After I spring for the plane ticket to Chile, I tell my friends there, all of them professional flyfishing guides, the most important things are to see everyone, eat good food and drink good wine together. Not that I will pass up any opportunity to go fishing, but the months of border closures have left […]

As Osmany ran the skiff across the gulf toward a little channel where dead mangroves merged with new, the boat began to slide and fall in colossal swells. When a dot of trees finally came into view, Osmany radioed Yadian, whose skiff was coming in behind ours.  “Yadian, háblame!” he said, lighting a cigarette under […]

The African night stretched to infinity beyond the tip of my 12-weight. Our fourth night wading this untamed beach had yielded nothing but a steady stream of blood leaking from my right heel, the rich plasma broadcasting my presence to patrolling sharks like an overzealous waiter trying to sell the evening special.  “Hey Teddy,” I […]

Dave Downing picked me up at the Glasgow Airport at 8 a.m. Two hours later, I stood in the middle of the River Clyde in a setting that could be mistaken for an 18th-century oil painting alongside Downing, a former world championship angler on the National Scottish Fly Fishing team and a well-known fly tier […]

Spring my ass. When I left Houston, it was 92 degrees. Landing in Minneapolis a hair after 10 p.m., it’s a lovely 36 degrees and raining. I throw my gear in the back of Hansi Johnson’s 4Runner and we head to the southeast corner of the state, stopping only at a gas station for the […]

Occasionally, someone will ask what it costs to get into flyfishing. I’m always hesitant to answer. Like most things, the reply is invariably, “it depends.” And I’m reluctant to add up how much money I’ve spent on gear and travel.  But there’s also worth. While price can be quantified, worth is a calculation of price […]

Once my grandmother watched a moose give birth in the woods. People do not believe this. Impossible! What are the chances? My grandmother’s odds of seeing the extraordinary were higher than most. She spent a lifetime in the mixed deciduous-coniferous forest of central Ontario. When you put in as many hours on the trail as […]

“Today is your day. Fish or don’t fish.”  We were standing outside a gas station under the roof covering the pumps, trying to stay out of the pouring rain. The river I passed on the way to the meet was rising—off color and moving fast. I’d come a long way to fish the Varmá and […]

Making my way through the Marshall Islands International Airport’s open-air structure, I can see other passengers, mostly nationals, visible outside the customs entry, lined up on the tarmac for an unexpected security measure. Health care workers garbed in personal protective equipment are screening each traveler before allowing entry. Caught off guard, this is the first […]

My first experience with Atlantic salmon lasted a week. I covered beautiful and unfamiliar water for the better part of each day—every day except Sunday—and did not hook a fish. It was exactly the kind of fishing I like best—a puzzle with cryptic clues. And when I wasn’t standing in the river, fumbling every third […]