After fifteen minutes, three fly changes and a complete rotation of casters the plan was looking dubious.
For months we had our fingers crossed. Eying snow reports and talking to the few who had been in the mountains, we were cautiously optimistic. Despite a big snow year we had a shot at hitting it right. A few days too early and ice would cover the high alpine lakes we hoped to, Read More
Thirty feet below a fish slowly cruised the bank. Quietly stripping line I prepared to cast. The bug landed just around a rock a few feet in front of the fish. Working lazily the fish noticed the fly and casually gulped it from the surface. Earlier, Matt had cracked the code. I had hooked, Read More
Once, as a young boy, I asked my father to race me from his office to his car. The instant he said no, I was struck by a startling realization. Dad never ran, at least not spontaneously or without purpose. Nor for that matter did any of the grown-ups in my life. It, Read More
For months we had our fingers crossed. Eying snow reports and talking to the few who had been in the mountains, we were cautiously optimistic. Despite a big snow year we had a shot at hitting it right. A few days too early and ice would cover the high alpine lakes we hoped to, Read More
In the past two years Stalking the Seam has introduced Steven and me to a host of new friends and prompted a pile of adventures. Sometimes, when really firing on all cylinders, it manages both at the same time. Such was the case in early June of 2014 when Louis Cahill of Gink and, Read More
You don’t ask about them in polite company, not directly. Bustling barroom chatter falls silent at their mention. A clumsily cast question will land flinty stares and a second will get you shown the door. In a culture – hunters and anglers – that is notoriously tight lipped about its honey-holes… “He’s a beaut, Read More
Cherry cheeks, gaudy red flanks, a painted belly and that alluring blue aura, this fish cruised the bank like a super-model on a catwalk. Who knew that golden trout could strut?…
Coastal fisheries are ruled by the tides. High in the northern Rockies though, the productivity of an outing can be made or broken by timing the snowline. Unlike the tides, no reliable lunar cycle can forecast the elevation and condition of the snowpack. Rather you have to cobble together your own charts from investigatory day, Read More
The brookies come first. Proud, native and prized east of the Mississippi, brook trout teem in many Rocky Mountain watersheds to the point of infestation. What they lack in status, stature or exclusivity though, they make up for in volume and accessibility. You don’t have to blister your feet or wrack your brain to, Read More