The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere - 04.18.2025
Ramblings & Readings, Creativity & Conservation, Happenings & Hope
My Fishy Friends,
It seems like spring fishing is happening, or is about to be happening in most places now because I’ve been hearing from lots of you with reports, plans, and invitations. I love it. Keep ‘em coming so I can fish vicariously through you too!
Cheers,
Jesse
Banner photo: The river has been spotted. Now how to get from up here to down there?
The Fishing Invitation
I was out to lunch with a friend last week when my phone buzzed in my pocket. To ensure that it wasn’t a work-related message that required attention, I pulled my phone out and glanced at the screen.
On it, I saw the beginning of a transcribed voice message:
Jesse. This is probably a long shot. But would you be able to go permit fishing…
McKenzie River Wooden Boats
Next Saturday, April 26th, the annual McKenzie River Wooden Boat Festival takes place on the banks of the river itself, at Eagle Rock Lodge, upstream of Eugene. It promises to be a lovely showcase of classic river dories in their natural and native environment, along with their makers and captains. For more information on these classic vessels, check out the book Drift Boats & River Dories by Roger Fletcher, along with his website which is filled with great photos, historical accounts, and more. See ya there!
Photo from Madison Yeash/Oregon News Lab
…In Action!
With the McKenzie Wooden Boat Festival as a preamble, check out the film “Through the Breaks” to see one such boat in action. Shot in the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, the film follows Montana-based wooden river dory builder Jason Cajune and his family as they float through and take in the incredibly scenic prairie. “As a boatbuilder, you’re really just sort of a caretaker of an idea that came before,” says Cajune.
Stronghold Strategy
For the last several decades, the Wild Salmon Center has researched and applied their ‘stronghold strategy’ to conservation in the Pacific Rim and the analysis was recently published in a peer-reviewed paper in Fisheries. Check out this webpage for a multi-media summary of the approach, the study, and the results. From the video, “Strongholds protect our air, our water, our soil, and our spirits.” And, from the abstract: “Wild salmon can rally public support for ecosystem protection and link place-based conservation efforts to global biodiversity and climate benefits.”
Image from Wild Salmon Center
“The Miracle of Spring”
We glibly talk
of nature’s laws,
but do things have
a natural cause?
Black earth becoming
yellow crocus
is undiluted
hocus-pocus.
~ From Piet Hein’s Grooks
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© Jesse Lance Robbins, 2025
