Wayne Eng, a big trout, and a (slightly) bigger mountain.
Yesterday afternoon was a monster big-fish-fest for Wayne Eng and the Underground’s Fearless Leader, but I can’t file my gloating, self-satisfied fishing report quite yet; there’s too much real work that needs to be written.
Still, I’ll give you a glimpse into [...]

The L&T Nancy is back from her weeklong trip, which basically means it’s time to stop gouging dinner directly from the peanut butter jar.
Yes Undergrounders, the influences of the much better half are already being felt, though a fishing trip with cave men fly buddies Dave Roberts and Chris Raine doesn’t exactly reinforce most [...]

Fly fisherman don’t experience hope as a powerful emotion as much as a permanent character pathology.
Though the fly fishing’s been slow, we all know it could turn any minute, and if things pop into high gear when you’re at home and someone else is on the river, you’ll suffer the indignity of knowing you’re [...]

The reports about the Upper Sacramento have been uniform; it’s tough sledding right now, even if you stumble across a decent hatch.
Of course, something’s always happening somewhere — a lesson I learned in my bass fishing days, where boat after boat would return to the dock with empty livewells, but somebody always hammered the [...]

Fly fishing the Upper Sacramento River in spring could mean strong BWO hatches, but also uninterested, spawning fish.

Fly fishing for bluegill isn’t as sexy as sight fishing for tarpon — and it’s hard to reasonably perform a lot of fist pumps and layer a rock music soundtrack over your average bluegill footage — but damn, they’re fun.

Fly fishing for bluegill. The fish are small, but the color’s big.
Most fishermen don’t rank them [...]

[ED: This story courtesy of the Underground's Director in Charge of Montana Fishing and Intellectually Challenged Whitefish. Enjoy.]
Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks requires new Conservation and Fishing licenses March 1. It’s as official and appropriate an opening of the new fishing season as anyone around Missoula requires.
And March 1 really is [...]

Chasing a March Brown hatch based on a thin rumor is like chasing ghosts in broad daylight; the odds for success are slim, and the opportunity for drama almost non-existent.
Still, when you’ve spent the last couple weeks staring at the several feet of snow outside your office window, chasing a ghost hatch is as much [...]

Sometimes winter fishing is great drama. Other times, you get in the drift boat and just soak up the sun, which feels pretty damned good in the middle of a snowy winter.
I won’t cop to being lazy as much as relaxed; I sporadically fished a dry fly but Dave Roberts and I were both [...]

Fly fishing the Upper Sacramento River in winter isn’t always about the bugs.
In the middle of a gray, snowy winter, the phrase “making hay while the sun shines” acquires a patina of meaning that simply doesn’t exist on your average warm, summer day.
I don’t know if an itch to go [...]

The road to the Rogue; clouds, mountains and trucks on I-5
One of the benefits of fishing a river more than a few minutes from home is the windshield time — that jolt of solitary confinement when you’re not subject to all the dings, rings and interruptions of the modern “connected” life.
Even in 105 minute [...]

I live in a town overrun with backdountry skiers — the kind of folks willing to hike most of the way up the mountain just to ski back down.
In that context, skiing on a barely inclined, snowed-over road isn’t exactly the stuff of high adventure, but when you sweeten the pot with a shot [...]