The Missouri Department of Natural Resources is trying to figure out why 52,000 fish were found dead in Brush Creek just south of Kansas City. A total of 1,900 common carp, 240 silver carp, and 50,000 sunfish went belly-up throughout a ...
Fish
A Father’s Day Lesson: When the Bass Aren’t Biting
"Never curse a sunfish," my dad would say. "It could be the only thing you catch." Even as a kid, I understood the sentiment. But when I was fishing for bass, I still thought it was a ration of shit. If I couldn’t manage a largemouth, no amount of ...
Panfish Po’Boy: A Simple, Delicious Classic
If you’ve only caught one fish in your life, it was probably a panfish. Most anglers cut their teeth on bluegills, pumpkinseeds, and other little scrappers. While panfish aren’t known for being particularly challenging to catch, they're downright fun ...
Lobster Diver Grabbed, Spit Out by Whale, And Other Close Encounters
“This is how you’re going to die,” thought Michael Packàrd, a commercial lobster diver out of Provincetown, Massachusetts. "In the mouth of a whale." Packàrd guessed that he was trapped for 30 to 40 seconds before the whale spit him out in a ...
Man Overboard: What To Do When Your Fishing Guide Is a Total Asshat
I didn’t care that we had paid him for a day of fishing. He needed to go for a fucking swim and I was this close to helping his ass off the boat. There’s a bottomless well of stories that fishing guides can tell about nightmare clients. My ...
Coastal Conservation Association: Saving Florida’s Redfish and Specks
In 1977, 14 concerned anglers led by Walter Fondren gathered in a tackle shop on the Texas coast vowing to save redfish and speckled trout from being wiped out by commercial fishing. Soon after, the Texas Legislature voted the Red Drum ...
California Drought Amplifies Threat to Endangered Salmon and Steelhead
TikTok influencers aren’t the only thirsty critters in California. Thanks to the severe drought, farmers, forests, and fish are, too. This past May was the fifth-driest May and 2021, to date, is the 15th-driest year for the Golden State over the past ...
Hemingway’s Top 5 Hunting and Fishing Stories
In a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway wrote, “To me a heaven would be a big bull ring with me holding two barrera seats and a trout stream outside that no one else was allowed to fish in.” I like to think this version of heaven does ...
Fly-Fishing-Only Tournament Raises Big Money for Striped Bass
Cape Cod normally isn’t such a tightwad with its striped bass in late May. But on this particular Saturday, the only fish it seemed to give up were sub-20 inches. Or shad. This particular Saturday happened to be the Cheeky Schoolie ...
One Long Swim: Louisiana Gator Appears on Padre Island
A young alligator from Louisiana made an unexpected appearance on a Padre Island beach in South Texas this week. The gator was about three months late for Spring Break, but you can’t blame him for trying. According to Padre Island National ...
5 States That Totally Blew It With Their State Fish
When it comes to the flora, fauna, landmarks, and historical items that states designate as official symbols of their heritage or identity, some make sense and some are head-scratchers. We’ve talked about multiple states claiming the same state fish ...
Montana Biologists Stumped Over Brown Trout Decline
Brown trout numbers are dropping across southwest Montana — and biologists don’t know why. Angling pressure, warming water, and the ongoing drought could all be reasons behind that widespread decrease across many of the region’s rivers, but right ...
Huge Bluefin Tuna Caught Off New Jersey Coast
It’s been a big month for bluefin tuna off the coast of New Jersey. Internal Fixation Sportfishing boated a 99-inch giant on May 3 after a five-and-a-half-hour fight. Not to be outdone, Capts. Gerard Faccone and Robbie Radlof stuck a 104-inch torpedo ...
West Virginia Angler Lands New Muskie State Record
All it took was 15 minutes and some major luck for Chase Gibson to land a new West Virginia muskie record. The fishing guide caught the new state-record muskellunge, which weighed 39.6 pounds and measured 54 inches long, on Burnsville Lake on April ...
Fish of the Union: The Top 6 Species Claimed as State Fish
Every state lays claim to some unique animal, flower, tree, historic reference, or geological feature as uniquely their own: Idaho gems and potatoes, California gold, Florida sunshine, Georgia peaches, Michigan wolverines. While most states ...
Century-Old Sturgeon Caught in Detroit River
A 6-foot, 10-inch, 240-pound sturgeon was recently pulled from the Detroit River and recorded by biologists as one of the largest in the nation. The big female was estimated to be at least 100 years old. For context, when this fish was born, ...
Reel Warriors Reconnects Veterans Through Offshore Fishing
The pain and isolation that many veterans carry home from deployments can occupy some of the deepest parts of their being. When it comes to hope and healing, those depths can seem simply unreachable. Through offshore fishing trips, Reel ...
Off Script: Free Range Q&A With Paul Bourcq, Fly-Fishing Ambassador
The fly-fishing industry is most definitely not just for old white guys anymore. The sport is worldwide and getting younger, and it has never been more accessible or diverse as it is now. Even with the ongoing shit-show that is influencer culture, ...
What You Need to Know About Fishing Kayaks
Kayaks make an ordinary angler a fishing ninja. They’re stealthy. They can get into target-rich skinny water that a larger boat can’t reach and would be impossible to wade, and they hold all the gear you’ll need for a day on the water or a multiday ...
10 Fishing Podcasts Every Angler Should Check Out
You can’t swing a dead possum without hitting an “outdoors” podcast these days. All you need is a microphone, a laptop, a subscription to a podcast hosting service, and a half-assed idea of what you want to talk about. Okay, maybe even half of ...
Boat Building: Pat Smith’s Handcrafted Cedar-Canvas Canoes
Pat Smith’s boat shop is not a place for those with OCD. One step inside and you get the smell of Captain Black pipe tobacco, cedar sawdust, epoxy, and varnish. "A Whiter Shade of Pale" drifts from the transistor radio in the back of the ...
In Praise of Shad
Shad and shad fishing became real for me on a backwater hole in eastern North Carolina when my first buck hickory danced across the water on his tail like a miniaturized, silver-scaled tarpon. I was hooked more surely than that spawning fish ...
The Hunter Recruitment Project Introduces Veterans to Fly Fishing
Conversation the night before covered the usual bases. Everyone knew the shit that everyone else had seen and no one really wanted to rehash most of it anyhow. Everyone spoke the language, the shorthand of combat experience, and that acknowledgment ...
Zebra Mussels: The $1.5 Billion Invasion
The pike is as visible 20 feet away and 10 feet down as it would be in a fish tank in some doctor’s waiting room. Suspended in gin-clear water in the shadow of a forest of milfoil, he spooks before a single cast can be made. It’s the curse of the ...
Minnesota: There’s a New Trophy Game Fish in Town
Pike just aren’t cutting it anymore. Minnesota wants its monster sunfish back. In light of angler reports of declining sunfish size in the land of 10,000 lakes, the state’s Department of Natural Resources has announced new regulations that aim to ...
WATCH: Fisherman Lands 12-Foot Great White Shark on Pensacola Beach
Ah, yes. With the COVID-19 pandemic winding down at last, and with summer just over the horizon, many Americans are probably jonesing for that idyllic beach holiday that's seemed out of reach for so very long. Well, just when you thought it was ...
Starter Kit: Learning To Fly Fish — Flies
There are as many fly-fishing patterns as there are bugs and baitfish in nature. Understanding fly patterns and then selecting the right flies to put in your box is actually pretty simple though, which means you won’t have to rely on luck alone to ...
The Spider-Web: An Odd Fly-Fishing Rod Used Beyond WWI’s Trenches
Pvt. John Henry Hirst was determined to land a trout on the fly. It was nearing the summer of 1915, and the Germans had just launched a surprise offensive along the Western Front. While other British soldiers braced for impact from a German artillery ...
Starter Kit: Learning To Fly Fish — Casting
Learning a basic fly cast is probably the coolest part of the process aside from actually catching a fish. Fly casts are inherently beautiful, for sure. But when you drop a fly on the water above a fish and it happily grabs that fly and puts a great ...
Proposed Legislation That Impacts the Outdoors and Outdoor Sports
Legislation that directly affects our legacy outdoor pastimes like hunting, fishing, and shooting is in a constant state of flux. In an effort to keep you informed, we’re pulling together a monthly roundup of national and state-level policy-making ...