The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere - 11.15.2024

Ramblings & Readings, Creativity & Conservation, Happenings & Hope

My Fishy Friends,

Between upcoming holiday travels, a destination fishing trip, local fishing trips, and the most important event I’ll ever plan, my mind has been jumping around in time and space a lot lately. Concurrently, the weather and the forecast have been all over the place as well, at odds with one another and changing frequently; a sign of the changing season, perhaps. Nevertheless, I’m grounded by a few things: home, family, and the river. I hope you’ve found a few things that work for you.

Cheers,
Jesse

“If You Don’t Go Fishing”

If you don’t go fishing, you don’t see the water.

You don’t see the river, the creek, the stream, the bay, the flat, the pond, the riffle, the run, the pool, the hole, the chop, the cut, the bank, the bucket…

Keep Reading

WWSHD?

A few weeks ago, the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) presented its 2024 Tommy Gifford Award to six Captains who exhibit “leadership in their trade and have earned the respect of their peers, providing a meaningful contribution to the sport of recreational angling over an extended period of time.” This year, 50-plus year and legendary fly fishing guide Steve Huff was awarded, along with five others. Click here to watch Steve’s son Chad tell an incredible story at the ceremony about fishing in the March Merkin tournament and his father’s vast influence on flats fly fishing guides in Florida, all leading to the question, What Would Steve Huff Do?

Catch Magazine’s Veterans Day Edition

Since 2007, Catch Magazine has been sharing stunning fly photography and videography from around the globe — browse their website and YouTube channel for previews. For Veterans Day this year, they released a special edition issue that’s free to view. In conjunction with Project Healing Waters, the issue tells the story of six disabled U.S. military veterans and their three days of fly fishing across three different central Oregon fly fishing venues. Enjoy!

Muir Way

While visiting a good friend’s new home some years ago and admiring their wall art, I came to a standstill at their Hydrological Map of the United States from Muir Way. Beers in hand, he and I pointed out rivers we’d fished together and separately, tracing the river-lines with our pointer fingers. I’d never seen the entire country illustrated in such a way and my focus flipped between local, regional, and national scales, admiring how all the rivers flows. Muir Way has numerous hydrological maps to explore on their site, inspiring tales of previous river trips and future trips to rivers unexplored.

No Point

…These watery deaths were frightening to me. It was not at all how I wanted to die. It was then that Guido admitted that the Tugur was the most dangerous river he’d ever floated. I stared at him, realizing he’d withheld this observation until now, for my benefit.

“Why?” I asked.

“There is no margin of error,” he said. “If you’re off the boat above a logjam, that’s it.”

Through my mind I replayed the moments when we nearly tipped over, of how close we had been to death.

Guide turned to [guide] Misha. “And we don’t have life jackets.”

“There would be no point,” Misha said.

~ from Stronghold, by Tucker Malarkey, which follows Wild Salmon Center’s Guido Rahr

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