to rethink the state of their fly fishing closet.

I've been there

Swimming in waders is never easy

by Tim Schulz - Wednesday, Mar 27th, 2024

Photo: Tim Schulz

Last night, I couldn’t find a campsite in the dark and rain, so I parked and slept in the day-use lot at Barretts Park Campground. When I crawl out of my truck this morning, I’m about two hundred feet from the Beaverhead River, which flows beside a four-hundred-foot-wide and sixty-foot-high rock formation Lewis and Clark called “Rattlesnake Cliff.”

Lower Snake River dams are greenhouse gas factories, new study finds

Annually, the LSR dams produce as much greenhouse gasses as burning 2 billion pounds of coal

by Hatch Magazine - Thursday, Mar 21st, 2024

Little Goose Dam, one of the Lower Snake River dams (photo: Matt Stoecker).

The four lower Snake River dams that produce, on average, about 1,000 megawatts of electric power every year are really “climate catastrophes,” according to the chief scientist for a non-profit that hopes to expose dams as significant greenhouse gas producers and not the generators of clean, green energy they’re often billed to be.

Has the Okefenokee found its white knight?

Can federal water rights block dragline mining on the edges of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge?

by Chris Hunt - Sunday, Mar 17th, 2024

Photo: TimothyJ / cc2.0.

Just weeks after receiving draft permits to mine for titanium dioxide and other minerals in Trail Ridge near the southeastern boundary of the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Twin Pines Minerals LLC now has a new foil that could derail the company’s mining plans: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

4 must-have catch and release tools for musky

Relatively inexpensive tools that every musky angler should have

by Matthew Reilly - Friday, Mar 8th, 2024

Photo: Matt Reilly.

On a rainy December morning, I was sitting at my desk drinking my morning coffee when an excited text message came in from one of my best smallmouth clients and friends.

”Beginners luck, for sure!”

Somewhere in middle Tennessee, on their first attempt at throwing flies at musky, the guys boated a beautiful upper-30s musky on a fly. Later that day, they boated a second.