Fly Fishing Stories
The Big Muddy is polluted. Securing the Driftless Area can help clean it.
Wild trout populations in Southwest Montana have collapsed. Save Wild Trout says enough is enough.
Those with the most to lose are uniting to save the Northwest’s salmon and steelhead.
Poet Cameron Keller Scott reads an excerpt from his piece, A River’s Own Name. View a video excerpt of A River’s Own Name at the link below. I. Valley Maker Suppose one day we were to wake up and understand the name of a river. Not the names we’ve given, but the name it asks us to…
The toughest fish you’ll ever catch could knock a few minutes off your finish time at Flyathlon, a backcountry race in Colorado that combines trail running and fly fishing.
An excerpt from Dylan Tomine’s Headwaters: The Adventures, Obsession, and Evolution of a Fly Fisherman proves he was born to fish and born to write.
Tiny but mighty, herring might be the most important fish in the ocean.
Upstream of the Snake River dams in Idaho, Riggins waits for the fish to return.
Ohio’s burning river made headlines in 1969. Now, the Cuyahoga’s telling a new story.
Rule changes and the future of the Olympic Peninsula’s wild steelhead.
A Small Florida Town Was Once Host to the World’s Largest Tarpon. What Happened?
Patagonia Fly Fish releases “We Stand for the Water We Stand In” poster.
Are public lands still “public” when you can’t access them?
For a closer look at the dangers a toxic sulfur-ore copper mine poses to the more than 1,000,000 acres of backcountry in the Boundary Waters, please see our accompanying film, “A Northern Light,” (below) Encompassing more than 1,000,000 acres along the US-Canada border, the fresh water, wilderness habitat and sustainable jobs of the Boundary Waters…
Photo Essay: Waiting for the Wild on Oregon’s North Coast
Feature: Squeaky Wheels, Wild Fish and Carrot Sticks
After a century of conflict on the Columbia between salmon and dams, the fates of these two iconic energy systems are now intertwined.
Feature: An intimate canoe trip through The Boundary Waters with Nathaniel Riverhorse Nakadate.
“Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.” —William Ruckelshaus, first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency A coho salmon the size of my pinky drifts quietly in the shade. It’s hardly distinguishable from the sand below. But Marie-France Roy, a professional snowboarder who does volunteer habitat- enhancement work in her hometown…
When you lose your trout stream to climate change, where do you go to find yourself? It was late September and the creek ran clear and low out of the West Elks in southwestern Colorado. My favorite time of year: Through the V of the ravine upstream I could see the shoulders of Mount Gunnison…
I recently had the opportunity to tag along with two of the world’s leading bonefish researchers for a weekend of fishing Grand Bahama Island out of East End Lodge. Dr. Aaron Adams serves as the director of science and conservation for Bonefish & Tarpon Trust (BTT), a non-profit based in Miami whose mission is to conserve…
Fly fishing guide Ansil Saunders recalls his time in the boat with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Back in 2006, Patagonia hosted a social event in its downtown Denver retail store in conjunction with the Fly Fishing Retailer trade show. At the event, a colleague and I addressed the attendees about an emerging threat to the world’s most productive wild salmon fishery in Bristol Bay. Later that evening, I met a young…
I’m not a scientist. But I am a fisherman of more than 70 years, and I’ve seen firsthand that of the myriad threats facing cold-water fish all over the world, global warming is the most dire. Water all over the planet is heating up in response to climate change, and our cold-water fish are in…
Teaching your kids to fish is smart. Having Yvon Chouinard teach your kids to fish is genius.
As I wake, I become aware of the shovel-scraping-asphalt croak of a blue heron, or the brilliant complex cascading song of the winter wren, or the yammering calls of the kingfisher being chased by an accipiter. In the fall a flock of kinglets, moving through the trees and shrubs surrounding our camp, deliver their pure,…
Back in Tokyo, for a break. Just in need of a change, you know, “to get away from things.” Having worked hard all summer long, there couldn’t be more of a contrast between reeling in salmon on a river in Swedish Lapland and heading to Tokyo. For me, working hard means fishing hard and playing…
Professional photographer Andrew Burr reaffirms his skill set in Mongolia.
At first light, a toucan comes flying over the patio and sits in an old tree in front of the house. The bird stares at me as I have my first sip of coffee. Then another toucan lands in the tree, followed by a whole flock. I get up and snap a picture of the…
“Fish, two o’clock,” shouted Norman Chumaceiro, my guide to tarpon on the idyllic island of Curacao, 40 miles off the coast of Venezuela. “Now they’re at nine! And six. They’re everywhere!” he exclaimed. If anyone could help me come tight on a tarpon it’s Chumaceiro, who, along with his friend Albert Macares, are the only…
Both of my kids love their science classes in school, and Skyla often mentions wanting to be a marine biologist when she grows up. So when the field biologists from the Wild Fish Conservancy invited us to participate in some beach-seine sampling, as part of their project to assess juvenile salmon habitat around Puget Sound, we jumped…
On Saturday October 3, 2015, over 300 people—fishermen, Native Americans, farmers, orca lovers, business owners, students, salmon advocates, kayakers, and conservationists—took to the lower Snake River in southeastern Washington, a short distance from the Lower Granite Dam. Together, this diverse group formed the “Free the Snake Flotilla.” They were a representative slice of the movement…
The cacophonous boom of that explosion will forever resonate within me. With the flip of a switch, one hundred years of destructive history began to wash away. It was a new day—a day in which the Elwha was finally free. At long last, its waters could once again run unabated to the sea and its…
This op-ed was originally published in the Sacramento Bee on July 23, 2015. On May 7, the Yuba Salmon Partnership Initiative (YSPI) shared a plan that would create the first “trap and haul” program of its kind in California. Trap and haul involves capturing fish, putting them in trucks, and moving them up or down…
An open-pit mining boom is underway in northern British Columbia, Canada. The massive size and location of the mines—at the headwaters of major salmon rivers that flow across the border into Alaska—has Alaskans concerned over pollution risks posed to their multi-billion dollar fishing and tourism industries. These concerns were heightened with the August 4, 2014…
President Obama’s recent protection of Bristol Bay from oil and gas exploration may feel like a victory for fish and the environment, but I think it’s really about time and money. Which in this case, is just as good. Here’s why: Oil and gas reserves, as we know, are limited by however much is already…
The kids and I decided to squeeze in one last, close-to-home, weekday excursion before school started, so we headed over to the newly dam-free Elwha River for a little float. The last piece of the upper dam was removed last week, so it seemed like a good time to go see what had changed since…
“Push the button.” “No, you push the button.” “What the hell, push it Ellen!” She did. I knew I was going to be profiled as a narcotraficante even though the contraband I was trying to sneak past the customs officer was anything but drugs. In fact, it was several thousand dollars worth of fishing goodies…
![Tenkara with Yvon Chouinard and Patagonia [Updated with Video]](https://www.patagonia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/6a00d8341d07fd53ef019b04b4e343970d.jpg.webp)
My watch battery died within ten minutes of setting foot on the plane about to whisk me out of Great Falls, Montana. I should have realized it for what it was: a sign things were about to change. I had left behind an increasingly weird existence on the Missouri River front and hopped a plane…
By Here I am in the middle of the hair-pulling, eye-bulging screen time that is post production. Another 14-hour day and I need fresh air. I go for long walks under the stars and think about the night skies of the Bahamas, Iceland and Patagonia. After my last film, Breathe, I really wanted to explore…
Before reading the excerpt, see what Patagonia’s founder, Yvon Chouinard, has to say about Closer to the Ground. A note from the publisher: Why I love this book Dylan Tomine’s Closer to the Ground is a lot more than your usual tribute to local food or to a local sense of place, or how to…
On the final evening of our trip, we enjoyed a feast prepared by expert saltwater fly fisher, FFF-certified casting instructor and Veteran Anglers of New York (VANY) volunteer, David Blinken. We called it “Bahamian Thanksgiving” with native conch salad, sautéed grouper, brown rice with chicken from the Abaco Big Bird poultry farm and spiny lobster or “crawfish” tails. We…
by From “Coral Refuge, Ocean Deep,” Chapter 8 This atoll is on the way to nowhere except the crossroads of romance and adventure. Après-surf and brunch, Yvon and I board the skiff and buzz into close range; Francois kills the motor. Adrift within the lagoon’s turquoise comfort, far from the roily pass and its fish…
We understand mere fragments – of most things really, but especially of a fish called steelhead. Its nominal definition goes that it’s a rainbow trout that migrates from river to ocean and back again to spawn, like a salmon. But like most living things, after you dedicate time to deep observation, their essential superpowers transcend…
Most of our photo-centric "Picture Story" posts have been about climbing. Today, the fishing guys get in on the action with an encouraging report from one of eastern Canada's iconic salmon streams, and a family fishing operation that depends on the health of the river's fish populations: – Ed Live Release of Atlantic salmon is…
Good news to all you trout-chasers sidelined by swollen creeks this season: SoulFish2, Fish Mode from the Burl Productions is now available on DVD. Fire up the video while you're waiting for the waters to mellow out and enjoy footage from choice locations around the world. Here's a note from Burl Productions' founder and Patagonia…
Salmon are anadromous. They live mostly in the ocean, but return to distant, fresh mountain headwaters to spawn. This term that describes their biological ties to seemingly disparate environments (ocean and mountain) might just as easily describe the ways in which salmon bring together competing cultures and histories. Their power, their story, have earned salmon…
When last we left the fly-fishing filmmakers of MOTIV Fishing, they had converted a mid-'90s F250 to run on used vegetable oil and successfully crossed the Mexican border. Today, we pick up their scent in Baja as they continue traveling south in their pursuit of tight lines. Over 2500 miles behind us and we were…
It started out as an idea and later became a vision while on a trip across Argentina seven years ago. Former members of AEG Media, creators of The Trout Bum Diaries and Fish Bum Diaries DVDs, have collaborated once again to document a new expedition throughout Mexico. The crew is operating under MOTIV Fishing these…
Another installment of the Backyard Adventures for TCL readers today. This time, we're heading back East a bit, and a little back in time, to eastern Virginia in early January. Folks who live along the mid-Atlantic seaboard know this is one of the few places on earth that didn't get the memo – the one…
