The Drake

BACK IN MAY I fished this pond, which I try to do every spring. It sits inside the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a 15,000-acre National Wildlife Refuge wedged between three freeways north of Denver. Two ponds hold bass, but I go mainly because it’s a quick

ON AUGUST 27, Oregon’s Deschutes and John Day rivers were closed to steelhead fishing by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) in response to record-low returns of Columbia Basin summer steelhead. They will remain closed until Dec. 31. So

WE WERE MOTORING gently through a creek-cut in the Berry Islands, in search of something. A salve for wounded pride, perhaps, or maybe just excuses. Permit had treated us quite rudely this morning—with dismissive looks and reckless indifference, the

THERE ARE TWO primary fishing cultures in Alabama: 1) The esoteric and exceedingly idealistic group of anglers that enjoy flyfishing and eating greasy Jack’s biscuits before a fishing trip. 2) Ricky-Bobby types who fish with junk baits. Needless to s

YOU’VE HEARD OF Didymosphenia Geminata—better known as “rock snot,” or simply “Didymo,” the highly aggressive algae that is easily spread, primarily by anglers like you and me. Didymo requires only one cell to start spreading, and it can survive for

HE WAS THE type of fisherman who would clean his fly line every night. His precise angling came with a big ole’ teddy-bear personality. A grandma’s boy at heart, he never went to bed without her homemade blanket, even in adulthood. On top of that bla

IT WOULD’VE SURPRISED no one if, instead of Feel It Still, Portugal. The Man would have called their 2017 Grammy-winning single, Feel It Pull. When not onstage from Red Rocks to Birmingham, bandmembers are often on the water. Now living on Oregon’s S

Waddup, Trask Q: I’m still adjusting to life up here since my August arrival. Thanks for having me over to watch The Good Place (Jason’s my fave!). I do miss retrieving the tee after Boise State kickoffs, but BSU got my boy, Blitz, to take over, so t

THE SETTING IS the dining room of a fishing lodge in remote northern B.C. It’s early morning on a gray, drizzly day during a very slow week. Levine, one of the anglers, is talking to the head guide before the rest of the camp has come in for breakfas

MORNING AT PYRAMID LAKE. You can almost believe you’re on the inlet of a sea, looking out across some remote, barren coastline. But reality comes in the form of a desert lake, nearly the polar opposite of Jackson, Wyo., where we live. I had driven to

I COUNTED FISH BEFORE FIGURING, maybe acknowledging, that it misses the point. Then I sort of counted, thinking that if I maybe didn’t know the exact number, it wasn’t counting. Then I gave that up and started counting the consecutive months of catch

I find it best to begin all writing about flyfishing by first writing about hunting. Or, alternatively, the Asian culinary arts. I’ll start this one by talking about Boomer. Boomer and I were hunting one day, possibly after eating Vietnamese food. It

THE BIRDS WAKE ME. Shrilling crows flying up and over the river. Dust suspends in a beam of light entering the cracked window at the foot of the bed. “Dammit,” I think, flopping my feet onto the cool wooden floor, sitting up slowly. “I missed the who

WHAT I REMEMBER MOST is his eyelashes—hoar-frost fringing them in the truck headlights. He was a still-life of death, encased in white crystal, lying flat on his back with eyes closed and arms out, almost peaceful. What had started as a quick run fro

I USED TO GO on a fall musky trip. Dave and JT and I, and a few other rotating characters, built a complete Musky Camp tradition around it: late September or early October, a full week on a northern Michigan river system that was wild and remote. Get

CERTAIN AREAS IN the world of flyfishing have a special ecology; where the worlds of saltwater and freshwater converge to create a safe intermingling place for species that would not normally interact. There is a small village in southeast Louisiana

SITTING ON MY FLY-TYING DESK, on a shelf above the straggle chenille and holographic tinsel, is an 80-year-old Richard Wheatley fly tin. The edges of its aluminum lid, with that distinctive satin finish, are rubbed bright from the friction of bouncin

Tell me, oh Muse, of that ingenious hero who set out from the town of Eau Claire on a musky guide trip in mid-July. Tell me of how he navigated the river while instructing his charge, using all his wit and guile to tempt the toothed leviathan from th

My favorite days are full of fishing. I live in the mountains of Montana, so I have a lot of favorite days each year. Fishing is there, too, when bad things happen. Maybe then most importantly of all. By October 2020, the nation could have used a day

We drive up the canyon into a thunderstorm, a bank of cobalt clouds lying over the mountains and grumbling. The road veers from the interstate amid scrubby, high-desert juniper forest and hillsides scored with red bluffs, then traverses the village o

“I’ve never heard of anyone dumb enough to make that hike,” said the rafter, with a bit of amusement, maybe a little pity, before adding, “No offense.” Since I was standing there in my underwear, frozen in mid-strip between a soaked pair of pants and

DURING MY FISHY COLLEGE YEARS at Appalachian State University, my idea of solitude was chasing small-stream brookies deep in the Pisgah National Forest. But now that I’m a nine-to-fiver in the busy Piedmont Region of North Carolina, I’ve been forced

A SUDDEN, VIOLENT, predatory surge came from where my weary bluegill was holding, attached to my fly, barely below the surface, yet out of view. It stunned me. All the possible critters that might chomp a bluegill—snapping turtle, cottonmouth, bowfin

DID YOU KNOW that there were U.S. submarines named after the two most cherished fish on the flats? I didn’t. Until a couple postcards showed up on eBay. It will come as a surprise no one that both vessels earned reputations as excellent fighters. The