Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2024 i Anglers Journal

“GOT EVERYTHING YOU NEED?” Mary Lou, our young pilot, shouts as she loads our rods and gear into a twin-engine Islander. She flashes a warm smile and seems to read my mind. “The wind’s only around 25 knots,” she says. “We’ll be fine.” Wind and optimism whip over the Falkland Islands, a British territory about the size of Connecticut, 400 miles northeast of Tiera del Fuego, the southernmost point of South America. It’s October, austral spring, and my longtime buddy Eugene Jones and I are here for a week before we board an expedition ship to Antarctica. After a night in Stanley, the capital city, we fly west to Port Howard for some fishing. At Port Howard Lodge, a discarded howitzer serves as an outdoor rod rack and a haunting…

Snuggled up in a warm bed in my heated cabin, my mind ran through the various excuses I might use to get out of going fishing. I could hear the winds howling. Overnight, the blow increased significantly. A glance through the ice-framed window revealed what I had feared — a white-washed world. A blizzard shot snow horizontally across the frozen fjord. We’d fished the previous day, initially with much enthusiasm following the sight of a 60-pound cod in the camp’s filleting shed. We left the shelter afforded by the high peaks flanking the fjord at Lauklines on the north coast of Norway and headed toward our destination about 20 miles offshore. We steamed into the cold, gray and grumpy-looking North Atlantic. The boat started to pitch and roll heavily in…

A WELL-TUNED GLIDE BAIT FLIRTS WITH FISH LIKE A SIREN, DARING THEM TO STRIKE. You can’t take your eyes off the sway and shimmy — so subtle, delicate, lifelike and tantalizing — nor should you. I broke my gaze when a sharp pop rang out to my left. By the time I shifted my eyes, the fish was gone. All that remained was a soft, dissipating swirl and Keith Thomas’ glide bait hovering perfectly still just below the surface. The 10-inch lure mimicked an adult gizzard shad, all white save for its large, red eyes and sparse blood spatter effect across its back. Thomas dropped his shoulders and cocked his chin to the sky. “That was a good one,” he bellowed through clenched teeth. “Dammit! That bass was at least…

The transition from Down East Maine’s old-growth hardwood to sod banks and salt hay is abrupt, a jarring shift from dank, muted spaces along the brook to the rolling green, infinite sky and fresh breeze. The ribbon of blue water changes rapidly, morphing from an intimate, rocky stream to a deep trough of harrowing muck. As I enter the tidal plain, the setting sun cuts rich, golden beams through gaps in the forest, pincushioning the world with subtle warmth. I cross the salt hay, then peer over the slippery edge of the sod bank. Below is a lone pocket of gravel, spotted easily in the transparent water. I slide down to stand on this partially submerged island and quickly start to cast, swinging my fuzzy, homemade streamer through a shallow…

The first time I saw a photo of a golden dorado was in a fly shop in Miami more than 20 years ago. A guy from Argentina showed me a collection of images of giant, lit-up and gnarl-toothed fish allegedly caught on flies in what looked like a clear trout stream. The salmon-shaped, brilliant-yellow species inhabits South America’s rivers and are known for their huge head with a jaw full of teeth that can easily sever a finger. They savagely strike lures and flies, making them a perfect target for anglers. I was intrigued. The Argentinian and I got to talking, and he told me that these rivers were rarely fished and that the dorado were all world-record size. It didn’t take much more to convince me to put together…

A DECADE OF ANGLERS JOURNAL I cannot believe it has been 10 years since I picked up that first issue in an airport. Read it cover to cover on a trans-Atlantic flight and stupidly left it on the plane. I subscribed as soon as I got to a Wi-Fi connection and have not missed an issue since. But I wish I still had that first issue! Thomas Bjornsen Congratulations, you have created and continue advancing a great magazine that goes far beyond hooked fish and dock socializing. Keep it going! Ellen Peel Thanks so much for the beautiful 10th anniversary layout. You did an amazing job, as you do on every issue, and I’m glad I got to see many issues that I had missed as I was doing the…

ONE OF THE EARLIEST LESSONS I LEARNED FROM FISHING was that every living creature eats, and in eating, kills. I once watched three bluegills devour an injured dragonfly bite by bite until only a single, crystalline wing floated on the pond surface. When we fish, we’re casting to feed a creature’s hunger — something we can recognize in ourselves. Who hasn’t looked at a plump worm on a hook and knew no perch could ignore such a meal? That even within the pulsating baitball off the bow your particular herring would be the one to catch the striper’s eye? Sometimes we cast toward gluttony, again something we see in ourselves. Bluefish are the ancient Romans of the piscine world, gorging on pogies until they sometimes barf to keep binging. I…

THE ONE SPECIES THAT REALLY GOT ME INTO FISHING, and eventually chartering, is the giant bluefin tuna. My first one weighed 840 pounds dressed, and at the risk of sounding cheesy, I was hooked. I was in my late teens when I caught my first giant, and I decided that I wanted to figure out a way to fish for a living. I grew up in Connecticut, and I’ve fished with my dad ever since I can remember. We’d go to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, every summer. I always loved it there and decided that’s where I want to be. I started working at a tackle shop in Chatham and moved to the Cape full time in 2021. Then I got my captain’s license and started chartering. I’m 26, and fishing…

“At least 30 jumbo bass weighed in on Sunday morning. There were reports of huge fish finning in the moonlight Saturday night, and all you had to do was lob an eel at them and try to hang on.”—The Fisherman magazine, Fall 1983 The old days are rarely as good as we remember them. As the decades roll on, the fish grow larger, and the battles become epic as our memories waver like a black-and-white TV signal beamed in through a rabbit ears antenna. To argue that the best-ever surfcasting for large striped bass took place 40 years ago on Block Island, Rhode Island, might cause some to roll their eyes. But veteran anglers who fished the island’s rocky shores between 1982 and 1987 have never seen anything close to…

It’s early morning, and a good swell is rolling onto the beach and over the reef that runs seaward from the sand. The waves are glassy, the water clear. No wind yet ruffles the swell and obscures our vision. Codfish and I are standing side-by-side on a rock in about 4 feet of water, wearing bathing suits and polarized sunglasses. Clear, pale-green seawater laps at our bare feet. The sun has climbed to where it nicely lights the waves without casting glare. I spot a striper gracefully sashaying along the trough close to shore. It’s only a schoolie, but my central nervous system nevertheless surges as my eyes feed images to my brain. It’s a feeling we all know well. This recollection and others like it ran like pleasant zephyrs…