Innholdsfortegnelse for Fall 2021 i The Drake

BACK IN MAY I fished this pond, which I try to do every spring. It sits inside the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a 15,000-acre National Wildlife Refuge wedged between three freeways north of Denver. Two ponds hold bass, but I go mainly because it’s a quick transition from desktop to largemouth. On March 9, 1945, U.S. warplanes incinerated 16 square miles of Tokyo by bombarding the city with 2,000 tons of napalm, every ounce of it made on the property pictured above. The arsenal was built as a chemical-weapons plant by the Army in 1942, partly as a response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It was also used to manufacture mustard gas, rocket fuel, munitions, and, after the war, noxious agricultural pesticides for Shell Oil. Rocky Mountain Arsenal was designated…

WE WERE MOTORING gently through a creek-cut in the Berry Islands, in search of something. A salve for wounded pride, perhaps, or maybe just excuses. Permit had treated us quite rudely this morning—with dismissive looks and reckless indifference, the sort of abuses most painful to the self-esteem of men. “The permit is an impossible fish,” John announced. “I don’t know why anybody wastes their time.” While certainly not impossible, permit do seem to promote a selfish symbiosis here. Trailing stingrays that furrow through the turtle grass kicking out crabs and shrimp and whatever else swirls up into the turquoise water of these Bahamas outer islands, they appear to leave little for the rays, yet ignore our seemingly adequate imitations. John and I had used the rays as markers, lobbing brown…

HE WAS THE type of fisherman who would clean his fly line every night. His precise angling came with a big ole’ teddy-bear personality. A grandma’s boy at heart, he never went to bed without her homemade blanket, even in adulthood. On top of that blanket lay a book, preferably Daniel Silva. As he fell asleep in a riverside motel, he dreamt of the next day in a drift boat, anchored and casting downstream to rising fish. After laying out his cast, he would start feeding line, just as a trout’s nose broke the surface. But an obnoxious alarm clock would then wake him, right before his hookset. It was time for Jim Hill to go make that dream a reality. This past summer, around 7:30 every morning, Hill would…

MORNING AT PYRAMID LAKE. You can almost believe you’re on the inlet of a sea, looking out across some remote, barren coastline. But reality comes in the form of a desert lake, nearly the polar opposite of Jackson, Wyo., where we live. I had driven to Nevada two days earlier, looking to escape ski-town mud season and the one-percenters. Surely the one-percent crowd is here too, but they hide themselves better, mixing with sun-leathered locals at the Crosby Bar. I head to the Crosby for lunch with my fishing buddy, Alex. Everyone here just wants to know where the fish are, but anglers approach the subject sideways, wanting the other person to slip-up first and say something they shouldn’t. All good fishing bars are like this. Walls covered with trout…

THE BIRDS WAKE ME. Shrilling crows flying up and over the river. Dust suspends in a beam of light entering the cracked window at the foot of the bed. “Dammit,” I think, flopping my feet onto the cool wooden floor, sitting up slowly. “I missed the whole morning.” A headache pounds my skull from just under and behind the ears. I groan into an empty cabin and blame my condition on cheap scotch, despite knowing that the problem was quantity not quality. Shuffling toward the kitchen, I lean heavily against the counter, then down a few Advil with a swig of warm Coke—a remnant of the wee hours. I light a cigarette. Central New York’s Hansel and Gretel Cabins have been closed for years. They look worn down since my…

CERTAIN AREAS IN the world of flyfishing have a special ecology; where the worlds of saltwater and freshwater converge to create a safe intermingling place for species that would not normally interact. There is a small village in southeast Louisiana that is a prime example. Its name roughly translates to “Oak Point” in the invasive English that came to dominate its French-speaking settlers. Pointe-aux-Chenes is how it now appears on the handful of maps that actually mention the town. It was previously spelled Point-au-Chien, which translates to “Dog Point”—until Laise Ledet, a Pointe-aux-Chenes native, finally succeeded in her years-long fight to correct the spelling. Ledet knew she was correct: France-born Acadian Jean Charles Naquin had given the island community its name back when there was an oak-tree ridge running between…

We drive up the canyon into a thunderstorm, a bank of cobalt clouds lying over the mountains and grumbling. The road veers from the interstate amid scrubby, high-desert juniper forest and hillsides scored with red bluffs, then traverses the village of Pecos, which doesn’t roll out a lot of fanfare for visitors; just a couple of gas stations and one spot to snag a decent burrito. Outside town, the road swivels up the Pecos River canyon, cut into the southern edge of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains as they run themselves out in New Mexico. The yellow center lines are mostly worn through, then disappear entirely near Tererro, which used to have a convenience store but now just has a big, spray-painted plywood sign that declares, “Closed.” Along the way,…

DID YOU KNOW that there were U.S. submarines named after the two most cherished fish on the flats? I didn’t. Until a couple postcards showed up on eBay. It will come as a surprise no one that both vessels earned reputations as excellent fighters. There have actually been two Permit submarines in the U.S. Navy. The first, SS-178, was launched on Oct. 5, 1936, in Groton, Conn., and based out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. As Capt. Peter Whelan of Shoals Fly Fishing could surely tell you, Portsmouth breeds badasses. In November 1937 the USS Permit headed south, eased through the Panama Canal, and spent two years in San Diego before beelining to the Philippines, eventually completing 14 WWII war patrols. On the night of March 8, 1943, our girl Permit…

THERE ARE TWO primary fishing cultures in Alabama: 1) The esoteric and exceedingly idealistic group of anglers that enjoy flyfishing and eating greasy Jack’s biscuits before a fishing trip. 2) Ricky-Bobby types who fish with junk baits. Needless to say, tournament pros burning up the interstates and roaring across impoundments with their 250-horse motors vastly outnumber those with “tippet” on their shopping list. When I got a call from Drake editor Tom Bie asking if I would participate in a “redeye bass familiarization trip” hosted by the Lake Martin Tourism Association, my initial reaction was wariness. Because I knew the truth: East Alabama Fly Fishing founder, Drew Morgan, had pulled another promotional trick from his sleeve by inviting a few media types, via a PR proxy, to come view his…

IT WOULD’VE SURPRISED no one if, instead of Feel It Still, Portugal. The Man would have called their 2017 Grammy-winning single, Feel It Pull. When not onstage from Red Rocks to Birmingham, bandmembers are often on the water. Now living on Oregon’s Sandy River, members John Gourley (lead vocals), Zach Carothers (bass), Kyle O’Quin (keyboards), Jason Sechrist (drums), Eric Howk (lead guitar) and Zoe Manville (vocals) get outside with fly rods as much as possible. We caught up with Carothers to talk flyfishing, touring, pack rafts, and their new PTM Foundation, which supports environmental issues, human rights, and especially the rights, stories, and sacred voices of Indigenous People. Here’s what he had to say. It takes about 45 minutes for me to float from my house to John’s house. We…

#SheilaforCongress Florida’s 20th congressional district runs inland from West Palm Beach to Lake Okeechobee—a district long ruled by Big Sugar. The sugar industry has spent decades polluting the Everglades, but Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick was one of a handful of Democratic candidates in the primary to tell VoteWater.org that she would not accept Big Sugar campaign money. After winning the fall primary by merely five votes Cherfilus-McCormick has a good shot to win January’s special election in the heavily Democratic district. As bullsugar.org noted: “That’s not good for Big Sugar, but you can be sure it’s good for Florida.” Even if Sheila doesn’t flyfish, she’s already helping those who do. —TB SHEILAFORCONGRESS.COM Fly Fish Food As big boxes and Amazon bully for market share (and the supply chain) nationwide, independent fly shops…

I COUNTED FISH BEFORE FIGURING, maybe acknowledging, that it misses the point. Then I sort of counted, thinking that if I maybe didn’t know the exact number, it wasn’t counting. Then I gave that up and started counting the consecutive months of catching trout on a fly in Central Pennsylvania, where I live. That number is 250-something (OK, 251 exactly). My consecutive-month thing exists because I get out a lot and have made a point of keeping the streak alive. It also bears witness to an understanding and forgiving wife, though not always at the same time. It means, too, that streams are close, and that my business partners are oblivious or don’t care. I wish it meant I was good, but I’m just OK. How do we know if…

WHAT I REMEMBER MOST is his eyelashes—hoar-frost fringing them in the truck headlights. He was a still-life of death, encased in white crystal, lying flat on his back with eyes closed and arms out, almost peaceful. What had started as a quick run from Salt Lake for some fall streamer fishing had quickly turned into something else entirely. The disappointment of seeing another rig parked that early down the narrow road changed to shock and sadness as the scene before us came into focus: A young man on his back, gun ten feet to his side, and the cold truck painted the picture of a decision that could not be undone. A call was made and we waited. We followed the flashing lights along the main highway, onto the side…

SITTING ON MY FLY-TYING DESK, on a shelf above the straggle chenille and holographic tinsel, is an 80-year-old Richard Wheatley fly tin. The edges of its aluminum lid, with that distinctive satin finish, are rubbed bright from the friction of bouncing about in a fly-vest pocket. It bears the inscription: R.N. Jarvis 4, Short St. Cambridge Flyfishing is a lifelong journey punctuated and enhanced by the people we meet along the way. In my formative years, the most influential of these was Rodney Noel Jarvis. Many memories are attached to that tin, which bears all the nicks and dings of a thousand bankside miles. Not my miles, but those of the singular character who taught my dad how to cast. Dad, always happier with a rifle or shotgun in hand,…

“I’ve never heard of anyone dumb enough to make that hike,” said the rafter, with a bit of amusement, maybe a little pity, before adding, “No offense.” Since I was standing there in my underwear, frozen in mid-strip between a soaked pair of pants and my waders, I was in no position to take offense to anything. Emmie, my lovely and enduring wife, was also standing nearby, laughing. It was a frosty morning in mid-September, 2020. Alaska was everywhere. This was the second time I’d made the ill-advised trek. The rafter must have known something of the hike; that the “trail” is recommended for winter use only, and that it’s five miles of trudging through hip-deep muskeg haunted by monster mosquitoes. We’d come for the trout. Below us, the Gulkana…

ON AUGUST 27, Oregon’s Deschutes and John Day rivers were closed to steelhead fishing by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) in response to record-low returns of Columbia Basin summer steelhead. They will remain closed until Dec. 31. Some anglers agreed with the decision and some didn’t, but everyone seemed to agree that ODFW got it wrong. The closure was viewed as either too strict or not strict enough; too early or too late; illogical, inconsistent, or unfair, and it fueled unrest among antsy two-handers already run off the North Umpqua when ODFW shut it down August 10, due to its summer returns being “about 20 percent of average.” After the Deschutes decision, steelheaders along the river either went home, switched to trout gear, or quietly wept themselves…

THE BAD YOU’VE HEARD OF Didymosphenia Geminata—better known as “rock snot,” or simply “Didymo,” the highly aggressive algae that is easily spread, primarily by anglers like you and me. Didymo requires only one cell to start spreading, and it can survive for two months on damp clothing away from water—something to keep in mind this fall and winter as countries like Argentina, Chile, and New Zealand reopen to American anglers. In 2004, Didymo remained alive on an angler’s clothes or fishing equipment long enough for its host to leave a river in North America, travel to New Zealand, and fish the South Island’s Waiau River, where it rapidly proceeded to smother the streambed with its fibrous tendrils. That was the first time New Zealand had experienced the slimy-looking assailant (Didymo…

I find it best to begin all writing about flyfishing by first writing about hunting. Or, alternatively, the Asian culinary arts. I’ll start this one by talking about Boomer. Boomer and I were hunting one day, possibly after eating Vietnamese food. It was a typical smoky, early fall, Northern California morning. We were dove hunting. There were no doves. At least not where we were, or at least not within range, because Boomer’s young dog was enthusiastically flushing everything in front of us about a hundred yards down-range. I guess you gotta train a new bird dog sometime. Might as well do it with friends. As much as I appreciated witnessing Boomer’s dog being trained, I wandered off in another direction to try and find my own birds. After I’d…

I USED TO GO on a fall musky trip. Dave and JT and I, and a few other rotating characters, built a complete Musky Camp tradition around it: late September or early October, a full week on a northern Michigan river system that was wild and remote. Getting into the good water, and camping there, was a lesson in type two fun, and it made the fishing all the richer. Cold and rain and wind and frost-proof mosquitoes. We caught our share of muskies. Nothing really big, but we saw a big one often enough to keep the boilers hot. The last year we went, it was just the three of us. We had a very seasonable week of bright, cold days. We landed three fish in one perfect golden…

My favorite days are full of fishing. I live in the mountains of Montana, so I have a lot of favorite days each year. Fishing is there, too, when bad things happen. Maybe then most importantly of all. By October 2020, the nation could have used a day on the river. Chokeholds and riots; caustic, fevered politics; and that virus on the loose again, taking meaty bites out of our civility. The President even had the damn thing now; hospitalized, with many rumors swirling. In Bozeman, we had our own troubles. The canyon north of town had just burned. Lightning flashed into its flank, and the flames raked up and over the ridge, encouraged by the tinder of drought. On the other side, barns and farmhouses simply vanished, their foundations…

DURING MY FISHY COLLEGE YEARS at Appalachian State University, my idea of solitude was chasing small-stream brookies deep in the Pisgah National Forest. But now that I’m a nine-to-fiver in the busy Piedmont Region of North Carolina, I’ve been forced to lower my solitude standards to that of a neighborhood bass pond—an esthetically poor proxy for the Blue Ridge Mountains, but only four minutes from my house. Eggo-making is a larger time commitment. What few other anglers show up tend to stick to the lake for catfish. I head to the base of the dam and fish the tiny tailwater creek for largemouth and bream. It’s more shaded and offers a small slice of urban solitude. Or it did, until a couple and their dog showed up. I’ll call them…

A SUDDEN, VIOLENT, predatory surge came from where my weary bluegill was holding, attached to my fly, barely below the surface, yet out of view. It stunned me. All the possible critters that might chomp a bluegill—snapping turtle, cottonmouth, bowfin, loon, alligator—flashed in my mind. But we have none of those here in Western Washington. So it had to be a largemouth. But that didn’t seem right either, because our feed-poor lakes rarely grow them over thirteen inches long—too small to gulp an adult bluegill. Nevertheless, the attack was unmistakable, plain to both my eyes and those of my wife, Carol. It was prolonged; not one but two or three boiling rushes. The identity of the culprit, though hidden by turbulence, seemed certain. After a moment of disbelief, I lifted…