Latest Blog Posts

Trash-talking trout

The town dump is the great equalizer

by Stephen Sautner - Monday, Sep 23rd, 2024

The West Branch of the Delaware River (photo: DRBC / cc2.0).

In much of rural America, the town dump remains the great equalizer. Sometimes known as the more sanitary sounding “transfer station,” it’s the place that virtually everyone has to visit, whether poor, well-off, or otherwise. It’s where the lawyer, plumber, and grandmother co-mingle like aluminum, glass, and plastic. They stand side by side and heave bags of trash while catching up on high school sports, the weather, or maybe some local gossip.

What if you could no longer do the thing you loved most?

If you couldn't fish anymore, what would you do?

by Gordon Churchill - Tuesday, Aug 6th, 2024

The author with a North Carolina redfish (photo: Gordon Churchill).

How much do you really like fishing? What’s the longest you think could go without?

Do you think that if you quit fishing, you would just live your life like nothing happened? Is it really that important to you, or do you just do it for fun? If somebody told you that you could not go fishing anymore, what would you do?

Now for most of you this is conjecture, it is not a situation you have been faced with, and you possibly never will. But on Aug. 10, 2023, I suffered a stroke.

This old creek

There's magic in this dark water

by Chris Hunt - Friday, Jul 19th, 2024

Photo: Chris Hunt

This creek and I go way back. When I first moved to Idaho 25 years ago, it was one of the first blue lines on the map that I searched out. I found its subtle course through a lodgepole forest in what was then a crisp new copy of DeLorme's Atlas and Gazetteer for the Gem State. That same collection of maps is now a dog-eared, faded compilation of a quarter century’s worth of adventure. The adventure started here. On this modest little willow-shrouded, beaver-dammed trickle through the Targhee National Forest, just outside of Yellowstone National Park.

Redefining influence

To secure a future with sustainable fisheries, two iconic anglers are running towards the storm

by Daniel Ritz - Wednesday, Jul 17th, 2024

Guide and outfitter Hilary Hutcheson speaks to a group of anglers at The School of Trout (photo: Todd Tanner).

The average American spends more than 5 hours on their phones each day, and not only that, but studies have shown that nearly 50 percent of consumers purchase items based on “influencer” input. It’s hard to debate the success of influencer culture in recent decades.

Anglers are no exception.

Exotic destinations, the latest and greatest in gear, gadgets, how, where, and when to catch the most and biggest fish. Scroll after scroll; anglers are pounded by the icons of our pastime, selling us what we didn’t — yet — know we needed.

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