I’m up early this morning (insomnia sucks, but you might as well make the most of it), and what should I find on the TV but LIVE coverage of the Bassmaster’s Classic — competitive bass fishing’s annual homage to its best anglers.

It’s a genuine event; would it help or hurt fly fishing to do the […]

As I leaf back through the Trout Underground’s 2007 archives, I’m struck by the fact that yes — the year has officially passed me by, and yes, I’ve got several hundred thousand words to prove I was awake while it happened.
(I can’t remember — is it the memory that goes first or is it […]

The sparks and the rhetoric flew when the American Fly Fishing Trade Association (AFFTA) announced it was getting into the fly fishing consumer trade show business — by competing head-to-head with an already-established Denver consumer show.

If you follow the Underground, you know we’re smack in the middle of a battle to keep the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors (BOS) from approving a “Natural Resources Policy” that eliminates your legal right to fish the rivers in Siskiyou County — including the McCloud and Upper Sacramento.

This would be illegal if some have […]

Seasoned Underground readers know that I travel about as well as your average fresh-caught trout. I’m lively for a little while, then I become glassy-eyed, my color fades, and finally, brain function ceases entirely.
As far as this trip goes, I’m well past the glassy-eyed stage (and starting to smell a little), and while Boston isn’t […]

The USA Fly Fishing Team finished sixth at the World Fly Fishing Championships — cause for some mild celebration. Sadly, Charlie Meyers of the Denver Post (normally a pretty straightforward outdoor writer) drags the survival of the sport into the mix, and — lamentably — even plays the nationalism card :
Just about everyone cringes at […]

Michigan Hoping to Excise Nestle
It’s never really a full week if I haven’t taken aim at One Pillar of the Axis of Evil Nestle, but this Friday I’ll let others do it for me.
First, Michigan is considering an excise tax on water bottlers. Their thinking? Pure, clean spring water is a public resource, yet companies […]

By 1902, the US Army estimated that only 23 wild buffalo remained alive in Yellowstone National Park – the pitiful remnants of the massive herds that once blanketed America.
How the buffalo came to teeter on the brink of extinction is the subject of Last Stand by Michael Punke – a gripping historical account of the […]

When you surf as many fly fishing-related news items as I do, you start to recognize certain trends.
Let’s make that “certain distressing trends.”

I see a lot of “mainstream media” fly fishing stories every day. Sadly, they often fall into one of three categories, which I’ve neatly packaged for you right here (which is another […]

Today’s Dead Sucker Award (my new name for Underground Rants) comes courtesy of canoe.ca. And it must might represent the living embodiment of one of fly fishing’s least attractive stereotypes.
So hold your noses, and plunge into this sewage-laden passage:
It was a surreal adventure. One day last year, Ken McCagherty and three buddies arrived in Canmore, […]

Damn! Ass Hooked Whitey beat me to this one; the price I pay for taking on too much work and trying to get out of town.

AHW shot a big harpoon into Donny Beaver of the Spring Ridge Club for comments he made in the club’s January newsletter.
More on that farther down the post. First, I’ve […]

PacifiCorp is fighting a battle over the costs of removing its four Klamath River dams versus retrofitting them.
I’ve repeatedly said the process is broken; when we only argue about the direct costs of the dams, we’re wholly ignoring the bigger picture, which includes stories like this:
CHARLESTON, Ore. — Don Yost, harbor master in Coos […]