By Marc Alberts I stood there on the banks of the river looking out at her practicing another false cast. The sunshine danced off her blonde locks peaking from under her broad brimmed hat as the line fluttered back and forth, high above the soft flowing waters wisping with every pull from the elbow and …...

By Charles Raymond Hills He was a second-hand dog. A hand-me-down from a previous, anonymous owner. There was an ad in a weekly shopper, in the classifieds, in the back. The copy was straight-forward and simple: RetrieverLarge Chesapeake for sale.Two years old. Fixed. Had all his shots.$35 I called him Jake. I had never owned …...

By Michael Altizer “Behold, will I send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish.”— Jeremiah 16:16 I’ll be a young man someday, but first I must grow old. I must work and wander, and then spend huge portions of my life on things that in the end really won’t amount to a …...

White Traun River, Bavaria, Germany By J.S. Arndt In my spare time, I enjoy reading about the fly fishing adventures of our elders, and I find myself frequently inspired by their accounts. One of the people who had this effect on me was Ernest Hemingway. After reading his essays on fly fishing in Germany’s Black …...

FLY TYING AT THE CATSKILL FLY FISHING MUSEUM By John Robbins Newton, New Jersey. 1951. I was just a kid, ready to learn to fish. It all began with a green cotton drop line, a small worm hook, a pebble for weight, and dough balls for bait. At seven, with a drop line wrapped around …...

By Charles Raymond Hills It was a long time ago . . . . The split wood crackled in the fire. The moon was full above the top of the pines that enclosed our campsite on the edge of Emerald Lake, moonlight danced among the ripples on the dark surface of the water. “Grandpa, tell …...

Mot River Valley Scenery By Gregg Rockett There is a good reason to have New Zealand on your angling bucket list – all the stories you have heard are true. It is a trout fishing paradise and portrayed as such by Zane Grey in Tales of the Angler’s Eldorado, published in 1926. There are also …...

By Tom Keer A half-dozen boulders as large as a Volkswagen Beetle sat at the head of the pool, and trout held exactly where you’d expect them to be. Some were in the hollowed-out river bottom in front of each rock, others finned in the slow water inside the vee current while smaller fish drifted …...

By Nathan D’Achille A closer look at Midwest smaller trout streams For years I drove over bridges looking for new trout streams, always passing up the bridges that were brush-choked. But this particular stream held promise as I parked. Standing over the bridge revealed it wasn’t a bridge at all but a small culvert, and …...

By Shane Behler The river where I fished when I should have been doing my homework moodily rolls by. Every rifle, every pocket, is a tether to the past. Here is where I hung roll casts in overhangs and miss-timed hooksets on spinner-sipping browns. That’s the slick where I went in over my waders netting …...