Tag: Fly Fishing
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Shot in the dark.
As soon as the Rocky Mountain west was opened began cutting, grazing, blasting, mining, diverting, and irrigating- without full knowledge of what we may lose along the way. The west is a modified landscape, altered for our benefit. Those alterations didn’t always extend into every headwater stream, or every alpine lake. Some were too small…
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First of June.
The creek has been busy over the weekend, I can see pockmarks where gravel and algae have been disturbed. Where anglers tromped through holding areas instead of walking the bank. Wading through good spots instead of climbing out onto the bank, wallowing out to the opposite bank to untangle a snagged fly, the different ways…
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Beartooths.
I launched this space more than a decade ago, a way for friends to check in as I traveled, worked, and explored the Beartooths and Absaroka range of Montana and Wyoming. It was an unreal experience, having Yellowstone in your backyard, getting well off the beaten path, where few ever go. It’s wild- reading the…
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…more please.
No one talks about the itchy eyes or dripping noses, the grainy feeling of pollen sliding down the back of your throat, fly-fishing for smallmouth bass this time of year. It doesn’t feel sexy or stoic, it’s the part edited out of grip ‘n grins and zero2hero videos- casting, mending, stripping, watching- all on the…
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first of May.
It’s hot. Our long, cool spring finally broke into the nineties. I’ll want a beer or two for the creek, stopped three different places, picking over the leftovers of commencement weekend. Hazy, too- maybe the hills drying out, new green growth transpiring, maybe smoke drifting in on southern winds from early season wildfires out in…
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Stickers are easy- fundraiser for Kristy Jeffries.
Stickers are easy. Kristy Jeffries did the tough work of making sure Bristol Bay stays protected- for all of us. I never met her, but I’m inspired by the work she did- documenting spawning streams and the impacts the proposed mine would have on one of the last best places on the continent. Every one…
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Catching up.
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First of April.
There must’ve been thirty turkeys in a field along the river, the most I’d seen in one place in years. A couple toms out there, fanned, strutting. Where the highway turned to gravel I startled another one, watched it run fifty yards down the road before taking off, into the pines. I parked and ate…
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…glamping on the Gallatin.
I remember living along a western river, elk coming down from the mountains, occasional reports of lions and bears in parks and backyards. A paved walking trail ran down a brushy draw from my apartment to downtown, more than a little sketchy after a late night at the bar. Western river corridors are critical for…
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Corner crossers reach for federal court, access to 1.6M Western acres — WyoFile
Four hunters sued for trespassing are asking that the civil complaint be moved from state to federal court where access laws set by Congress might better apply. Corner crossers reach for federal court, access to 1.6M Western acres — WyoFile
The outside bend. 