An Angling Tale By Peter D. McQuade This story is available in its entirety free of charge for the first part of November. I came of age in the Idaho of the 1960s, in the company of six
Muscling in a Sturgeon Story and Photos by Emily Dymock I became oblivious of the pain shooting up my arm, as my determination to get the sturgeon on the deck of the boat took over. The pole felt
Wet-Run Research Story and Photos by Kris Millgate I’m looking at a lot of black. Black bark on the banks. Black bodies in the water. The bodies belong to snorkelers wearing dark wetsuits. They’re crawling facedown in a
Fine Fisherman, Better Storyteller By Garth Profitt On a March day in the 1950s, Rich Hines heard Billy Rosencrantz’s around-the-corner whistle and said, “Here comes Rosie.” The Hines brothers lived on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Fifth
A New Recruit among the Veterans Story and Photo by Diana Hooley We drove to Riggins to fish because as a new fisherwoman, I had searched online about where to fish in Idaho in May. When I say
My ex-boyfriend called. He wanted to go camping, and for some reason he wanted me to join him. “Umm, what’s the occasion?” I stammered.
“I just want to get out of town for a few days before classes start. We can fish the North Fork. I hear you’ve been learning to fly fish.” He waited for a reply, and I tried to imagine spending a friends-only weekend with a guy who still had a firm grip on my heart. Continue reading
My spouse Jim is an avid fisherman. Did I say avid? He’s a fanatic about fishing. When I told him I was driving down to the new Springfield Fish Hatchery for sockeye salmon to interview the manager and have a tour of the facility there, he was more than ready to accompany me. “I’ll be your photographer,” he announced. Continue reading
When I was a young girl, a friend and her family took me fishing on Warm River, about fifteen miles north of Rexburg in Fremont County. I had never been fishing before, so it was a memorable experience. Last April, on a nice day to take a drive, when it was slightly overcast and I was suffering from a bit of spring fever, I set out to see if I could find the same area I had fished so many years earlier. Continue reading
When I arrived in Idaho more than forty years ago, I swore I would not allow myself to fall prey to the allure and blandishments of fly-fishing enthusiasts. I would not yield to the mystique. I felt the whole business was too darned precious, a tad too hoity-toity. Also, fly fishing would doubtless require a pricey set of waders, a costly fly rod, a broad array of feathery insects (not cheap), and exotic volumes of arcana dating back to Sir Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton. If I were to “get involved” with this ostensibly fair maiden, it could prove risky in various ways. Instead of the reliable, stationary, bank-fishing mistress I’d courted over the years, I would find myself incessantly rambling along the banks of rivers and creeks, splashing across snot-slippery rocks in icy mountain streams. I would fall head over heels, and not necessarily in love. I would need to access an entirely different langue d’amour having to do with everything from tippets to matching the hatch, from roll-casting to where-the-hell-did-that-willow-come-from? She seemed out of my league. I could imagine myself whispering regretfully one evening as the mayflies hatched and I tied on a Light Cahill with my newly-mastered clinch knot, “This is getting too complicated.” Continue reading
I’ve got one,” Austin said quietly as I was in the middle of a cast. I looked up to see my oldest grandson standing knee-deep in the cold water, a few yards upstream from where I was fishing—and sure enough, his fly rod was bent into a big curve. He definitely had a fish on.
I was surprised that Austin was so calm. But he was a cool kid, even at eleven years old—and he remained cool in spite of the fact that he had hooked his first trout of the day. Continue reading
