TIED TO NATURE
magazine
The Fly Fishing Issue
IN PRAISE OF SOMEWHERE ON THE
TEAL
KOLA SPRING
SNOW SHOAL
BASS AND SMILES
RELEASE
SPRING 2021 DISPLAY UNTIL JUNE 8, 2021
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“A trout is a moment of beauty known only to those who seek it.” — Arnold Gingrich Far from our native land of Texas, my father and I found a quiet alpine lake teeming with gorgeous cutthroat trout. Here he hooks a speckled beauty on a warm Montana morning in late July in the Great Bear Wilderness. Photo by Mac Elliott
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“You kept faith through cold months, tying flies by the fire. You knew that the forsythia would bloom and the tulip trees would send out buds like ducks’ bills. You knew that the sun would pull up mayflies, the mayflies would pull up trout, and the trout would pull you into running water.” — Datus Proper, Running Waters Ryan Brenneke works his way through a section of Central Oregon’s Upper Deschutes River, connecting with fish and having a hell of a good time along the way. Photo: Toby Nolan
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Contents
UPHILL, INTO THE RHODODENDRON Words by Adam White Photos by Sammy Chang “While the Appalachians may have lost some of their former grandeur to eons of erosion and weather, there is a unique sense to these mountains that is unlike any other place on earth. Their roots dig deeper still, into a time before the foot of man first tramped their laureled slopes and gentle valleys.”
SOMEWHERE ON THE KOLA ABOVE THE ARCTIC CIRCLE By Mark B. Hatter “With 24 hours of Arctic sun, however, the well-heeled guests have fished nearly around the clock. I’ve had little opportunity to wet a line, but last night the guests called it quits around 11p.m. So here I am, just after 3 a.m., with the river to myself.”
SPRING SNOW A Photo Essay by John Smolko “When duck season ends, decoys are hung up, and boats are stashed away, a unique subculture of waterfowlers emerges. These hunters are willing to set thousands of decoys, sit from dark to dark, listen to a cackling electronic caller for hours on end—and then move everything in the night and do it all over again the next day. These maniacal, sleep-deprived hunters follow the reverse migration of snow geese as they move from traditional wintering areas in the south to their northern breeding grounds in Canada.”
THERE ARE TWO WORLDS: WYOMING, WITH DUENDE AND HOPPERS By Dave Zoby “I was wondering if plying the earth for trout has been a damaging force on my life, or if it had redeemed me. I’ve never been able to know. My 16-year-old Lab Rocket gasped in the smoky haze—his bony head, his showing ribs, his jackal shape. I wrestled with duende as we topped out.”
SHOAL BASS AND SMILES By David Cannon “I remember Kent pointing a foot upstream of a rock line, where the water smoothly began to rise before it rolled in a half-circle over the submerged rocks. He said, “They really like to hold in spots like that,” made one cast with his signature stealth bomber fly, gave it a pop and let it drift. Less than two feet into the drift, a shoal bass rose and attacked. Kent continued to smile. How many shoal bass will he catch before they no longer coax a smile from him? The likely answer is that it’s a number unattainable in a lifetime.”
MILES FOR PILES: SPRING SHED-HUNTING OBSESSION A Photo Essay by Nick Trehearne “For the uninitiated, the appeal of shed hunting is difficult to understand. Miles of hiking and hours of glassing, for what? To reach down and pull an antler from the grass? To hold it in your hand, pack it home on your back, and display it proudly? You bet.”
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THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HUNTING CAMP By Tom Keer “Camp is a mindset, the kind that comes from the people and dogs in the barns, on the porch, and around the fireplace. Camp is where we relive the day and reminisce about those who came before. It’s where the same jokes are told again and again, and though we all know the punchlines, we laugh until we can’t breathe—the same way we did when we heard them the first time.” FLY FISHING GEAR GUIDE By Strung Staff Our fly fishing gear guide is the result of over 400 days on the water. Whether you are fishing close to home or gearing up for an expedition, the Strung team has curated a list that’s got something for everyone. RATIONS & INTOXICANTS By Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley “So what is a Nebraskan doing with wild sockeye salmon? She traded for it. Just like the time she traded a squirrel for heritage pork from the local butcher. Or when she received black bear meat in exchange for a home-cooked meal. Or when she accepted a 5-gallon bucket of wild grapes as payment for a few jars of finished jelly. The permission to hunt deer on a farmer’s land or shared knowledge on wild edibles, in exchange for friendship. I’m sure many of you reading can think of similar instances in your own lives.” RELEASE By Jody Martin “With trout, as with all wild things, the color starts to fade as soon as they’re taken from wherever they’re supposed to be. It gets worse the longer they’re kept from returning. At times it seems obvious—and completely unfair—that the most beautiful things in life are all so damned ephemeral. […] Beautiful things simply do not last long. Maybe it’s the fact that they cannot last long that makes them so wonderfully beautiful.” IN PRAISE OF TEAL Words by E. Donnall Thomas Jr. Photos by Don and Lori Thomas “One of the pleasures of wingshooting is that shotguns and bird dogs relieve us of [concerns of size] altogether. A quail is a quail, a pheasant is a pheasant, and—at least in my mind, although others might dispute it—a duck is a duck despite the size difference between a teal and a mallard. […] If a group of teal and a flock of mallards drift into the decoys—I’m shooting for the teal.” THERE IS A RIVER Words by Jake Smith Photos by Chip Laughton “The river doesn’t wash away all of the things of life that have occupied me; rather, it gives them new meaning. The Little League games and dance recitals, the office meetings and school functions, the in-law get-togethers and all-too-infrequent date nights with my wife: They don’t disappear beneath the song of the river. Like the boulders and deadfalls and the dance of fly fishing, they are a part of the river, for they accompany me to the bank where I sit and listen.” ODE TO THE CAST OF INTIMATE PLACES By Noah Davis “Fly fishing has always been about tension: the tension of the line when casting, the tension of the fish to your hook and tippet, the tension water holds against hackle. The bow-and-arrow cast brings that tension to your ear, dangerously close to the soft lobe and ridged cartilage. A dangerous bend in the rod.”
Photo: Scott Morrison STRUNG MAGAZINE
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magazine
Publisher: JOSEPH J. BALLARINI
Editor-in-Chief: RYAN SPARKS
Creative Director: SCOTT MORRISON Photo Editor: SAMMY CHANG
Conservation Editor: REED KNAPPE Fly Fishing Editor: DAVE ZOBY Upland Editor: TOM KEER
Waterfowl Editor: E. DONNALL THOMAS JR.
Wild Foods Editor: JENNY NGUYEN-WHEATLEY Editors At Large: EHOR BOYANOWSKY
ALEXEI JD BOYANOWSKY JOE DOGGETT
MARK HATTER
Copy Editor: LEILA BEASLEY
Website: MICHAEL DUCKWORTH
CREATIVE CONTRIBUTORS David Cannon
Tim Romano
Noah Davis
Jake Smith
Macala Elliot
John Smolko
Chip Laughton
Lori Thomas
Jody Martin
Nick Trehearne
Toby Nolan
Adam White
COVER
“I think I fish, in part, because it’s an anti-social, bohemian business that, when gone about properly, puts you forever outside the mainstream culture without actually landing you in an institution.” —John Gierach, Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders Fly fishing and turkey guide Kory Chastain nymphs his favorite run in all of Appalachia, a wild trout stream near his home base of Blue Ridge, Georgia. Photo by David Cannon Strung Magazine is a quarterly outdoor lifestyle publication focused on upland, waterfowl, and big game hunting, fly fishing, wild foods, and conservation.
strung magazine For Subscription inquiries visit: www.STRUNGMAG.com For Advertising inquiries: advertising@STRUNGMAG.com Editorial inquiries: editor@STRUNGMAG.COM All other inquiries: business@STRUNGMAG.COM ©2020 Strung Magazine. All rights reserved.
Photo: Scott Morrison 8
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Photo: Scott Morrison
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letter from the EDITOR As I write this from my Minnesota home in the waning days of 2020, snow is falling outside. But by the time you read this, it will be the spring of a new year: Icy rivers will make room for a canoe, trout will feed on the year’s first caddisflies, and turkeys will be gobbling. Spring has always signified a new beginning, new growth, and new life. That seems especially important right now. At the year’s passing it’s hard not to reflect on what 2020 meant for those of us who, as Strung’s mantra suggests, are “tied to nature.” Many of us cancelled trips we had been looking forward to for a long time and instead found ourselves hunting and fishing—and finding solace in nature—a little closer to home. Others returned to the outdoors after a long hiatus. And many took to the woods and streams for the first time. At the time of this letter many states don’t yet have complete data for 2020, but early reports are encouraging. Many state wildlife agencies report fishing license sales rose 30 to 40 percent compared to 2019. Some states, like Michigan, Nevada, and Maine, sold a record number of hunting licenses, many of them to first-time hunters. Michigan saw a 67 percent spike in new hunting license buyers in 2020, and a 15 percent increase in female hunters, with youth hunters making up the fastest-growing group. Say all the negative things you want about 2020, but for those of us who love to hunt and fish and hope to pass those traditions on to the next generation, it provided a glimmer of hope. Yet this increase did not come without frustrations. I experienced them
Photo: Scott Morrison 10
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firsthand while fishing the Driftless area of Minnesota and Wisconsin, again while bowhunting elk in Idaho, and yet again while pheasant hunting around my home. Boat launches, trailhead parking lots, and public access spots across the country were filled with people wanting to get back to something real and tangible. At times it was maddening, but I had to remind myself that all those licenses are funding conservation efforts and breathing life into state wildlife agencies that rely on license sales to support their budgets. It’s also comforting to think that when times get tough and the future seems bleak, people gravitate toward the outdoors— toward timeless traditions that just feel intrinsically right. If you are reading this issue as a first-time hunter or angler, I hope Strung encourages your passion for the outdoors. If you are reading this issue as someone returning to hunting and fishing after years away, I hope it reminds you of why you came back. If you are a longtime hunter and angler, please remember: The global pandemic created a new generation of hunters and anglers. If 2020 was the year of recruitment, then 2021 needs to be the year of retention. Keep Casting,
Ryan Sparks Editor-in-Chief
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DAVID CANNON
David Cannon is a Georgia-based commercial and editorial photographer. His work takes him all over the world, including shoots in the Amazon, Argentina, Alaska, and the American West. Most recently he was in Guatemala, the sailfish capital of the world, where he was able to sneak in 20 minutes of fishing and landed his first sailfish with a fly rod while shooting for Cabela’s and Bass Pro Shops. He also shoots for clients like TakeMeFishing.org, Scientific Anglers, Winston Fly Rods, and Duck Head. His editorial work has appeared in Gray’s Sporting Journal, The Fly Fish Journal, and Southern Living. He gets to live with three beautiful females: his wife, Stephanie, and daughters Shiloh and Afton. The second edition of his book Fly Fishing Georgia: A No Nonsense Guide to Top Waters, is due for release if he can ever find the time to finish it. To see more of his work visit davidcannonphotography.com.
MAC ELLIOTT
Mac Elliott is a freelance photographer and media producer born and raised on the Texas Coast. Growing up in a family of fly anglers, she has been influenced by the beauty of the sport and strives to capture the experience through photography. Mac is a recent graduate of the University of Houston in media production and business. Find more of her work at macelliottmedia.com
JODY MARTIN
Jody Martin is a marine biologist who works for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County as Curator of Crustacea and Associate Vice President for Research. He is also an avid fly fisherman who enjoys fishing, casting, and tying flies in his spare time. The author of The Spirituality of Fly Fishing: An Introduction (Morgan Creek Publications, 2016), he teaches classes and hosts fly fishing retreats based on his book in California, Pennsylvania, and (soon) Colorado. His writing also appears in TROUT, Southwest Fly Fishing, Eastern Fly Fishing, and elsewhere. Jody is a member of Sierra Pacific Fly Fishers in Southern California, where he also serves as a volunteer for Casting for Recovery and Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing. He is a certified casting instructor through Fly Fishers International.
TOBY NOLAN
Toby Nolan is a professional photographer based in Bend, Oregon. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Nolan has devoted his life to the outdoors, always with a camera in hand. He has worked in a myriad of positions including fly fishing guide, sea kayak guide, safari guide, hiking guide, tour boat captain, backcountry multi-activity adventure guide, lodge manager and more. During his 15 years in the outdoor industry Toby has lived and worked in Ireland, South Africa, Malawi, Kenya, Canada, New Zealand, Alaska, and Oregon. From the early years in the dark room, developing his own 35mm film, through to today, photography has been a constant throughout Nolan’s life. He is honored to earn a living as a full time photographer.
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Tim Romano has convinced his wife and family that in order to produce more and better work he must tackle his vices head-on in the field of play. This hard-earned license to roam has led to assignments in Alaska, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, Russia, the Bahamas, Mexico, British Columbia, and throughout the US. His artwork is part of the permanent collections at Lake Forest College, Photo Americas Portland, Instituto de Artes de Medellin, Colombia, and the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has a wide range of editorial and commercial clients in a multitude of genres and industries. See more of Tim Romano’s work on Instagram @timromanophoto or timromano.com
JAKE SMITH
Jake Smith is the editor of The Pointing Dog Journal, The Retriever Journal, and Just Labs magazine, and hasn’t done nearly as many cool things as the other contributors of this magazine. He’s the author of the baseball-and-family novel, Wish, and a collaborator of the hunting and fishing short-story collection, Northwest of Someplace. As a founding member of the Lost Branch Sportsman’s Club, Jake longs for a return to the quiet and solitude of the outdoors, free of social media and competition, where losing a fly or two, missing birds with a cherished shotgun, and laughing at an excited yet so-so trained dog is a pretty darn fine day. Jake lives in Traverse City, Michigan, with his wife Vickie, three kids, and three so-so trained Labrador retrievers.
JOHN SMOLKO
John Smolko is a full-time fishing and hunting guide and outdoor photographer. Based in Asheville, North Carolina, he migrates with the seasons, spending summers fishing in Alaska, winters hunting in Mississippi, and traveling extensively the rest of the year, always with his camera in tow. John hopes to bring the audience along on these unique experiences through his photography. His work has appeared in many outdoor publications and he has worked for numerous lodges, outfitters, and outdoor brands. Keeping up with John is a tall order but you can try your best at johnsmolko.com or @thesmolkshow.
ADAM WHITE
Adam White is an avid outdoorsman and fly fisherman who lives in Athens, Georgia with his wife and two small children. Though he has traveled and worked extensively throughout the world, he still believes the hills of Southern Appalachia and its rich culture to be some of the finest on the planet. In alignment with his Appalachian roots, Adam believes that telling a story is one of the most powerful means to connect with others. After taking a brief 12-year hiatus from roaming the hills to pursue a degree in medicine, he still thinks of himself as a fly fisherman more than a physician. On his off days he can be found exploring and helping others discover the abundance of outdoor opportunities that North Georgia has to offer.
CONTRIBUTORS
TIM ROMANO
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Uphill, Into the Rhododendron Words by Adam White Photos by Sammy Chang
Lukewarm dregs of coffee sloshed in my mug as we made a hard right turn onto the highway just north of Peachtree. Clouds hung overhead shrouding the mountaintops, their exposed bases standing like sentinels and ensuring our course remained straight through the valley. The plan was to meet at the trailhead just after noon with our good friend Dan and his dad Jeff. Jeff had flown in from Idaho the previous morning, leaving the grandeur of legendary western streams to make an arduous five-mile hike to a remote stretch of Western North Carolina, battle nearimpenetrable walls of rhododendron, and scramble over massive boulders in search of pocket water holding small, colorful mountain char. For the masses, there is no frame of reference for such behavior, but to us these little fish exude a near-mythic quality: Their splashy rise to a drifting bundle of thread-wrapped elk hair has consumed the bulk of my daydreams since I learned to cast. My friend Sammy’s infatuation is no less passionate; we had been talking about the prospect of visiting this stream since we met several years earlier.
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The logistics of the trip materialized over several months with hours spent poring over maps, reading books, and scouring the internet for clues that made reference to potential barrier falls, hiking distances, and campsites. Though I had never ventured up the creek this far, I was already somewhat familiar with the area having spent my childhood camping and wandering the mountains of Nantahala with my grandparents. It was under their tutelage that I developed a deep respect for the land, tramping the mountainside on their heels and learning as they identified native flora— from wild ramps to ginseng, lady slippers to trillium. I also took great interest in the streams that my granddad said contained “specs.” As part of the storytelling mountain culture, usually the general whereabouts of these streams were disclosed in an animated discourse recounting harrowing encounters with black bears, canebrake “rattlers,” and black panthers—the Appalachian version of a cougar that could “scream like a woman,” according to my granddad. Much like the fish in these streams, my grandmother was tough as nails. She also possessed an uncanny ability to cultivate life from the loamy Appalachian soil. I swear: With sufficient amounts of dirt, water, and sunshine, she could make a dead twig sprout a new leaf.
BROOK TROUT ARE THE PERFECT REPRESENTATION OF THIS BYGONE ERA, REMAINING LARGELY FORGOTTEN AS OUR COUNTRY INDUSTRIALIZED AND URBANIZED AT BREAKNECK SPEED. 16 STRUNG STRUNGMAGAZINE MAGAZINE WINTER SPRING2020 2021
My family’s heritage is inseparable from this forest. Having immigrated to the area in the 1800s, most of the poor Scotch-Irish settlers quickly married and blended their culture with the few remaining Cherokee families who managed to avoid forced relocation. The forests and valleys are rich and ancient; the culture is simple and inviting, but with a flare of mystery. Many of the rivers, creeks, lakes, and towns still carry their original Cherokee names. Venturing deeper into the Land of the Noonday Sun, the road signs still bear Cherokee syllabary. While the Appalachians may have lost some of their former grandeur to eons of erosion and weather, there is a unique sense to these mountains that is unlike any other place on earth. Their roots dig deeper still, into a time before the foot of man first tramped their laureled slopes and gentle valleys.
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Brook trout are the perfect representation of
other brook trout in the region. They are
I leaned against the truck and briefly closed
this bygone era, remaining largely forgotten
fighters: resilient yet fragile, beautiful and
my eyes, taking in the rich smell of the
as our country industrialized and urbanized
increasingly rare. Finding them requires a lot
woods. Nearby I could hear the rush of the
at breakneck speed. Brookies have paid a
of planning and effort and a little luck.
creek. It was already mid spring, but the
dear price, suffering precipitous declines Sammy’s pickup bounced onto the forest
trees were cloaked with the soft green hue
introduction of nonnative competitors, and
service road about a quarter till noon.
of new growth. Opening my eyes, I surveyed
the ever-present threat of warming waters
Windows down, cool mountain air spilled
the scene and noticed a family-sized
due to climate change. Since the glaciers
into the cab, and the rhythmic and metallic
Coleman tent pitched within a stone’s throw
first began their slow recession northward
drive of clawhammer banjo twanged on the
of the road. Next to the tent was piled a
and global temperatures steadily began to
stereo. As we pulled up to the trailhead Dan
season’s worth of firewood. Over the fire
climb, brookies in the South have been forced
and Jeff were already cinching down their
hung a cast-iron Dutch oven, suspended by
further and further into remote stretches
packs; both wore huge grins. We hopped out
a steel tripod at a height where the flames
of wilderness, exiled to headwater streams
of the truck and quickly exchanged high-
just barely licked the bottom. No one spoke
isolated by waterfalls that prevent the
fives, fist bumps, and hugs. Finding the right
a word, but we were all thinking the same
upstream migration of competing nonnative
fishing buddies can be a cumbersome and
thing: Someone is already ahead of us.
salmonids. It’s the degree of remoteness of
difficult task, but once the bond is forged,
Just then a slender, bearded man in his mid
this particular drainage that has kept its
the friendship is for life.
60s wearing denim pants, an old barn coat,
natives protected and genetically unique from
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early afternoon air was still cool, and the
due to habitat loss from deforestation, the
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and a felt hat lumbered up from the creek.
“Heading up to the brookie water, are you?” he asked with a gleam in his eye. As it turns out, our secret stream wasn’t so secret. Having now made this annual pilgrimage another half dozen times, we eventually came to refer to this benevolent, everpresent figure as “Appalachian Gierach,”— affectionately shortened over time to “Appy G.” Appy G is a character, no doubt, but I’ve seen him make a tight roll cast under low-hanging rhododendron and catch two fish at once on a tandem nymph rig. Beyond his fishing skills, his advice has never led us astray. Several years ago, Sammy and I had our hearts set on hiking up the trail about a mile and fishing a section of the creek that pours through a series of medium-sized falls. This section receives very little pressure from anglers because a nasty bushwhack is required to reach it. In our minds, the pools below those falls were chock full of gargantuan rainbows and browns that rarely saw a fly. When we relayed our plan to Appy G, he just shook his head, saying, “I wouldn’t waste your time up there.” Pressing him a bit more, he said that several years ago otters had made their way into this section and had all but devastated the once-thriving population of fish. Of course, being young, naïve, and mistrusting by nature, we called his bluff and went anyway. After a tricky and dangerous descent into the valley we finally began to fish. On the second upstream cast into a foamy, fishylooking plunge pool, the graphite tip of my 5-weight suddenly snapped. I could feel it in my bones. “You gotta be kidding me!” I exclaimed. Just then, as if on telepathic cue, a fuzzy head poked out from behind a rock on the far side of the pool. Equally as shocked, the otter paused to glare at me.
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I could almost hear him say, “Serves you
mattress of moss on the far bank. “You
quick but spirited, and after a few seconds I
right!” before disappearing into the same
think this is brookie water?” asked Dan.
slid a beautiful Appalachian brook trout into
pool where I had been casting. A bit dazed
“Dunno—only one way to find out,” said
my net. After popping the hook from its jaw,
by what just happened, Sammy gave me a
Sammy. In 10 minutes our lightweight rods
I lowered my net into the water, admiring
sideways glance before bursting into a fit of
were lined and short leaders were tied to the
the auburn coloration of the fish’s abdomen.
laughter. “Shoulda listened to Appy G,” he
bushiest dry flies we could find in our boxes.
More beautiful than the handiwork of even
said. Guess so.
The thing about fishing with friends is there
the most skilled artisan, the little fish
is no competition. We’d each prefer to see
darted around my net showing off a striking
The hike up to the barrier falls takes just
the other land a nice fish and celebrate, or
mosaic of colors on its flank: deep red
over two hours and is a straight shot up
even just sit on the bank and take in the
spots with blue halos and yellow dots akin
the valley. Not many people are willing to
surroundings. After a brief strategizing
to the drippings from a paintbrush. After
put in the amount of sweat and effort it
session, we all decided to split for 15
a moment, I tipped my net and watched
takes to pull off a trip like this, especially
minutes and test the waters.
the fish swim back into the current and
for a 6-inch fish. The brookies in this stream
disappear, its vermillion pattern blending
are gorgeous, but as is the case in most
After heading a short way up the trail,
southern streams, a 12-inch fish is a trophy.
I managed to find a clearing in the
Fishing gear weighing heavy on our backs,
rhododendron that would allow for decent
The rest of that trip proved to be one of
legs aching and lungs burning, we made our
stream access, but didn’t require an all-out
the most euphoric and memorable angling
final ascent, the barrier falls thundering
army crawl. Creeping up to the bank, my
experiences in my decade of fly fishing: good
into a gorge about 100 feet below the
excitement grew as I saw a languid glide with
friends, camp coffee, sunny spring days,
trail. Above the gorge the stream gradient
a foam line down the center. The water was
and no shortage of specs willing to rise to a
becomes gentle and even. The freestone-
clear, but at a distance almost took on the
freshly dusted dry.
and-boulder-clad nature of this creek makes
turquoise coloration of glacial melt. Carefully
for some interesting wading, especially in
studying the scene, I noticed a half-dozen
Brook trout streams are special and should
high water, but it is a welcome reprieve from
caddisflies bouncing on the water on the
stay that way. We determine the future
other regional streams this far back into the
downstream side of a midstream boulder. All
of these resilient little brookies and the
hills. You would do better with a carabiner,
else was quiet: no rises and no activity along
pristine high-country habitat where they
harness, and climbing ropes on the majority
the stream bottom.
thrive. Their success is inextricably tied to
of neighboring native-containing flows.
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with the multicolored stone streambed.
our own, as we will both undoubtedly perish On my knees and low to the bank, I stripped
without clean, cold water. Those willing to
After making our first stream crossing a
line from my reel and made two quick
make the journey into the remaining wild
safe distance above the falls, we decided to
false casts, laying my fly down next to the
and secret places left in our country might
take a break from the packs and stretch our
exposed rock. My fly slipped around the
be rewarded with the splashy rise of a brook
legs. For a moment, we all stood staring at
boulder and into the pocket where the
trout—and the clarifying realization that
the gurgling stream, amazed at how much
caddisflies were. No take. I quickly recast,
we have the opportunity to participate in
water was present this high in the drainage.
this time several feet above the boulder. As
something much greater than ourselves.
Several cartoonish butterflies fluttered
the fly began its drift into the cushion of
clumsily across the water as soft rays of
water just above the rock, the water erupted
The path is ours to choose. I suggest the
evening sun illuminated an iridescent green
in a blur of orange and white. The battle was
uphill trail into the rhododendron.
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o b A a l o K e h Somewhere on t
e l c r i C c i t c r A e h t e v
By Mark B. Hatter It’s a little after 3 a.m., and the slow diesel drip into the potbelly stove maintains an even burn, keeping the spartan tent warm and dry from the Arctic air outside. I hate having to get up, but I’ve put off the urge to pee for too long now, and I’m past the point of falling back to sleep.
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The tent can sleep four, but I’m nearly three hours north of Murmansk, Russia, above the Arctic Circle, and I’m alone. This is the “service tent” meant to house extra staff, and I am indeed staff: I’ve been invited here to shoot images at the behest of the camp’s owners. I’m not shooting now; the camp’s true guests are asleep in another tent with more amenities. Money buys comfort here. In my modest shelter I feel part interloper, part privileged elite. Yesterday my bosses changed my plans: “We want you to meet the guests at the Tent Camp on the East Litza,” they said. I flew solo, in the jump seat of a helicopter, with a load of supplies that needed to be dropped off. I’m “privileged,” until it’s understood that there are no roads up here. Everyone, including staff, has to fly. I’m not feeling privileged right now; nature could care less about how wealthy anyone is. It presses me to get up and get dressed. So I slip out of my sleeping bag without layering up—my journey outside will be as brief as possible. I figure my long-johns will
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be just enough to allow me to complete the task without freezing to death. I pull back the canvas flaps, releasing a pulse of warm air to the cold yet shockingly bright Arctic morning. It’s easy to forget that the sun never sets above the Arctic Circle, merely a week away from the summer solstice. Yesterday’s cloud cover has moved on. Outside my tent, the East Litza beckons with a low hush as it flows north on the Kola Peninsula to the Barents Sea. The scene is both breathtaking and frightening. I know the Arctic can flip to malevolence in short order, but the currently serene vista is mesmerizing. I cannot resist it. I almost forget why I left the comfort of my tent in the first place, until the ache in my bladder reminds me. So I take care of business and contemplate the situation. My sponsors were clear: You have been invited here to support the company with images of our guests catching Atlantic salmon on Russia’s Kola Peninsula. You are here at peak season, when the largest of the lot return upriver to spawn. Remember your priority, do good work, and capture the essence of the Atlantic Salmon Reserve’s mission for its angling guests. And I have been dutiful for the better part of a week, shadowing guests and guides, capturing that royal essence. But along with my humbling invitation came an intriguing caveat: You can bring a rod and fish if the guests invite you. And you can fish if none of the guests are on the water. With 24 hours of Arctic sun, however, the well-heeled guests have fished nearly around the clock. I’ve had little opportunity to wet a line, but last night the guests called it quits around 11p.m. So here I am, just after 3 a.m., with the river to myself. I do the math. Bright “chromers” moving upriver from the last high tide just might now be holding in the Tent Pool. So I head back to my tent, don my full kit, and grab my spey rod. It’s a short walk over bowling ball-sized boulders to the top of the pool; moments later I’m thigh-deep in the cold water. Proficient with a standard-length
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rod, I’m a hack with the 15-footer now in
drive, and I lay on a beautiful roll cast deep
my hands. And much like a rookie golfer
and straight down the throat of the pool.
shanking balls deep into the woods, I’ve
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crack-whipped off most of my flies in the
Immediately I’m rewarded with a “pull,” the
precious few minutes I’ve been on the water
high-brow vernacular used by international
since I arrived. I’m still wearing a welt on
fishing guests signifying what I know as
my left cheek—a proper smack from my
an “eat.” It’s a strong fish, and it takes
fly line earned while attempting what
line deep into backing, racing downstream,
proficient spey casters call the “cack” cast,
over the rapids at the bottom of the pool.
a left shoulder throw without reversing
Questionable casting skill is now supplanted
hands for a right-handed thrower. But even
by competent fish-fighting technique. Soon I
a greenhorn can achieve an occasional long
coax the salmon back to quiet waters above
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flybox in my waders; the hen has destroyed my fly, of which barely a wrap of flash remains. Out of flies. Out of options. There in front of me, the East Litza whispers; the Tent Pool holds a fresh tide’s worth of Atlantic salmon, resting before ascending upriver. I feel foolish. What was I thinking only buying five flies at the main camp when I arrived? In my defense, I was here to work. But still. When was the last time I crack-whipped off a fly anyway? And now, how in the hell am I going to find a replacement at 3 a.m. above the Arctic Circle? I feel defeated. It’s a lost opportunity to have the river to myself and not be able to fish. But I also feel victorious. How many anglers can say they’ve caught an Atlantic salmon from the storied Russian
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the pool, steering her into a small, shallow,
Of course I’m jubilant: I just released an
tailout. She is a fresh hen, with telltale
Atlantic salmon from the Kola Peninsula, for
streamers of sea lice latched to the “wrist”
Christ’s sake! Yet somehow I feel dirty—like
Satisfied at this thought, I step back inside
of her broad tail. The barbless double hook
some voyeur, sneaking around in the dark.
the dark warmth of my tent. Soon I will go
falls from the corner of her jaw, and before I
I’m not a paying guest, after all; I’m “staff.”
back to work. Perhaps I can get an invitation
can admire her muscular girth, she splashes
The camp remains quiet, and I still have
to fish.
back to the safety of the pool. A mix of
the river to myself. So I push the negative
emotions washes over me.
feelings from my brain and reach for the
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Kola?
Maybe I can bum a fly.
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SNOW
BY JOHN SMOLKO
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When duck season ends, decoys are hung up, and boats are stashed away, a unique subculture of waterfowlers emerges. These hunters are willing to set thousands of decoys, sit from dark to dark, listen to a cackling electronic caller for hours on end— and then move everything in the night and do it all over again the next day. These maniacal, sleep-deprived hunters follow the reverse migration of snow geese as they move from traditional wintering areas in the south to their northern breeding grounds in Canada. Such waterfowlers live for sunny 50-degree days, a south wind, the hordes of light geese that follow, and the moment the shot gets called. This chaotic period after the end of the traditional waterfowl season is referred to as the Light Goose Conservation Order. STRUNG MAGAZINE
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Encompassing snow, blue, and Ross’s geese, this special season was enacted in the late 1990s to help curtail the significant impacts of the exploding population of light geese on other waterfowl species. Dubbed the “tundra terrorists” along with many other endearing nicknames, mobs of snow geese leave their mark wherever they go. In the Arctic, the geese rip up the tundra to build nests and push other species of waterfowl out of their traditional nesting grounds. Like overtime in a football game, conservation season has its own special set of rules. Unplugged shotguns and electronic calls are permitted, hunting is allowed 30 minutes after sunset, and there is no daily limit. These special regulations give spring snow goose hunting a character all its own—a distinct anarchy of mud, Red Bull, and shotgun shells. What follows is a remarkable experience: Waves of geese flying in perfect V-formation stretch across the sky, white tornadoes descend on feed fields, and a mass of white marches across the land, rising like fog from the ground when the birds again take flight. Starting in February, hunts begin as far south as Louisiana
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and follow the migration north to Canada. Spreads of 1,000 to 3,500 decoys are common. In the old days, white garbage bags on coat hangers would do the trick; today, hunters use trailers full of intricate full-body decoys because the geese have become wiser to the game. Fooling thousands of geese is tricky: Just one mistake may spook them all. But when the hunt comes together and a vortex of geese forms above the spread, it sounds like you’re on an airport runway. This is one of the most incredible experiences in nature, which is why we keep coming back.
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Photos: Dave Zoby
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There Are Two Worlds: Wyoming, with Duende and Hoppers By Dave Zoby
In late August the scorching heat and wind tumble out of the Wind River Range with a brutality that makes you take notice. It hasn’t rained in weeks. And it’s not going to anytime soon. There were record wildfires in California
When I told him I wanted to first stop in
and Colorado. Cities burned. Anxiety about
Fort Washakie to visit the gravesite of
the coming election made us distrust each
Sacajawea, he said he was up for it. “I used
other. Many of us wondered where we
to do a lot of work on the reservation. Water
might go from here as a country. I thought
treatment stuff. I’d like to go back and see
it might be good to go off grid for a while.
it,” he said.
I’ve realized these last few months that there are too many places in Wyoming I’ve
He asked me why I wanted to see
overlooked. To fix this, I prescribed several
Sacajawea’s gravesite. I told him about the
trout fishing trips to rivers I vaguely knew or
controversy surrounding her death. After
ones I had heard of in bar conversations and
the Lewis and Clark expedition for which she
in tidbits published by the Game and Fish—
served as interpreter and guide, she settled
the faraway, rarely visited streams that live
at Fort Lisa in North Dakota, where she
incognito in the creases of maps.
lived with her husband Charbonneau and
“But another story, the one I prefer,” I continued, “says she left her husband and went south. She lived with the Comanche for some time, before returning to her own people, the Shoshone, here in Wyoming. In this version she lived to 1884.” Bill munched potato chips while I went on and on about the vagaries of history and the fact that there are often controversies and misgivings that can never be solved. How could it be, I asked Bill, that she had one life and then another? I missed the turn to Ethete and had to double back. These kinds of bumbling,
her infant son. An 1812 journal entry merely Bill Mixer agreed to tag along. We both
recorded that she died of “putrid fever.” Her
have been around long enough to know
story ends there, in frozen North Dakota.
that summer rages right before it retreats.
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exploratory fishing excursions have a high
County. I wasn’t sure.
likelihood of being derailed.
fished all over the world with gentlemen A bronze statue of Sacajawea stands at
and miscreants both, I still make rookie
With no particular timeline, we wandered
the western edge of the cemetery. She’s
mistakes. On the advice of Brent Pasquinelli,
around the cemetery at Fort Washakie. It
graceful, framed by the Wind River Range,
Bill and I hiked into the unknown with the
was bursting with colors: painted crosses
with a seashell in her hand. She looks at
idea of catching some wild cutthroats and
and headstones adorned in splashes of
it with fascination. At her feet, people
perhaps startling a moose and her calf
pastels, elk and deer antlers whitening in
have left trinkets: shells, cans of Pepsi, a
from the willows. The smoky morning made
the sunlight, unique rocks and shells, coins,
bluebird’s wing, a grouse feather. I thought
our hike ominous. We talked about death,
and glass beads from a broken necklace.
the area was littered with cigarette butts,
whiskey, and finding new water. Brent’s
Located on the edge of town, this place told
but these turned out to be grasshoppers.
directions were good enough for us to find
a complex story of people who had lived and
They snapped and clattered away.
our way. I recalled him saying, “Do you mind
loved on the reservation. Bill was interested
walking?” before he gave me the specifics.
in the chairs and benches placed beside the
Bill and I grabbed some breakfast burritos
graves. “I guess they visit their relatives
at a food truck near the tribal health center
After passing through a gap of rocks and
more than we do,” he mused, not to me but
and continued our journey. Bill was a bit
talus, we saw the Wiggins Fork way down
to the silence of the place, the sun-bleached
blue after the cemetery. His friend John was
below. The river was singing, braided with
grasses.
dying back in Casper, and he had been asked
bluish sandbars and frothy tailouts. There
to put together the music for the ceremony.
were 50-foot spruce trees downed in some
A flock of sage grouse pulled at seedpods
The trip to Fort Washakie tugged at him.
sections and willows racing the riverbank
outside the gate. I noticed that there
He said that maybe he should have stayed
as far as you could see. There was too much
were several new graves from this spring
home.
water to fish. And if you had a way to sift
and summer 2020, perhaps because the coronavirus killed many people in Fremont
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of the fly fishing press, though I have
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through the millions of metric tons of Though I am a semi-known member
cobble and sand, you’d surely find a perfect
Shoshone bird point. Maybe. My dogs Henry and Rocket labored along in the smoke-choked atmosphere. The hike down to the river took 45 minutes; I figured the hike out would take twice that. When we finally reached the river, I remembered that I had only brought one pair of socks. The idea was to wet wade in our wading boots and hike back out in our dry hikers. With only one pair of socks, I decided to go sockless all day. That way I’d have a dry pair to wear for the hike out. I believe I announced my plans to Bill. This was personal auto-da-fe—I just didn’t know it yet. There were small cutties rising in the first pool. They flashed golden in the bluish pools. The cobble slipped under our feet. I found myself off balance all morning as we moved from riffle to riffle, pool to pool. We caught Yellowstone cutthroats all day, with a few brook trout slipped in here and there. Cutthroats, Bill pointed out, love structure. The biggest fish turned on our grasshopper
patterns and made straight for root balls
the skin on my ankles and shins had been
and downed spruced trees. We lost them all,
rubbed off by the all-day wading. Perhaps
and we lost the day trying to discover the
it was the cold water that numbed me; the
perfect pool.
pain would come later. I gingerly pulled on my dry socks and hobbled back up toward
When I yanked off my wading boots many
the gap. There was beer in the cooler—some
hours later, I was horrified to see that
serious IPAs with high alcohol content—but
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ingredients. So is pain. We’re not just talking
was a working vacation, I reminded Bill, as I
about blisters anymore. I was wondering
made an enormous cocktail with his bottle
if plying the earth for trout has been a
of Eagle Rare. Besides, I liked the view from
damaging force on my life, or if it had
the porch, and there was space for my dogs
redeemed me. I’ve never been able to know.
to mouse in the fireweed and lupine. “Places
My 16-year-old Lab Rocket gasped in the
like this will be gone before you know it,” I
smoky haze—his bony head, his showing
said. “The Mercedes Sprinter van set will see
ribs, his jackal shape. I wrestled with duende
to it.”
as we topped out.
THE IDEA IS THAT ANY TRUE ART FORM MUST HAVE THE DARK MATTER OF DUENDE TO TOUCH THE SOUL AND ELICIT TRUE EMOTION.
I limped up to the lodge store and was ***
delighted to nab the last tube of Neosporin in their tiny medical section. I also bought
Lava Mountain Lodge is one of those RV
some Pepto for Bill, who was complaining
park-hotel-bar-package store establishments
about his stomach. I bought a 10-pound bag
that came into being in the era of
of ice and two cranberry-orange muffins
international travel and VIP experiences.
baked on site. The clerk put on plastic gloves
Poised on the incline of the highway
before he fetched my muffins. He said the
leading to Yellowstone and Grand Teton,
coronavirus had hammered their business;
you can imagine a time when a place such
the place was up for sale. He asked me how
as this was booming with business. Now
my story was going. I said it was going well.
people fly into Jackson and hardly ever
I wanted to tell him that a single article in
venture this way. The gift shop features
a fly fishing magazine would not bring back
chocolate-covered huckleberries, t-shirts,
the tourists, not in any meaningful way. But
and a utilitarian fishing tackle section that
I kept that to myself. He probably knew as
nudged my heart and reminded me of my
much.
obsessions as a 10-year-old: cured salmon eggs, metal stringers, and the red and white
The next morning, we traveled to the build
bobbers that no one uses anymore. The
site of Brent Pasquinelli’s wilderness cabin.
compound features a bar and a pizzeria
Brent was the reason I came to Dubois, more
selling fresh pies on “butter crust.” Bill did
or less. Brent, a Pennsylvanian who has
Experience has taught me that suffering
a quick reconnaissance operation to see if
fished all over the world, has determined
is part of life—maybe the most important
they carried top-shelf bourbons. There was
that, for dry fly fishing on wild rivers,
part. As I worked my way up the slope,
a coin-operated shower area. “You get about
nothing comes close to the Dubois area. “I
stopping here and there in the shade
40 seconds of hot water per quarter,” said
only like to catch them on top,” he said. “I’ve
of spruce trees to rest, I thought about
the attendant. This is the sort of indignity
tried Colorado and Montana, but I’ve found
Federico Garcia Lorca’s essay “Theory and
that shocks you back to your roots.
this place to be what I’ve been looking for.”
even these wouldn’t be enough.
Play of the Duende,” which was required
42
He admired the area because the rivers were
reading in graduate school. The idea is
We checked in to our “camping cabin,” a
not dammed and there was still abundant
that any true art form must have the
tidy, boxy building some hundred yards
wildlife. “I wanted to avoid the plastic water
dark matter of duende to touch the soul
from the main lodge. The cabin featured
slides and putt-putt golf. I wanted to be
and elicit true emotion. Duende can’t be
electricity but no running water. I set a pair
somewhere real,” he said.
faked. Lorca writes, “The magic power of a
of canvas chairs on the porch. My feet were
poem consists in it always being filled with
throbbing so much that I contemplated
Bill and I followed him out of the Lava
duende, in its baptizing all who gaze at it
crushing up some aspirin and applying
Mountain parking lot and drove half an
with dark water, since with duende it is
the powder to the wounds. “Does it work
hour over a freshly cut road to where
easier to love, to understand, and be certain
like that?” I asked Bill. He was trying to
Brent was building a cabin. Already the
of being loved, and being understood….”
connect to the lodge’s wi-fi. He suggested
build site was a hive of activity. Brent had
that he’d pay the extra money for a room
enlisted a dozen of his lifelong friends to
Lorca understood that there were two
in the main lodge, but I protested. The local
come out and help. As chief architect and
worlds: The corporate world of transactions
tourist bureau had provided our room gratis
designer, Brent built the cabin back in State
threatens to absorb us if we don’t, at least
because I was working on a story; I didn’t
College, disassembled it, and trucked it via
once in a while, wrestle with the duende.
want it to get back to them that I was
18-wheeler across the country to Dubois.
Struggle and disappointment are necessary
unhappy with the accommodations. This
His buddies took a few weeks off, gathered
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their tools, and met him at Lava Mountain Lodge. The crew bunked in a five-bedroom house and traveled each day to the site, the Absaroka Range dominating the skyline. “We are sitting on the border of the Shoshone National Forest, two million acres of wilderness,” said Brent. He pointed to a creek snaking through the willows a few hundred yards away. “That’s Long Creek; it’s full of cutthroats.” But this wasn’t a fishing trip for Brent and his colleagues. They were hell-bent on getting the roof on the structure before any serious weather came. They had an antique cooking stove that had been to Florida, Colorado, and now Wyoming. The interior walls were beautiful hardwood stained so methodically with tung oil that the tarry, chemical smell persisted in my clothes for hours. Brent rubbed the wood with his palms. “This is hundred-year-old barn wood from my barn. I tore it down to use for the cabin. I’ve always loved beautiful wood,” he said. Some of the guys I spoke with, a fatherand-son team from Pennsylvania, said they didn’t even fish. Their interest in the project stemmed from their affinity for Brent, and perhaps the raw and gritty taste of adventure. They described their 2,000-mile drive from Pennsylvania to Wyoming. They saw the corn flattened by a derecho—miles and miles of ruined crops. I snapped pictures of the cabin coming alive right before my eyes. Bill and I left the site and wandered to find new water. The cutthroats were hard to come by, but I
fish per day, and since I wasn’t able to go
Mountain whitefish are so underappreciated
wandered upstream alone, ankles burning
to Alaska this year for salmon, I considered
that they seem nearly invisible in the fly
with pain, and found a deep trough full
keeping a mess of them for the smoker. But
fishing press. I often have to remind my
of whitefish. The occasional trout slashed
that thought drifted away; I couldn’t bring
interlocutors that the whitefish belongs to
the surface at the caddisflies, which were
myself to kill any. They seemed too real, too
the trout family, and they have been known
infrequent at best. Bill was around the bend
honest in a world that is increasingly phony.
to save some forays into the wild from total
and couldn’t see the arc of my 4-weight.
I wanted Bill to see them. I limped back to
failure. And when you find a whitey, you find
I hooked a fish on nearly every cast. The
get him.
them all: They are school fish and hang in
whitefish flashed like foil below the surface.
numbers.
I studied them as Henry leaned in. They had
How many is enough? Bill and I took turns
little “o” mouths and snouts that brought to
throwing my nymph rig upstream and
Bill and I fished the beautiful emerald pools
mind piglets. They pulled hard and seemed
watching the indicator tremble and then
of the Buffalo Fork near Moran Junction.
to be the only game in town. The limit is 25
submerge as one whitefish after another
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gobbled the flies. We kept saying, “One more
to be. They valued the North Platte special,
times each, trying to catch the same large
and we’ll head out.” But it was too much
muddler minnow, cone-head bugger, and
rainbow that was feeding on tiny mayflies,
fun, and we stayed. Two hours passed.
other flies lost to antiquity and rust.
a species neither of us had ever seen. The pain of my blisters was so real that I never
Next, we found ourselves seated at the
***
once thought about the corporate, political world. I picked through my fly box looking
outdoor dining area of Turpin Meadow Ranch, a high-end dude ranch that, under
You take a road trip like this, and certain
for the right fly. We had to go back and live
most circumstances, I would avoid. But you
themes seem to arise. They reoccur and
in the burning world of social media and
don’t have to be a guest—or a dude—to
double themselves like so many hoppers
department meetings, but with my dry flies spread out before me, my choices seemed unlimited. We never caught the big rainbow, but we caught almost all of the other trout in the pool at least once. And Henry nearly learned how to leave the trout alone while we unhooked them and set them free. On the way back to the cabin, Bill received the text he had been dreading. The need to go home pulled at him. He started putting together a playlist for John’s funeral. He wanted to put the Rolling Stones in there somewhere but had not decided where. Back at Lava Mountain we took turns walking to the shower with handfuls of quarters and damp towels. Brent and the crew called us down to dinner a few nights later; they were in high spirits because the project was several days ahead of schedule. We went down for a beer, but our mood was
eat lunch there. Still in our wet boots (I
springing up off the gravel pad in front of
somber—so we excused ourselves and went
was afraid to take mine off because I knew
our cabin. I began to think of hoppers as
to the bar at Lava Mountain.
my burns and blisters had only worsened;
fellow travelers. They clicked and fluttered
they might disgust the other guests) we
through the eerie, smoky spaces between
The bartender’s name was Heaven, and she
ate ribeye sandwiches and talked about
spruce trees. Duende told me that they
was from Philly. Her shirt read, “Here to
whitefish and cutthroats. Bill ordered an
would all die with the first frost. But until
Shake Things Up.” She said she was going
Irish whiskey and drank it neat for his
then, they will flip and clatter aimlessly,
coyote hunting with her boyfriend after her
dying friend. I had problems of my own. The
bouncing off our canvas chairs, ricocheting
shift. Bill and I drank the most expensive
duende returned, and I knew better than to
into the weeds and thistle. At night, a
whiskey they had, and he paid. Whiskey, I
ignore it.
coyote sang. My young dog Henry sat on the
was learning, is poor for pain management.
porch and cocked his head to the watery,
Heaven left us alone and worked the far
On the way back to Lava Mountain, Bill told
submerged sound of a thin dog-like creature
end of the bar, where a couple from Tucson
me about fishing with his friend John, back
doing its best to create wilderness. It was
wanted dry martinis. Bill sang parts of
in the day before the North Platte was
too smoky for stars. But I could see Saturn.
“Rosin the Bow,” even when I asked him
considered a destination fishery. They would
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not to. Heaven wiped the bar down with
cast streamers all afternoon, drink a fair
We looked for new places to find trout.
cleaner. Somewhere in the gloom, the coyote
amount of Bushmills, and then sing Irish
We stopped on bridges and peered down
was out there. There are certain facts that
songs all the way back to town. John had
at finning whitefish and the occasional
persist; they are stubborn in their solitude.
requested “Rosin the Bow” for his funeral.
rainbow. Mostly we drank on the plywood
Bill’s drink was gone, and mine had become
Bill sang it on the way back to our cabin, and
porch and looked into the smoky hills.
watery.
I tried to imagine what it was like, back in
During the days we found pools where
the ‘80s, when he and John had the whole
trout fed willingly for hours. We knelt by
North Platte to themselves and nowhere
the streamside and changed flies a dozen
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Whitefish—hate ‘em or love ‘em—is an underappreciated (and native) fish that has saved many fishing trips. In the light, this particular whitefish came to life. Photo: Sammy Chang STRUNG MAGAZINE
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Shoal Bass and Smiles By David Cannon Bumping down a red clay road, cutting
confines of private water. Its girth is often
through a jungle of pine, with air rushing
greater than its length. Its miniscule beak
through the windows and Duane Allman’s
is just big enough to suck in a trout-chow
Les Paul blaring out the stereo, I’m in a
pellet. Too often the misnomer of “wild” or
familiar position: I’m in the rear seat of Kent
“stream-born” will be applied to this fish. By
Edmonds’ Jeep. The other two-thirds of the
reasonable sporting standards, any fish that
back seat is occupied by a mound of boat
has ever known the taste of pellet ceases to
bags, fly boxes, soft coolers, and my camera
be wild.
gear. In the front seats, Kent, the sage of Southern warmwater fly fishing, drives
If we anthropomorphized the two
while his friend Robert rides shotgun. As I
aforementioned fish, the shoal bass, which
try to operate my camera I am continually
has known its home waters for thousands
bombarded by the half-dozen fly rods
of generations, is like Crazy Horse astride
rattling overhead. The clay two-track veers
his war steed, riding a high Western plain,
past an ancient Confederate cemetery that
shooting airborne grasshoppers with an easy
has nearly been overtaken by the woods.
grace: Native, beautiful, perfectly adapted
Kent is taking us to a wild middle-Georgia
to the environment, self-sufficient, and
river that’s home to perhaps the finest
wild. Salmo pelletae, by contrast, whose
native gamefish in the South, or at least my
ancestors were hatched and reared via
favorite one: micropterus cataractae. The
hatchery workers, is as wild as Roseanne’s
shoal bass.
Dan Conner loping across his air-conditioned living room to grab a cold one out of the
If you scroll through social media these
fridge. Dan Conner is still entertaining. But
days and come across fly fishing imagery
there will be no colossal monument of his
from Georgia, too often you’ll find yourself
image carved out of a mountainside.
looking at some obese monstrosity of a stocked trout living within the happy
Kent had called me earlier in the spring
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to let me know he had gained access to
This wild river, which cuts through the
here, and a smattering of megalodon teeth
a friend’s hunting tract that bordered
middle of the state, begins its life as a
pried from its banks. It passes by sleepy
the Flint River, the crown jewel of shoal
spring bubbling from the ground next
Southern towns and through woods that
bass flows. If you’ve spent more than five
to a Delta Airlines maintenance hangar
hold whitetail bucks that could one day end
minutes listening to bro-country in the last
at the world’s busiest airport. It then
up on the cover of this magazine.
few years, you’ve probably heard the Flint
continues southwest from Atlanta toward
mentioned a few times between continual
the Alabama line where it joins the
Within this setting, chasing shoal bass with
references to partying, girls, and trucks. In
Chattahoochee. In a few stretches it cuts
Kent Edmonds is like taking a stroll through
which case, you might get the idea the Flint
between bluffs that make you think you’re
Montana with Meriwether Lewis. Beneath
is a horrible place. But the Flint isn’t some
hours north in the Appalachians. The area is
a TFO ball cap and long, white locks, Kent’s
quasi-country beer-fueled party spot.
known for Indian artifacts, oddities like the
mind contains nearly every eddy, creek
two intact whale skeletons that were found
mouth, ledge, and blowdown anywhere shoal
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bass swim. He knows these fish: what they like and don’t like, subtleties between good and great habitat, and how to feed them. And not with pellets, just to be clear. To say I was excited to fish with Kent is a huge understatement. The last time I fished with him we hiked down a wide, shallow stretch of the Flint that led to a steep section of river with water features that were not quite falls, but close. The next six hours were some of the best fishing I’ve ever experienced. If I ventured a guess at how many shoal bass we released that day, you would call me a liar. If today turned out to be half as good as that day, it was going to be incredible. When you’re shoulder-toshoulder with someone like Kent (and every great river has a Kent or two) any day could turn into one for the memory books. Shoalies are a unique species of black bass, whose native range includes only the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola River drainages. You’ll hear a lot of folks mistakenly call them redeyes, or you’ll hear anglers in non-shoalie rivers call other river bass subspecies “shoal bass,” but there’s only one true shoal bass. All the others are fun to chase, but the real deal is the king of Southern river bass. The world record is somewhere around nine pounds, but fighting a two-pounder on a 7-weight is a battle. Three- and four-pound shoalies aren’t uncommon in certain places, but the trophy mark in most anglers’ minds is measured in inches—and, like trout, 20 seems to be the agreed-upon standard. The stretch of river we were fishing that day included a long run of braided grass beds that cut in and out of the main river flow. At times Kent looked like he was laying out a long cast into the middle of a pasture. Then a shoalie would rocket airborne out of the river, Kent fighting it with one hand while holding a lit cigar in the other, a permanent grin plastered across his face. When I think of Kent, this is the image I always see, and it in turn makes me smile. Kent and I are probably at different points on the political spectrum, though we’ve
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never discussed it, but we are in close agreement on more important topics such as fishing and friendship. The heat beat us down that day, with the long summer hours underscoring the need for shade and hydration. We didn’t want the day to end, and we simultaneously longed for the trees on the horizon to overtake the sun. Robert lost a five-pounder—akin to losing a 10-pound trout—and carried that post-adrenaline awe and disappointment the rest of the day. The fishing wasn’t quite what it had been on that incredible day before, but the numbers were good and a few nice fish made it to hand. I remember Kent pointing a foot upstream of a rock line, where the water smoothly began to rise before it rolled in a half-circle over the submerged rocks. He said, “They
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really like to hold in spots like that,” made
no longer coax a smile from him? The likely
Allman Brothers and remembering the day
one cast with his signature stealth bomber
answer is that it’s a number unattainable in
we were trying to envision just hours before.
fly, gave it a pop and let it drift. Less than
a lifetime.
Now that straining for clarity had been
two feet into the drift, a shoal bass rose
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replaced by vivid memories of sun and fish
and attacked. Kent continued to smile. How
The day ended the way it began: three guys
many shoal bass will he catch before they
bouncing down a red-clay two-track, more
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and smiles.
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MILES FOR PILES:
A Spring Shed Hunting Obsession
A Photo Essay by Nick Trehearne
For the uninitiated, the appeal of shed hunting is difficult to understand. Miles of hiking and hours of glassing, for what? To reach down and pull an antler from the grass? To hold it in your hand, pack it home on your back, and display it proudly? You bet. STRUNG MAGAZINE
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Sheds are more than bone— they are a testament to the enduring search that is hunting. A search that builds anticipation for the upcoming season, creates a personal connection with an individual animal, and leads to a deeper understanding of animal movements and behavior. For some of us, that search might involve loading up the jeep and driving 700 miles across two Canadian provinces to get to a favorite shed hunting location.
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Half a mile into our first morning, we were on the board with a sun-bleached fourpoint. After that first antler it seemed like every 20 minutes we would find another. And then another. And another. Ecstatic with what we were turning up, we thought it couldn’t get any better. And then there it was: a typical four-point mule deer shed with three perfectly horizontal, 4-inch kickers—a once-in-alifetime find!
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We found dozens of sheds and glassed up lots of deer, antelope, and elk. Then, nearing the end of our trip we hit the jackpot: a 190-class deadhead buck. Although you tell yourself these are the ones you never want to find, it definitely was not a letdown. At the trip’s end we tallied up our spoils: 75 miles of walking in four days and just over 150 sheds, ranging from spike antlers you could fit in your pocket to huge matching sets. It was a great break from spring bears and turkeys, and we are already planning the next trip back!
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there's no place like hunting camp By Tom Keer The arrow was hidden so well at the junction
dirt road reappearing. It reminded me of the
of the gravel and dirt roads that I almost
wake left behind my outboard when I buried
missed the turn to camp. It wasn’t one
the throttle, trimmed down the motor, and
of those orange plastic jobs that mark
brought my skiff on plane.
directions in a work zone. No, this arrow was the real deal, with a Ramin wood shaft,
Camp sat in a hollow between two ridges.
a ground turkey feather fletching, and an
Higher elevations softened the cold
arrowhead with a broken point found by
Northerlies enough that the rooms filled
the stream after a spring washout. Closer
with heat from the fireplace. Two cords of
inspection revealed the only shortcut:
split, dried hardwoods filled the porch, and
Instead of using dry sinew to fasten the
another eight cords stacked in the shed
head to the shaft, a simple hank of twine
stayed dry from the elements. We rotated
held it in place. This arrow wasn’t used to
the wood the same way a grocer puts fresh
drop an eight-pointer at 30 yards. Instead,
produce and milk in the back.
it showed the way to camp. Miss the arrow and you miss the camp—it was as simple as
The icehouse was full of blocks cut from
that. And no one wants to miss camp.
the lake in the late winter. In late February, we’d fire up chainsaws, cut chunks, and drag
The Northwest wind dropped so many leaves
them up for storage. When coated with
that it made the road impossible to see.
sawdust, they’d stay solid all summer long.
From a distance, the dirt path resembled
A waiting line formed at day’s end, and we’d
a patchwork quilt, with squares of butter-
take turns chipping off a few pieces. We’d
yellow aspens and red and orange maples
hold those precious shards in our hands to
held together by fallen branches and twigs.
soften them, then push away the sawdust
In a few days, the sun would wither them all
and toss them in a glass. Nothing tastes
a uniform brown, but for now we watched
as good as a bourbon and branch from ice
them whirl up behind our trucks. One of
you harvested two seasons ago, drunk in
my favorite parts of camp was rumbling
front of a roaring fire made from wood cut
down the road, dog boxes loaded with
six seasons ago. Time has a way of making
whining setters and trembling pointers, and
everything better.
watching the fanfare associated with the
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A half-century of sun, rain, and snow caused
We probably should have kept a portable
our camp to settle. It moved significantly
defibrillator on hand: The eggs cooked
during the rapid mud season thaw. Several
over-easy in hot bacon grease had enough
logs needed a fresh coat of tar, while
cholesterol to clog even a clean artery. Bread
another few needed to be replaced. It
toasted by the embers of the morning fire
seemed that the weight of the kitchen had
sopped up the remnants of runny yolks.
finally caught up to the foundation, causing
Yes, breakfast was delicious. Those camps
the mess hall to droop lower than the living
offered an added benefit: When it grew cold,
room. The result was that there wasn’t a
we’d bring our dogs into the tents. Unless
straight line in the whole camp! There never
there was a call of nature in the middle of
was, for the floorboards creaked with every
the night, the shared body heat kept the
step, and the doors needed to be rehung.
edge off the midnight chill. I had to brace
The windows were so difficult to open that
myself when trading the warmth generated
we left them shut. Everything sags with
by a few bird dogs and a sleeping bag for
age, and even the pantry shelves looked as
the relief offered by the frigid evening chill.
though they supported the weight of the
Our camp was a step up from Tent City, even
world. Who knew sacks of flour, sugar, and
though I did miss seeing the midnight sky lit
salt could have such an impact? We didn’t
up with stars on a clear night.
care; those were nuances that made camp quirky and fun. The only irritant was the
We were thankful for the upgrade, especially
front door. Even the slightest breath of
because camp had benefits of its own.
wind made the screen bounce and slap the
Some came from the mattresses on racks
frame, and to shut it tight we’d have to hit
that unfolded from brackets on each wall.
the door like it was a tackling dummy used
We had a kitchen, and it was in the middle
during football two-a-days. Next year we’d
of the room. And we had running water.
fix her up, but for now we just squared our
Sort of: We needed to work the small hand
shoulders and kept our legs driving. The
pump, but there were no trips to the nearby
fixes were all simple. We wouldn’t need to
stream.
pull a building permit. All we needed were a few trees, a saw, some chains, and some
Everything in camp was perfect, including
elbow grease. A lot of elbow grease.
the visits from field mice that came indoors after the first frost. It was easier for
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We’d come a long way from Tent City, our
them to raid our provisions than to do an
cluster of dome tents, Coleman stoves,
honest day’s work. We heard them when
cast iron skillets, and blue-speckled enamel
we turned down the kerosene lamps at
cookware that we popped up every fall
the end of the evening. The mouse platoon
wherever the bird concentrations were best.
marched through the rotted stud in the
Every morning we’d drink a potion of cowboy
corner and infiltrated our command. They
coffee that was so strong that folks with
were well behaved at first, but soon grew
heart conditions stayed away. Several scoops
bold and then greedy. We’d wake up to
of coarsely ground coffee were lobbed into
provisions spilled all over the tables and
a pan of boiling water and allowed to steep.
countertops. The dogs didn’t much cotton
One sip of the hot, black, oily slick gave
to mice running around either. Bird dogs
everyone a shudder more powerful than a
have a sense of smell well over 10,000
tug from a bottle of rot-gut whiskey.
times stronger than a man’s, and once their
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WE WAIT ALL YEAR LONG FOR CAMP, BECAUSE IT’S WHERE WE’RE SURROUNDED BY FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND DOGS, ALL OF WHOM ARE LIKE-MINDED.
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muzzles started twitching, the barking chorus began. Pointers, setters, springers, and cockers—it didn’t matter; once one started, they all chimed in. The turning point came when one mouse sharpened its fangs on a deck of playing cards. When another skunked the cribbage board, we set some traps. One by one those small guillotines snapped. Soon there was silence; not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Camp continues to this day, but it’s a different camp in a different place. It continues because camp is a mindset, the kind that comes from the people and dogs in the barns, on the porch, and around the fireplace. Camp is where we relive the day and reminisce about those who came before. It’s where the same jokes are told again and again, and though we all know the punchlines, we laugh until we can’t breathe—the same way we did when we heard them the first time. Camp is as much about smelling smoke from the fire and watching dogs sleeping soundly as it is about the lack of street lamps and paved roads. It’s nice that there is a coffee table full of bird hunting magazines and sporting art on the walls. Hot showers are a plus, and these days, a hot tub would be a treat. We wait all year long for camp, because it’s where we’re surrounded by family, friends, and dogs, all of whom are like-minded. We soak up every second and store those memories as a camel hoards water. Those two months are as dense as our coffee, and they carry us forward until it’s time once again to look for the arrow pointing us toward the leaf-lined road that brings us to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
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strung
FLY FISHING magazine
Each year, Strung’s editors choose outstanding products within their area of expertise as BlueRibbon Selections. While we stand by every item we recommend in our gear guides, these are the products we believe represent the best of the best. Strung’s Blue-Ribbon Selections not only work well—they enhance our outdoor experiences. SEA RUN FLY FISHING TRAVEL CASES - $499-$569 (SEARUNCASES.COM) Once travel restrictions are over, adventurous anglers are going to make up for lost time. If you are one of them, we can’t recommend a Sea Run Fly Fishing Travel Case enough. Made in Italy by Negrini, a company with a 40-year history of manufacturing travel cases for fine shotguns and rifles, Sea Run cases are secure (TSA compliant), lightweight, and compact—perfect for itinerant anglers. We were blown away by the quality of the construction and the thoughtful layout on the interior. The bottom of the case contains recessed, padded compartments for storing reels, spare spools, leaders, fly line, fly boxes, and other gear. A divider wall separates the top of the case which has space for 4-5 fly rods plus additional storage. We haven’t been this excited about a new piece of fly fishing gear in years!
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TFFM PERFECTION LEADERS - $13 FOR A 3 PACK (TAILFLYSHOP.COM)
Joe Ballarini, publisher of Tail Fly Fishing Magazine, couldn’t find a tapered leader that met his needs while fishing his varied home waters of southern Florida—so he designed them himself. Made in Japan, long known as industry leaders in monofilament extrusion, TFFM Perfection Leaders are manufactured to Ballarini’s exact specifications. The result is a durable and strong leader with a saltwater-specific taper and the perfect amount of stretch. At 12 feet in length and four tippet strengths, they’re suitable for everything from bonefish to tarpon.
GEAR GUIDE
ORVIS PRO UNDERWADER PANTS - $139 (ORVIS.COM)
Layering up keeps us warm, but bulky layers mean having the mobility of the Michelin Man. Orvis’s new PRO Underwader Pants have an athletic fit with tapered legs that cut out undue bulk and stirrup straps that keep them from bunching up under your waders. Their fleece construction means they’re warm enough for the coldest days and so comfortable you’ll want to wear them lounging around the house. We liked the side zip vents that keep you from sweating during long hikes to the river. Rear security pockets and two front handwarmer pockets are welcome additions.
RIO SLICKCAST FLY LINE - $80-120 (RIOPRODUCTS.COM) When RIO sent us samples of their new SlickCast fly line, we were skeptical. The line was said to increase casting distance by greatly reducing friction when shooting through rod guides and outlast any other fly line currently available. After a summer of fishing with it we can’t argue with them. We immediately noticed a difference when casting the line, but what really impressed us was how that “slickness” lasted through the season. Most fly lines scuff, get nicked, and wear out after a season or two, but our SlickCast line is still casting like new even after over 70 days of use in 2020. Even better, SlickCast is now available in a wider range of lines including saltwater and Spey varieties.
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strung
FLY FISHING magazine
HOWLER BROS WATERMAN’S WORK PANTS - $99 (HOWLERBROS.COM)
Howler Bros founders, Chase Heard and Andy Stepanian started their Austin-based company out of a love for surfing, fly fishing, paddle sports, camping, and living a life surrounded by water. Their Waterman’s Work Pants are perfect for any of those activities. Their four-way rip stop fabric is rivet reinforced in the knees, making them durable, but still quick drying. Bungee closures at the bottom hems along with a dedicated pliers pocket make them a great choice whether you are wet wading, splitting firewood, or bellied up to the bar.
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FISH POND THUNDERHEAD SUBMERSIBLE DUFFEL - $400 (FISHPONDUSA.COM)
We’ve used a lot of duffel bags over the years and think Fish Pond’s Thunderhead Duffel is the best. We brought it on long fishing trips to Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Colombia. It also makes the daily transition from truck bed to the bottom of a skiff where it takes a constant beating on long runs to distant flats and is constantly exposed to saltwater. The inside has never seen a drop of water. The Thunderhead Duffel is like an insurance policy for anything you can fit inside. Yes, it’s pricey, but this is likely the last duffel you will ever buy. It will take your gear around the world worry-free. We think it’s worth it.
SIMMS WOMEN’S CHALLENGER FISHING JACKET - $200 (SIMMSFISHING.COM)
Designed by women for women, the Simms Women’s Challenger Fishing Jacket is a technical, waterproof shell that keeps you fishing on wet and windy days. The jacket’s hood, with 3-point adjustability, is aimed at combating blowing winds and pouring rain. Other features include a cinchable hemline, adjustable cuffs, and articulated sleeves for a wide range of adjustment and motion. Additions like a removable sunglass cloth in the front chest pocket and a D-loop sewn into the hem for attaching a kill switch cord mean this jacket is designed for serious anglers. When combined with Simms Challenger Women’s Fishing Bib the set makes a rain suit that will keep you warm, dry, and comfortable.
GEAR GUIDE
SCOTT FLY RODS F-SERIES - $695 (SCOTTFLYROD.COM)
Scott Fly Rods didn’t recently hop on the glass train, they’ve been making glass rods since the early 70’s. Their new F series brings together the slimmer tapers that E-glass allows with redesigned hollow internal ferrules. The result is a smooth, deep flexing rod that’s at home fishing for everything from spring creek trout to farm pond bluegills. Like every Scott fly rod, each one is hand crafted with little touches like measuring wraps and alignment dots. There’s nothing more fun than a glass rod, and Scott makes a fine one.
HARDY ZANE CARBON FLY REEL $399 (HARDYFISHING.COM)
The best fly reels are simple ones that just work, and the Hardy Zane Carbon is exactly that. With a non-flash, salt-safe finish and fully sealed drag it comes apart easily with one screw knob. We enjoyed the hard indents on the drag control for making quick adjustments simply by feel. Available from a 7/8- to a 11/12-weight model there is a suitable size for any saltwater application. When we tried the gold standard of reel tests; cranking the drag down and pulling line straight off the reel, it spooled off smoothly. This is an excellent reel and one that adds to Hardy’s reputation for quality.
DUCK CAMP LIGHTWEIGHT BAMBOO HOODIE - $59 (DUCKCAMP.COM) We fished in this hoodie from Montana to the Florida Keys and enjoyed how comfortable and lightweight it is. Along with being super soft, we found the cut of the hoodie was great for casting, with plenty of room in the sleeves and shoulders, but not to the point of becoming baggy. We were also impressed by how breathable and fast drying these hoodies are—ideal for any combination of water and sun. Available in a variety of colors and patterns that blend into any environment, Duck Camp’s Lightweight Bamboo Hoodie is perfect for anything from manning the oars of a drift boat to scanning for tails on the bow of a skiff.
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Rations & Intoxicants 72
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By Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley
Although I’ve never been a “prepper,” 2020 had me contemplating. This last year has brought us closer to instability than American life has experienced in recent
memory. From empty store shelves to nationwide civil unrest, the possibility of a different, bleaker world moves eerily close. What if civilization failed? If any good came out of the pandemic, it’s that the desire to become more selfreliant is at an all-time high. Growing, preserving, and cooking food at home is making a comeback. Even hunting and fishing is seeing an uptick in newcomers: Anecdotal reports show that public lands were more crowded last spring and fall—which my own experience confirms. Outside of toilet paper and politics, the disruptions in the food supply chain alone gave many a small taste of the hardships that could ensue. Major crises tend to change our relationship with food. What was once an afterthought to the average American—the availability and reliability of mass-produced food— was now in question. And although panic buying had a lot to do with it, the nightly news reports of depleted store aisles and out-of-stock signs were no less haunting. Perhaps the pandemic didn’t hit those who were already hunting, fishing, foraging, or gardening nearly as hard. At least when it came to sustenance. During the mad grab for supplies last March, my husband and I stayed away from the grocery stores as much as we could—because we had the option to do so. Rick often muses that if society ever went to hell in a handbasket, we’d be able to feed ourselves for months with what we have stowed away in the freezer. And we’d forage and fish all spring, grow all summer, continue hunting through the fall, and preserve what we gathered. What we failed to procure, we’d barter. So what is a Nebraskan doing with wild sockeye salmon? She traded for it. Just like the time she traded a squirrel for heritage pork from the local butcher. Or when she received black bear meat in exchange for a home-cooked meal. Or when she accepted a 5-gallon bucket of wild grapes as payment for a few jars of finished jelly. The permission to hunt deer on a farmer’s land or shared knowledge on wild edibles, in exchange for friendship. I’m sure many of you reading can think of similar instances in your own lives. In hunting, fishing, foraging, gardening, and cooking, it’s by our toil that we are able to reap what we sow. But it’s through community that we can accomplish what the individual alone cannot achieve. If the government and the infrastructure of our economy ever failed, community would be our safety net. Our neighbors are all we’d have left to call on.
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Wild Salmon Confit on Toast Wild salmon has always been a challenge
Thankfully, confit is one way I’ve found to
To tweak this recipe for dinner, reduce the
for me to cook. I grew up eating its farmed
enjoy wild salmon. This recipe is inspired
cure to 20 minutes to cut down on salt.
counterpart; as a result, I have grown
by a blog post I read on Tom Sellers, chef
Personally, I enjoy salmon a tad more done
accustomed to that taste and texture. Con-
at London’s Restaurant Story. The salmon
for dinner, but closer to raw—similar to lox—
siderably fattier, there is more leeway when
slowly poaches in butter, resulting in moist
for munching. For more doneness, preheat
cooking farmed salmon than wild. But really,
fish every time. The directions and measure-
the oven to 170° Fahrenheit before putting
it comes down to this: I love fatty fish, and I
ments below are geared toward producing a
in the fish. Poach for 20 minutes and serve
cannot lie.
saltier piece of fish to enjoy on top of bread,
warm, immediately.
crackers, or bagels—a piece of fish that is meant to be shared.
Wild Salmon Confit on Toast Servings: 4 Prep Time: 1 hour and 30 minutes Cooking Time: 30 minutes Ingredients:
- 10 ounces boneless salmon, skin-on - 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt - 1 pound unsalted butter, plus extra* - 1 shallot, thinly sliced - 10 sprigs fresh thyme
- 12 juniper berries, ground - Dried cranberries, to taste - Lemon zest, to taste - Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste - Sliced crusty bread
Special Equipment: Fine mesh strainer Baking dish that snugly fits all salmon in one layer
1. Rinse salmon and pat dry with paper
3. After the salmon has been cured for a
5. Transfer the baking dish to the refriger-
towels. On a plate or cookie sheet, sprinkle
total of 1 hour and 30 minutes, rinse salt
ator and chill for 20 minutes to allow the
coarse sea salt all over the fish—skin-side,
off the salmon and pat completely dry
butter to slightly set for spreading on toast.
too—and then cure in the refrigerator uncov-
with paper towels. Fit the salmon into the
Then dig out the fish: Flake or thinly slice for
ered for 1 hour.
baking dish in one layer, skin-side down;
serving on top of buttered toast, along with
cut to fit if needed. Sprinkle ground juniper
dried cranberries, lemon zest, and freshly
2. After 1 hour, take salmon out of the refrig-
berries, thyme, and shallot on top. Slowly
cracked black pepper. I save the milk solids
erator and cure at room temperature for 30
pour the hot butter over the fish through a
to spread onto the bread, as pictured; it
minutes. Meanwhile, slowly melt 1 pound of
fine mesh strainer, catching the milk solids
tastes like mild cheese.
unsalted butter in a saucepan over low heat;
with the strainer and leaving the water lay-
do not allow it to boil. Milk solids and water
er behind in the saucepan. The fish needs
will separate from butterfat, thus creating
to be fully submerged. Keep extra butter on
clarified butter. The milk solids look white
hand*—or if you’re not short by much, use
sealed in the butter and refrigerate. Take
and clumpy and will float on the top. The
olive oil to top off.
it out to soften before serving. This salmon
water will look milky-translucent and sink to the bottom.
Notes: If you’re not ready to serve the
salmon confit immediately, leave the fish
confit recipe will keep up to a week sealed in 4. Immediately place the baking dish in a
the refrigerator. For best taste and texture,
cold oven and set the temperature to 170°
however, I wouldn’t wait too long to enjoy it.
Fahrenheit. Cook for 20 minutes or until fish reaches desired doneness.
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Mulberry-Mead Old Fashioned Ingredients: - 10 to 15 mulberries, fresh or frozen - 2 tablespoons honey syrup (see recipe below) - 1 orange slice - 2 fresh sprigs thyme - 2 dashes Angostura Bitters - 1½ ounces mead - 1 ounce whisky (Cardhu 12-Year Single Malt Scotch in photo)
Honey Syrup (makes 8 tablespoons) - ¼ cup honey - ¼ cup water Combine honey and water in a saucepan and heat just until honey dissolves. Allow syrup to cool before use. To make the cocktail, muddle the mulberries, honey syrup, orange, thyme, and bitters. Stir in mead and whisky, and then add ice.
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2021
By Jody Martin Photos by Sammy Chang
It’s early summer, and I’m kneeling on the banks of a small creek in the eastern Sierras. The 14- inch rainbow in front of me is so colorful that I am stunned—it’s not the largest fish I have ever caught, but it’s by far the prettiest. In the afternoon sun, the fish is lit up. I feel a little stupid; I honestly did not realize a fish could be this brightly colored and beautiful, which tells me that most of the fish I’ve caught have been hatchery fish. My mind fills with clichés like “neon pink” and “the red of the setting sun.” But the truth is I don’t have words for this fish. I just stare at it.
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It occurred to me the other day that
and not the fish themselves. No individual
for most of my life I have been guilty of
fish stands out from the others.
catching fish without really looking at them. Growing up in North Carolina and Kentucky,
SHE SEEMED AWFULLY GOOD TO BEGIN WITH, AND I DIDN’T WANT TO SCREW THINGS UP TOO BADLY BY INTERVENING. MOST GOOD THINGS ARE NOT IMPROVED BY MESSING WITH THEM.
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***
every summer vacation meant at least a
In North Carolina there was a large gray rock
little fishing, and occasionally a lot of it.
on the banks of Morgan Creek. The rock rose
Most of those were successful trips, which
from the bank and extended out over the
in those days simply meant bringing home
creek so that you could climb and scramble
a lot of fish on my braided nylon stringer to
to the top and look straight down into
the sounds of fatherly praise and motherly
the creek at a pool wider and deeper than
concerns about the just-waxed linoleum
most. We called it Elephant Rock for its size,
floor.
believing we had the right to name since we were the first to discover it (despite a fairly
I remember fishing trips: details like who I
well-worn path along the creek). My brother
was with and what we caught. I remember
Andy and I used to climb up there and watch
a beautiful bass my older brother caught on
the bluegills 20 feet below us. Occasionally
a Rapala in North Carolina—the biggest bass
we would lower a baited line. Our preferred
either of us had ever caught at the time. I
bait was what we called a “sand digger.”
remember a small Kentucky farm pond and
It was not until several years later that I
a huge black crappie caught on my fly rod by
learned they were the nymphs of gomphid
my best friend. I’m still bummed about that
dragonflies. We caught them by following
one. I remember a big pumpkinseed caught
small trails in the sand along the edges of
from a small creek, a fish that surprised
the creek. Catching them was half the fun.
and delighted my older brother and me. But
You took a gamble each time you followed
more than anything I recall the moments
one of the twisting trails in the sand: You
never knew which end of the trail concealed
then all of the tension as we pulled it out
type of fishing you are doing, and who you
the bug. Cupped in our hands, the large
of the water and cranked it slowly up to our
are with—I have paid a lot more attention
gomphids would continue to try to burrow,
stronghold, laughing like crazy and hoping
to each fish. Maybe it’s because, as a fly
tickling and pushing between our fingers
the line would hold. For some reason we
fisherman, I don’t catch as many these
with surprising strength. On a small hook
always felt that the chance of it getting off,
days, so each one seems more special. But
with a split shot above them, they were
or of the line breaking, increased the closer
maybe it’s also because I know I won’t see
absolutely deadly.
it got to us. This time the line held.
it again. You tell yourself that you will see other fish—even others of the same size,
Not all of the fish we spotted from atop
Pumpkinseeds are a glorious bright orange,
weight, and color—but you won’t see that
the rock were bluegill, although most of
red, and green. This one seemed to glow.
one again. Yes, there are occasions and
them were at least bream, a Southern
For some reason we released it, something
stories of repeat encounters, but for most
word that to us meant anything shaped
we usually didn’t do. We even climbed down
of us, most of the time, each encounter is
like bluegill. From our vantage point on
from the top of the rock instead of tossing
a one-time event, a hello and a goodbye. It
Elephant Rock, we could only see the backs
it from above, which was our usual method
makes me take a closer look at each fish
of the fish, which looked like small, dark
back then. Those days of fishing with my big
now. At least, I think that’s why I do it. When
green torpedoes. Even from far above we
brother—using hand-caught sand diggers
you know you are about to lose something
could tell some of them were thick, heavy
and plastic red and white bobbers yanked
precious, it takes on new meaning. Its colors
fish that would be a prize to catch. One
down by fish so suddenly we could hear
grow brighter.
of them went for the sand digger and
them go under—are in a part of my mind I
was hoisted up to the top of the rock: a
visit regularly. Anyhow, it was a beautiful
large male pumpkinseed, maybe the most
fish.
unheralded of freshwater fish and certainly
*** It’s the same way with people. From the
one of the prettiest. I remember watching
Since catch-and-release has more or less
day she was born I knew she was my only
the fight from above, the darting and diving
become the law of the land—depending,
daughter, knew she was a rare and beautiful
and turning sideways to avoid capture, and
to some extent, on where you are, what
gift, knew that she was a once-in-a-lifetime
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child. But even though you know the clock
rode enough with her. Certainly not as often
is ticking, you manage to convince yourself
as we’d planned to. I helped her learn to
it might last forever. I remember saying
drive, but I don’t remember showing her how
“this is the perfect age” when she was six
to change the oil. There are just so many
months old, and again when she was one,
things I have not done with her. Books read,
and then again at two, three, four, and five,
but thousands more unread. Stories told,
and on through to today, when she is for all
but many more untold. Trails not yet hiked,
practical purposes an adult. I can honestly
lizards not yet caught. Promises to return to
say I didn’t take any of it for granted. I am
a favorite campsite again that I realize now
proud of that. We have always had, still
will not be kept. All in all, I think that I was
have, a close and loving relationship. It is
basically a good dad, and I told her probably
something I cherish beyond words. But now
more often than was necessary that I loved
she is suddenly a high school senior, and
her, and I meant it, and she knew I did. But
we’re looking at colleges, and the calendar is
can you ever really say it enough, show it
something I have to avoid looking at. I knew
enough? When you realize you’re about to
this time would come. I just didn’t believe it.
lose someone, even when you know that someone is going to be fine—possibly even
You can’t keep from having doubts at times
better off—it hurts. A lot. And you realize
like this. You tell yourself that she’s got the
that parenting, too, is a one-time event.
ON THE OTHER HAND, SHE HASN’T LEFT HOME YET, AND HERE I AM SEVERAL HUNDRED MILES AWAY STARING AT A TROUT, WHEN I COULD BE SPENDING THE FEW HOURS WE HAVE LEFT TOGETHER.
basics down pat, and other people tell you she’s a wonderful child. And you agree, of
You can beat yourself up pretty badly
course, although to be honest, in my case I
thinking like this. On one hand, there’s no
feel I had precious little to do with it. That
sense in worrying about it now, because
them. I have taken lots of photographs
my job was mostly to get out of the way
there’s nothing you can do about it. I just
of beautiful things, beautiful places, and
and let nature take its course. She seemed
hope I’ve done enough. On the other hand,
beautiful people, but the best ones never
awfully good to begin with, and I didn’t want
she hasn’t left home yet, and here I am
really show up on film. Beautiful things
to screw things up too badly by intervening.
several hundred miles away staring at a
simply do not last long. Maybe it’s the fact
Most good things are not improved by
trout, when I could be spending the few
that they cannot last long that makes them
messing with them.
hours we have left together.
so wonderfully beautiful.
But you do wonder about the things you did
We are a complex and confusing species.
I am kneeling on the grass, and I don’t know
and said. Even more about the things you didn’t do or say. I used to sing songs and
if I have knelt to examine the fish more ***
read books to her at night, but I’m not sure
closely or if something has brought me to my knees. Either way, it isn’t lost on me
they were the best ones—or even good ones,
that in moments of greatest appreciation
for that matter. There were just so many to
The fish on the bank has begun to look
we are often kneeling. The fish is firm,
choose from. I did take her fishing—even fly
at me as if I’ve forgotten my part of the
chilly, glorious beyond words, and I cradle it
fishing once—but she didn’t seem to care for
bargain, which of course I have. I’m still in
gently and lower it into the water between
it much. Of course, if I had not accidentally
some kind of sensory shock. I want nothing
two small clumps of weeds. The water is
tossed her into the creek (attempting to
more at this moment than to reach out and
far colder than I remember from just a few
give her a piggyback ride out to the large
claim it, show it to the rest of the world,
moments ago when I netted the fish, and it
dry rock in mid-stream), her memory of
somehow make it mine forever. Probably
stings the backs of my hands. I bend over a
that trip might be more pleasant. Maybe I
some of the old hunter-gatherer instincts
little further to make sure the back of the
should have pushed a little harder, because
are kicking in, or some misplaced sense of
trout is covered by water and hold it for a
it seems so unlikely to me that someone
pride and ownership. But with trout, as with
few seconds. I remove my hands, and the
would not be fascinated with fly fishing. But
all wild things, the color starts to fade as
fish is suspended in the water, not moving,
I didn’t.
soon as they’re taken from wherever they’re
perhaps surprised by the sudden freedom.
supposed to be. It gets worse the longer
There is that one shining moment when
She enjoyed watching me tie flies, marveling
they’re kept from returning. At times it
the world seems to stop. I stop breathing.
and laughing at each new creation. She did
seems obvious—and completely unfair—that
The fish hangs there for just a second, an
not express much interest in the shotgun,
the most beautiful things in life are all so
eternity, a heartbeat, a lifetime.
and on that one I didn’t push either. I taught
damned ephemeral. Even the best camera
her how to ride a bike, but I don’t feel like I
with the fastest shutter cannot capture
And then she’s gone.
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in
PRaise
Does size matter? Not in a duck blind. Words by E. Donnall Thomas Jr. Photos by Don and Lori Thomas
84
The world’s intertidal zones—those
fresh water. Waxing and waning with
to end. As a longtime resident of the
elongated ribbons of habitat where
the tides, constantly shifting salinity
Pacific Coast, the sight of the sun rising
land and sea intersect and trade places
gradients produce unrivaled biodiversity.
from the sea, while initially disorienting,
every day—are magical. I have enjoyed
I love spending time in coastal marshes,
eventually confirms my presence in an
them in many variations over the years:
especially when I’m carrying a shotgun
exotic location. This morning, the flood
favorite bonefish water; the grass
and accompanied by a Labrador retriever.
of pinks and oranges slowly spreading
flats where I used to stalk bears with
across the eastern horizon makes me
my bow every spring on the Alaska
Today, Lori and I are sitting quietly in
imagine God controlling the process
Coast; the sandy Cook Inlet beaches
one such location on the Texas Gulf
with a rheostat.
we used to land on every spring when
Coast, clad in lightweight clothing even
minus tides allowed us to celebrate
though we just celebrated Christmas.
Then there is the neo-tropical birdlife,
surviving winter by digging buckets of
We’ve finished tossing decoys onto the
appearing and disappearing through
razor clams. These ecological niches
water’s mirrored surface, and except for
the wispy layer of fog blanketing the
become even more complex and inviting
two incongruous fake snow geese, all
water. While it’s still too early to see
when a nearby river mouth creates
are meant to imitate green-winged teal.
color, I can identify most of these
a brackish marsh by adding a third
The wait for legal shooting light passes
old friends by sound and silhouette:
component to the mix of land and sea:
so pleasantly that I almost hate for it
spoonbills, skimmers, ibises, a panoply
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of
teal
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UNPREDICTABLE, ERRATIC BEHAVIOR IS ANOTHER TEAL HALLMARK. ONE NEVER KNOWS JUST WHAT A FLOCK OF TEAL WILL DO NEXT, AND I SUSPECT THE TEAL DON’T EVEN KNOW THEMSELVES.
of egrets and herons I won’t be able to sort
I admit that size does matter in some
out until the light level rises. Large flocks
outdoor endeavors. My enthusiasm for big
of snow geese are gabbling somewhere out
fish on the end of a fly line has led me to
in the bay, although the chances that any
focus on salmon, steelhead, and saltwater.
will visit us are slim. No matter; I’ve come to
While I’m not a trophy hunter and have
hunt teal.
been open about my disdain for record
books and “scores,” given a choice between
“Check your watch,” Lori suddenly instructs
a six-point bull elk and a spike I’ll probably
me from her side of the blind. I have to
shoot the big one, if for no other reason
salute her focus, for left to my own devices
than the increased number of meals it will
I might daydream my way right past the
provide.
onset of shooting light.
One of the pleasures of wingshooting is that
“Time to load up,” I acknowledge. The
shotguns and bird dogs relieve us of such
metallic sound of shotgun actions opening
concerns altogether. A quail is a quail, a
punctuates the gentle murmur of the
pheasant is a pheasant, and—at least in my
marsh, followed by the clink of brass
mind, although others might dispute it—a
against steel as shells drop into chambers.
duck is a duck despite the size difference
I glance around to be sure the dog isn’t
between a teal and a mallard.
misbehaving—unnecessarily as it turns out,
for Rosy, our female yellow Lab, has known
This piece is simply a reflection upon
what was up ever since we entered the
my lifelong passion for hunting teal.
blind, and she’s sitting motionless beside
Because I love to eat them—especially
me, patiently scanning the sky.
blue wings, one of our tenderest, most
succulent waterfowl—I sometimes wish
Now we’re hunting ducks at last.
there was more meat to them, but other characteristics compensate for this minor
***
shortcoming. If a group of teal and a flock of mallards drift into the decoys—I’m shooting for the teal.
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Or at least shooting at them, for their speed
finished with my first. This practice saves
and erratic flight patterns make them
ammunition and avoids embarrassment
one of our most challenging waterfowl on
while making clean doubles a source of
the wing. Teal seldom work decoy spreads
satisfaction. Teal also influence my choice of
warily, like mallards or pintails. Instead,
shotguns on mornings when I anticipate lots
they are apt to arrive within shotgun
of them: Because teal are easy to kill if you
range unannounced save for the sound of
can hit them and most shots come at close
air rushing through their extended flight
range, a light, short-barreled gun serves
primaries. Encounters between teal and
better than one designed for power and
hunters tend to be brief and awkward, like
long range. I do a lot of teal shooting with a
adolescent sex in the backseat of a car.
20-gauge.
To compound the difficulty, teal usually
arrive in tight little flocks that shatter in
Even good shots have bad days, and my
multiple directions the moment a shotgun
absolute worst came courtesy of blue-
barrel rises. As a result, the hunter must
winged teal on the opening day of a
concentrate on isolating one bird from many
Montana prairie duck season long ago.
while swinging at crazy angles faster than
Generous rains that year had created a large
other puddle ducks demand.
wetland where none usually existed, and its
towering cattails had grown higher than my
When shooting teal, I’ve trained myself not
head. I’d set up in a half-acre opening in the
to think about my second barrel until I’m
reeds, and teal started flying at first light.
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Blue wings are always the first waterfowl to depart that remote corner of the Central Flyway in the fall. The birds I encountered that morning must have been staging for migration, since they were present in greater numbers than I had ever seen there and flying nonstop around the marsh. As light broke, teal came zooming by at high speed just over the tops of the reeds. As soon as they entered the airspace that I could see, they were almost gone—and damned if I could drive my barrels ahead of them before they disappeared. I shot holes in the sky until I’d gone through a whole box of shells and left carrying a duck dinner that could have been featured in a Weight Watchers cookbook. Fortunately, the only witness was my Lab, who already knew that what happens in the marsh stays in the marsh. Unpredictable, erratic behavior is another teal hallmark. One never knows just what a
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flock of teal will do next, and I suspect the teal don’t even know themselves. Another episode from the old days neatly illustrates this characteristic, in what became known as the Affair of the Sacrificial Lamb. Dick, Ray, and I—accompanied by Ray’s Chessie and my Lab—had spent a long day enjoying the smorgasbord of hunting opportunities the Montana prairie offers in October. We had shot limits of sharptails by mid-morning, subsequently supplemented by a number of pheasants and Huns. The only reason we headed for home before dark was that one of us had added an antelope to the bag, and although winter weather lay just around the corner it was still too hot to leave a big game carcass in the truck all afternoon. We were bouncing down one of the area’s unnamed backroads when I spotted a flock of teal resting near the lee end of a small reservoir. The idea of adding some waterfowl to our mixed bag proved too tempting to resist. But we faced a major problem: There wasn’t a lick of cover anywhere near the pond, and approaching within shotgun range looked impossible. Like most ranch ponds in the area, however, this one owed its existence to an old earthen dam at the end opposite the teal, and a steep little coulee ran downhill from there. After studying the lie, I hatched a plan: Two of us would drive down the road, walk up the draw undetected, and hide behind the dam while the third ambled down to the other end of the water and flushed the teal over the others’ heads. Brilliant. We needed a Sacrificial Lamb, though, and no one volunteered. I don’t know how our hunting ancestors worked these problems out before the invention of paper and scissors, but they must have experienced a lot of all-rock ties. After a couple of “One, Two, Three, Shoots,” we had the problem solved: Dick and I headed for the coulee and the dam, while Ray became the Sacrificial Lamb. Fifteen minutes later, Dick and I were in
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TWO HOURS LATER, WE HAD NEARLY FILLED OUR DUCK LIMITS WITH NOTHING BUT GREEN WINGS. THE FOG HAD CLEARED, AND THE MARSH LAY BATHED IN GOLDEN SUNLIGHT.
place. Enough brush grew on the top of
ducks on the table, and I still love to hunt
the dam for me to watch the plan unfold
them despite the humiliation I suffered at
without revealing our presence to the ducks.
their hands on that long-ago prairie opener.
“Get ready!” I urged Dick as I saw Ray hiking
Because of their early migration south I
across the grass with his shotgun over his
don’t get to hunt them as much as I’d like,
shoulder and his Chessie at heel, looking as
but I always make an effort to get out to
ridiculous as I’ve ever seen a capable hunter
local potholes early in the season just to
look. “Here they come!” I announced as the
shoot blue wings.
teal took to the air.
Most of the teal I shoot these days are green
Except, they didn’t. Ignoring the script,
wings. The FWS data cited above estimated
they made a tight turn halfway down the
a continental population of 3.2 million green
pond and flew right over Ray, who doubled
wings, which is currently increasing and well
smoothly. A few minutes later we were
above the LTA. The first duck I ever shot
standing together near the waterline,
was a green wing taken over 60 years ago
heaping Ray with verbal abuse while the
while I crouched behind a farm pond dam
dogs recovered the fallen birds. However, the
in northern New York as my Dad flushed
story of the Sacrificial Lamb wasn’t over yet.
the bird by me. (That must have been the
origin of the game plan for the Affair of the
As it happened, Dick had just acquired a new
Sacrificial Lamb.) I’ve had a soft spot in my
shotgun—a fancy double by our standards—
heart for them ever since.
that neither Ray nor I had yet examined.
“Let me take a look at your new gun,” Ray
The cinnamon teal is in many respects
said to Dick as we braced for the arrival of
an outlier among the three. Although its
the two wet dogs. Ray handed his empty
population is stable, it is considerably
gun to Dick, who gave his to Ray to look
less abundant than other teal, with an
over. I had unloaded my shotgun after our
estimated North American population
brilliant plan unraveled, but Dick had not
below half a million. While other teal are
unloaded his.
found from coast to coast, the cinnamon
teal’s range is limited to the West. Unlike
Of course, that’s when the flock of teal
our other puddle duck species, it maintains
decided to return to the pond by flying right
a separate breeding population in South
down the pipe in front of us. Ray, holding
America, the only place I’ve ever hunted
the only loaded gun among us, doubled
them.
again. “Nice shotgun,” he allowed, as he ejected the spent shells and the dogs went
That happened incidentally on a fishing
crashing back into the water. The moral of
trip to Argentina, where they are known as
this story is that if you have a chance to be
colorados (Spanish for “reds”). On the few
the Sacrificial Lamb on a teal hunt, take it.
occasions when I encountered one at home
during hunting season, its striking plumage
Three species of teal inhabit North America.
and ruby-red eye left me too transfixed to
Although it’s easy to lump them together
shoot. They just seemed too uncommon and
mentally and consider them as one, subtle
beautiful. However, they were all over the
differences among the three are worth
Argentine marsh I hunted on that trip, and
noting.
I indulged in the opportunity to shoot some with a clear conscience. By the way, they
Blue wings are the most abundant, with a
tasted great.
2019 continental population estimated at
5.4 million birds by the Fish and Wildlife
Despite the attraction I feel for them, most
Service (FWS). Despite a modest recent
of the teal I shoot during a typical season
downward trend, this figure is still above
in Montana, Washington, or Alaska—the
the Long-Term Average (LTA). Blue wings
three states where I do most of my duck
rank with pintails as my favorite puddle
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hunting—come incidentally (early season
re-establishing my tarnished reputation as a
bathed in golden sunlight. Suddenly, I looked
local blue wings excepted). When I really
gentleman—and saw one bird tumble before
up and saw two lost snow geese hovering
want to enjoy a serious, focused teal hunt, I
turning my attention to the rest of the
over the decoys. I still don’t know how they
head to South Texas.
flock, which departed three birds shy of its
arrived undetected, but we killed them both
initial number. Rosy’s time had come at last.
with easy shots.
***
Three of the downed teal lay dead in the
Snow geese, Dall’s sheep, winter ptarmigan,
The first flock of green wings came roaring
decoys, but the fourth bird was churning
and someone’s famous whale: Pure white is
suddenly out of the fog as if they had
for the security of the dense cover on the
a rare color scheme in wildlife, and as Rosy
mounted a surprise attack on our decoys.
far side of the pond. Using a combination of
retrieved the second goose I left my gun
Lori only got her shotgun halfway to her
whistle and hand signals, I directed the dog
empty and took a minute to appreciate the
shoulder, and the best I could do was knock
past the three downed ducks we didn’t need
first bird’s virginal plumage. The geese had
down the last bird in line with my first
to worry about. When she finally spotted
been a welcome bonus, and they probably
barrel. Quivering on the seat beside me,
the faint V of the swimming bird’s wake, she
doubled the weight of the bag hanging on
Rosy made no secret of her readiness to
kicked the pace of her pursuit into overdrive
the duck strap.
launch, but I kept her in place with a few
and was soon bobbing for apples as the
soft words while I reloaded. “Stay ready,” I
duck dove repeatedly in attempts to evade
They weren’t the high point of the morning,
advised Lori. “I just saw more teal coming
her. Rosy hadn’t lost a bird all season, and
however. That honor belonged to the
out of the sunrise.”
her streak remained intact throughout the
excitement, tough shooting, and challenging
morning.
dog work the teal provided.
That glimpse provided us with a few
additional seconds to prepare for the second
Two hours later, we had nearly filled our
Size doesn’t matter in a duck blind. I rest my
flock’s arrival, and we made the most of
duck limits with nothing but green wings.
case.
them. I deferred the first shot to my wife—
The fog had cleared, and the marsh lay
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THERE IS
A RIVER Words by Jake Smith Photos by Chip Laughton
There is a river I remember. I suppose I never forgot it. It was there but not there. It existed in the background. It was the setting for a fight with a feisty brown trout. It was where I stood listening to a whip-poor-will as mayflies filled the evening sky. It was what the doe and her new fawn drank from, feet away from where I sat waiting for a trout to rise.
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The river was there but not there. A part of the experience, but a part that drifted away with time. With changing jobs and moving vans. With family and kids and bills and dance recitals and Little League. With life. Until all that remained were memories. I’m not sure what made me think of the river—or more specifically, that particular stretch I came to know so intimately many years ago. That section holds stories. My stories. It seemed I spent every free moment during that time sloshing up and down the river getting to “my spot,” brandishing the rod and line like a bullwhip. Or creeping around the deep, shadowy bend to where a fat little brook trout always lingered along a submerged log, lovesick for a No. 14 brown soft-hackle. Lovesick. Maybe that’s the word. Maybe that’s what my time away from the river has me feeling. During that younger time, I knew every hole, every boulder, and every log, and I marked the years by how the trout grew. One year, the splash underneath the overhanging willows coughed up a 12inch brown trout. The next year, he was 14 inches and slurping. The year after he stretched to 16, his take a gentle sip. When I slipped him back into the water, I didn’t know it would be the last time I saw him and his glistening, regal blue gill plate. It probably wasn’t the same fish, year after year, but I like to think so. That stretch provided me with one of the most surreal natural experiences I’ve ever witnessed, when thousands of fireflies chose that particular midnight to revel under a moonless sky. Where the river bends in a wide U, I stopped on my walk back to the truck and stared, breathless, awash in a storm of stars raining from the night. On another night a 19-inch brown trout emerged from the slick run trailing behind a sagging cedar bough and gave
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me the fight of my life on my little fly rod. Hemingway might have smirked, but he was my marlin. All alone at night—just the bugs and me and this giant. When I finally landed him and let him go, 60 yards downstream from where we began, my knees gave way. And I sat on the bank. And closed my eyes. And listened. And I heard the river. I really heard the river. And then I left for college. For another city. To meet my future wife. To gain the skills for my future. To grow up and become a responsible adult for my future family. The fish grew bigger in my memory, the fights fiercer, battles between beast and man. Thick tails thrashed the water’s surface into an explosion of diamonds. The fly line danced in a ballet around my head, forward and back, perfect loops shooting straight out to delicately set a fly on the
riffle. And the colors and the motion and the light morphed into the soft hues of a watercolor painting. The river faded into a blur—a time-lapse photo of whitewash flowing over mossy boulders and logs, cutting its path through a valley of majestic pines. There but not there. When the urge to fly fish struck, it existed as a bang-for-your buck proposition: a mess of panfish for visiting relatives. Night hatches when the big ones emerged from under cutbanks to blitz the surface. A tussle with a salmon or steelhead that left me bruised and humbled and cold. Fly fishing retained its grandeur, but the ends became more important than the means: a fish in a pan. A photo for a frame. A crossed-off line on a bucket list. The dance of fly fishing—elegant rods and fish and flies and deception and skill—
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stumbled because it had fallen silent. There was no beat, no rhythm. No song. There is a river I hear. It is at once familiar and foreign. It is the riff of a trendy new beat and an ancient symphony echoing from within the secret places inside. It is unlike anything else the world plays, yet it combines all the world offers. It starts low, like the first deep tremors of a cello, leaving the impression of stirrings in the dark. It is an awakening from slumber, a winter-to-spring change, a night breaking into day. Just a tremor—soft to begin and then quickening, louder, crescendoing in the break of the surface and harmonizing in the currents. There are no words, just a haunting chorus giving texture and depth; memories swirl one into the next, drawing me deeper. Landscapes shift, come into focus, and then dissolve in a million sparkles of sunlight. It forces me to stop what I’m doing. For a moment, the memory of the river becomes the only memory I have. The fish are gone. The bugs are gone. All of the stunning wildlife and serene landscapes are gone. There is only the river. I have no choice but to listen. It is all I care to do. The symphony plays, and I am the subject in the watercolor, the stationary object in the blurry, time-lapse photo. Perhaps the legend of the sirens and their irresistible song luring sailors to their doom is true. They took, but they never gave—at least not what the ill-fated Greek or Roman expected to receive. But this is the most perfect siren, for this one truly gives, and it lets me leave, allowing me to take its song with me, for however long I’m away. During years spent walking a different path in life, months of the off-season, or untold
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duties of daily life, the song lingers beneath the memories. Whispering. And in those whispers, the nostalgia carries me back to my river, to my stretch, to my spot, and I see that the song has been there—always there, waiting for me to listen again. There is a river I return to. I could’ve visited it before, maybe to see how clear the water was, or to have lunch with the family and let the dog paddle around. I could have just sat and watched it flow. But then I’m simply an observer. Some kind of overseer. Yep, there’s the river, and it looks healthy, and this feels good. When I observe, I’m distant. I’m not a part of the equation. I need to go to the river with a purpose, to participate in the dance. Only when wading into the experience will I hear the nuances of the song. It is called balance; not balance as in steadiness or stability or equilibrium, but coherence, agreement, and harmony.
Balance as in realizing that even though I may feel insignificant, there is still a role for me: one that I must be prepared to play. Ever since the song stirred, I find myself wholly unprepared. The old ways kick in, the focus on the means and the hows and the stuff. Twenty-year-old fly-tying materials remarkably still do their job: The Royal Wulff’s wings are too long and skinny, but the red sash sure looks pretty against the iridescent peacock herl. Cracked fly line is replaced, the smelly salmon vest retired, and the tags clipped off a new one. Which means nips, forceps, tippet, leader, dry fly goop, flashlight, net, box for dries, box for soft hackles, box for nymphs and streamers, retractable reels, pouch for Band-Aids, and maybe one hideaway flask pocket for a nip while waiting for the hatch of sulphurs. And finally, light trout waders. No more sweltering in the neoprenes.
This preparation feels good—it’s tangible and real. In my hands. For a moment, I think: This is good enough. I’m back, because I’m ready. But I have not truly returned until I melt into the marsh marigolds or nestle down into the prairie grass or find a deadfall along the bank and quiet myself. The song of the river takes center stage. It is no longer some symphony in my mind—it doesn’t erupt with cymbals upon a rainbow’s rise or play like an eager violin to accompany line stripping from the reel. It is now simply itself. It is in the pools and riffles and eddies. Over bottoms of silt and pebbles and flat slabs of limestone. In the rush and the bubbling. All around me. One by one, the weights are lifted. The river doesn’t wash away all of the things of life that have occupied me; rather, it gives them
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new meaning. The Little League games and dance recitals, the office meetings and school functions, the in-law get-togethers and all-too-infrequent date nights with my wife: They don’t disappear beneath the song of the river. Like the boulders and deadfalls and the dance of fly fishing, they are a part of the river, for they accompany me to the bank where I sit and listen. The river—the song it plays for those who truly hear it—is both predictable and unpredictable. It is time and non-time. It exists now in the riffle across from me, in the before upstream, and in the whatis-to-come downstream. And it takes this great big tangled world and stretches it out, reducing it to something simple. Something basic. It’s a song that plays to our just being. It doesn’t matter if it’s a brown trout slurping in the bubble line, or if I’m waiting for a hatch. It doesn’t matter if I’m alongside a mountain creek, or a wide ribbon of water under a big sky, or a stream snaking through a primeval forest. It only matters that it’s my river, my stretch, my spot. It only matters that I am there.
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Author’s Note: The photos are by my friend, the late Chip Laughton, of Days Afield Photography. Sadly, the outdoor world lost Chip suddenly in 2019, depriving the hunting and fishing community of seeing the new images he
would have captured. But Chip lives on in those moments he froze so beautifully; and I know that somewhere, he is sitting on the bank, waiting for a brook trout to rise, and watching the river flow.
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ODE TO THE CAST OF INTIMATE PLACES By Noah Davis I was halfway into a mouthful of Hungarian partridge that had been sautéed in shallots, tomatoes, and balsamic vinegar before being shredded and spooned onto toasted discs of baguette, when author David James Duncan introduced me to a friend of his. “Andrew, this is Noah Davis—a man who bow-and-arrow casts, which is a ridiculous cast for ridiculous people.” The red wine in his cup swayed dangerously close to the lip. He turned against the glee of himself, stepped back across the room, and hooted with a grin. His teasing was born from a privileging of other casts and the comfort of western expanse. On Montana rivers, a backcast is forgotten like winter in July. Even on the small streams I frequent here west of the Continental Divide, I can live comfortably between ten and two. Sometimes in the stupor of space I can sag to three o’clock and still never hook a length of streamside grass. But I was not born among waters that host helpful casting lanes: The small streams of the Allegheny Front in Pennsylvania demanded scraped knees and elbows, crawling through claustrophobic rhododendron thickets, and finding pools just large enough to fit a single trout. Most days wading up these thin runs, the full reels wrapped with 30 yards of fly line felt
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like the equivalent of packing a .50 caliber for squirrel hunting. It was in these narrow hollows that I understood the necessity for slight motions in cramped spaces. Felt the error and anger that comes from long rods and more than two feet of line slipping from the final guide. Discovered where the demarcation between hunting and fishing blurs. Connected the soft water behind a rock and the soft muscle behind a deer’s shoulder. Fly fishing has always been about tension: the tension of the line when casting, the tension of the fish to your hook and tippet, the tension water holds against hackle. The bow-and-arrow cast brings that tension to your ear, dangerously close to the soft lobe and ridged cartilage. A dangerous bend in the rod. So much beauty is found in tension. The opportunity for beauty is stitched to that arch. But beauty isn’t guaranteed. Anyone who has attempted the cast or taught others the cast has seen his line flaccidly drop to the water. The thin leader slipping through the fingers too early, the aim not true, a bit of leaf spinning the fly down to the angler’s boot. When the cast does unfurl like a fern, line spearing toward the space destined by your rod tip, and the gaudy dry fly lands near
the head of the pool, the beauty is fully realized. A balance of time and tension meeting in a moment when a fish may rise. An intimate attraction here in the cramped corner of the mountain. And the brook trout. The tiny blue-haloed gods of these coldwater worlds demand placement along the seam or corner where they may rise and give us a glimpse into the wet we constantly probe. A gift of a moment shared that is precious in its finitude becomes more precious every passing May. These beings are what pull me higher on the mountain, deeper into the brush. This cast has carried me higher and higher to the birth of these streams, to places that demand the angler shape himself to the lattice of limbs and unsteadiness of stream stone. The crack on the plateau where water belches up from the ground and begins its long flow to the valley—where the cold of the mountain slowly spills out. David told me last week that he knows where to find some brookies. He suggests a roll cast. Says he’ll hoot at my bow-andarrow and spook all the fish. I’ll find some streams on my own with enough shade to cloak my shape. Some tiny opening for me to send a fly to a small fish in waiting.
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“Watching a good fly drift is like watching a bird dog that knowns what it’s doing. You have faith.” — Datus Proper, Running Waters Far up in the Gore Range north of Vail, Colorado, Hyde (yes, named after the iconic drift boat company) get’s his first whiff and taste of a wild brookie. Photo: Tim Romano
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the next generation
Ask a group of experienced anglers to name the greatest dry fly rod of all time, and the T&T Paradigm is sure to be mentioned more than once. Over twenty years later, we’ve followed the same inspiration that made the original into a legend to create a new Paradigm for the 21st century.
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