The Drake

IN FALL OF 2012, Patagonia hosted a media gathering at their headquarters in Ventura, Calif. This was back when print magazines like Fly Rod & Reel and Fly Fishing in Salt Waters still existed, so it was a larger crowd than it would be today. The foc

I am on faculty at Michigan State in animal science. We recently launched a new Center for Regenerative Ag, and have been doing research on managed grazing for the past 13 years. I also have a heart for rivers and trout. Our research farm is embedded

SOUTH CENTRAL ALASKA’S Kenai River flows for more than 80 miles from Kenai Lake to Cook Inlet near the town of Kenai. Just below the outlet of the lake, the river passes the town of Cooper Landing, where anglers have forever flocked in pursuit of the

NOT ONCE in the Book of Samuel did David stand on the bow of a Chittum Skiff with a megaphone, screaming at Goliath as he traveled on a cruise ship filled with 3,000 people. But when Captain Will Benson, along with many other Florida Keys guides and

CLYDE HAD BEEN SITTING in a barn outside of Gadsden, in West Etowah County, Alabama, for nearly six months, with a flat front tire and a massive gash in his gas tank. He wanted to rumble his Detroit muscles, but hadn’t done so for some time under my

Q: Dear Trask, I recently became a celeb here in Denver because Ciara (love her!) got me as a Mother’s Day present from her hubby, Russell Wilson (who apparently plays football). Both of them are very popular at parties and Nugs games, so I’m wonderi

WHAT IS A “TROPHY-FISH CARVING” and how are they made? For Ellen McCaleb, widely considered one of best trophy-fish carvers of the past fifty years, her craft began with an unlikely source: two-by-fours—notoriously crooked and knotty—from Home Depot.

EMILY SENT ME A TEXT. Two months earlier, she’d called to ask if I could help with her permit game. She had an upcoming trip with her brothers. We met on a Saturday morning on the grass airstrip behind the fly shop. I brought the cutout permit and th

I WAS CAUGHT between two worlds: human and piscine. I had been welcomed into the school. I moved with them, as they moved. I observed their feeding habits, their societal structures. I was like a salt-crusted, Ichthyological Jane Goodall, except that

“IF IT’S A GOOD ONE, I’m gonna want a picture,” he pleaded, knowing there would be some objection on my end. The fish had spooked, but then settled only a couple rod lengths from the bow. My friend’s well-placed fly reignited the feeding instinct tha

ON THE FIRST WEEK of our extended vacation to Montana, I was settling in nicely to non-work mode, expecting that it would be another uneventful day of catching pretty trout. I began by fishing right in front of the campsite. I did well the night befo

AT THIS LATE DAY in our culture, after all we have seen and all we have done, are we able to speak properly of “whacking” a fish? I am unable to find the term in my Dame Julia, my Haig Brown, or my Gierach. I know head guides at renowned steelhead lo

I WISH I KNEW more about bourbon. All I really know is that I like the taste, and that there are some I enjoy more than others. This may be the result of growing up in Kentucky, where my friends and I were introduced to good bourbon at an early age.

WE ARRIVED AT Cooper Landing at mid-day, with the summer sun sitting as high as it would rise. Prehistoric trees and snow-capped mountains mirrored themselves in deep lakes along Alaska’s Sterling Highway, which snakes for ten miles along the upper K

THE DRIVE TO THE WEST BRANCH of the Delaware begins on four lanes, then drops to two, then one, and finally ends on a narrow farm path overlooking the water. We stand for a few minutes on the bank, talking quietly, looking for rises. This pre-fishing

I MOVED FROM IOWA to Ruston, Louisiana, in 1980, but it was several years before I discovered what lurked in the marshy bayou southeast of New Orleans. Ruston is two hours closer to Little Rock than it is to the Big Easy, so I spent years turning nor

About fifteen years ago, I found a spot in the Bahamas that is, really, about all an angler could ask for. It’s not too far away from “civilization”—a gas station, a small grocery store, and a liquor store that carries the essentials (rum, Bahamian b

Only the breeze broke the surface of Lower Sand Creek Lake, but Andrew Todd and I stood staring at the water anyway. The wind peeled up waves and prompted us to put on the jackets we shed hiking up to the lake, which pools at the base of the 13,000-f

We fished a single pool on the Middle Provo in Utah that April afternoon, standing close enough that I could hear Andy muttering between casts. For two hours, I felt I could do no better as I nymphed with Zebra midges or floated Griffith’s gnats. I’d

Losing a parent is never easy, and there’s really only one acceptable way for it to happen—old age. Helena, Montana-based woodworker Al Swanson lost both of his to cancer by the time he was 44. Seven years later he himself was diagnosed with squamous

IF HEXAGENIA LIMBATA isn’t the GOAT of all bugs, it’s at least squarely in the conversation, beginning with its sheer size and density. “Nothing in flyfishing even comes close to the spinner fall,” says the legendary Kelly Galloup in Chris Santella’s

I YELLED AND WHOOPED but no one returned my calls. I’d just landed the biggest trout of my life, and no one was there to honor its hook jaw, or to verify that, in order to land it, I swam across a deep pool with my rod held high. I was alone. More al

I HEARD A WHISTLE from across the flats, glanced over my shoulder, and saw Noah with his fist in the air. It meant only one thing: That he’d hooked another “forbidden” permit at Faraway Cayes base camp while clients were out with guides. Forbidden be