Latest Blog Posts

Fly fishing's lost heart

When a craft becomes an industry, something is lost
Photo: Earl Harper / Harper Studios.

A few weeks back, a friend sent me an article from Angling Trade magazine, entitled "An Influencer Rows Through It." The piece discussed the general phenomenon of the influencer in the modern business of fly fishing and, specifically, a rhetorical battle that seems to have developed around two influencers who happen to be fairly young and unapologetically female.

Growing up on a pond

Things are different when you grow up on a pond
Photo: Clemens v. Vogelsang / cc2.0

Things are different when you grow up on a pond. The sounds of water lapping at the shore, and the melody of the birds, and the faint whisper of a breeze are always there, but they’re invisible—inaudible—residing just far enough from your conscious mind that they’re like the air you breath; vital, but forgotten and unnoticed in the moment.

One and done

My one-day career as a fishing guide
Photo: Kevin Jones / cc2.0

The novelist John Gardner posited that there are really only two stories: a man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town. With all due respect to Gardner’s memory, however, I’d like to add a third: The telephone rings, and you answer it.

Can anglers continue to ignore climate change?

Unless we address climate change, the places we fish will eventually become unrecognizable
Yosemite National Park under a smoke filled haze (photo: Rennett Stowe / cc2.0).

If you ask a dozen fly fishers to describe the major threats to our angling, you’ll find a fair amount of agreement. You’ll hear their concerns about public lands, and habitat loss, and pollution, and over-fishing, and poor management practices, and invasive species. You may even have an angler mention our kids’ addiction to video games. There’s a fair amount of consensus regarding all those issues across the outdoor community.

The color of March

Spring's first hues are its most brilliant
Photo: Johnny Carrol Sain

Though drab grays and browns of winter still cling to the land, shamrock, Kelly, and emerald are the colors everyone thinks of when they think of March. Even where leaf-out is still weeks away, there’s a longing for change in this month that straddles two seasons. This collective anticipation is tinted green. To my eye, though, the tone of these teaser weeks is a bit more vibrant. It’s also tinged with yellow.

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