SOMEWHERE IN RURAL IDAHO a salmon is nailed to a cross draped in powerlines. It’s one of the most poignant images from journalist and filmmaker Kris Millgate’s book My Place Among Fish: Misadventures on the River (Tight Line Media, 2021). The book follows Millgate’s journey documenting another journey, the 850-mile migration of Chinook salmon from […]

It’s no secret that when the stresses of life reach a breaking point, fishing is the one activity capable of returning us to a state of equilibrium.  If nothing else, Reuters journalist Eric M. Johnson’s debut novel, “Whenever a Happy Thing Falls” (Cloud Hands Press, March 2021), is a testament to that fact. While flyfishing […]

It only takes a morning and a couple cups of coffee to read through Cameron Keller Scott’s recent poetry collection, “Watershed” (Alice Greene & Co., 2019), which checks in at 35 pages. That is, it only takes a morning if you’re able to read it straight through without constantly being arrested by lines like these: […]

Flyfishers are, by the nature of their sport, collectors. Whether it’s rods, reels, flies or fishing stories, they are in a near-constant state of aggregation. Then there are those who don’t just collect: they curate. Steve Woit, fly angler of 40 years and collector for 30, took it upon himself to interview these curators and […]

STEPHEN SAUTNER’S MOST RECENT BOOK, A CAST IN THE WOODS, was published by Lyons Press in 2018. The book—an excerpt of which, “The Joys of Fishing and Fracking,” was published in Volume 10.1 of The Flyfish Journal—documents Sautner’s purchase of a small cabin in New York state, and the fishing, battles with pests and moments […]

On the outside, Stilt Houses of Texas, a new book project from author Michael J. Medrano and photographer Tim Romano, doesn’t seem like a fishing book. And it isn’t really. Its about place, residence and resilience. But the marshes these stilt houses are built on, elevated from the water and waves, also happen to be […]

The choices we make in life are everything. Sometimes we go with perceived wisdom, other times the gut or heart. There will always be lessons to learn, for such is life. I’m a fan of taking serious leaps of faith, and when I see the inherent scars, blood, or bruises left behind, I find joy […]

Peter Heller released his first novel, The Dog Stars, to much acclaim in 2012. The San Francisco Chronicle called it “ravishing.” The Wall Street Journal deemed it “extraordinary,” while the New Yorker termed it “a brilliant success.” And even while flyfishing is a major component of the book, most folks in the flyfishing world didn’t […]