Lost River Range, Idaho

Snow up high. Saturated river bottoms; cottonwood leaves holding on to one last bright gasp before dropping. A deeper-blue sky. Greater shadows. Skittish mule deer.

October, 2018

October, 2018

Lost River Range

Look at a fire map of the West (InciWeb) from California to Montana and you will see dozens of blazes. Fire and to a larger extent, smoke, is the new norm in the west. July and August in the mountainous areas and in some places along the coast, year-around. 

Smoke Light. Lost River Range. August, 2018

Picabo, Idaho

A bit of smoke and lots of sun and hot weather too. Late July, Picabo, Idaho.

Summer. July 2018. Picabo, Idaho

Summer. July 2018. Picabo, Idaho

Faraway Cayes

I had the privilege of spending a few weeks on the Mosquito Coast and Faraway Cayes in Honduras this past March. It was an incredible experience on many levels. I'm working on an editorial piece, words and photos, on that trip. My story is slated to be published this July. So..., more to come on that.

In the meantime, here's a link to Beyond The Horizon, a roughly 22 minute video on Faraway Cayes. It's certainly a fly fishing frontier and as a heli-fishing operation, really worthwhile. Think lots and lots of tailing bones but the trip is for the person looking to have many shots at permit each day.

Backpacking Olympic National Park

I just returned from a backpacking trip along the coast in Olympic National Park with my two sons. Think eagles and ferns and otters and rain and beach... You can even have a monster fire on the beach in solitude with the abundant driftwood.

It's easy to forget when packing that the Olympic Coast is a rainforest. It's wet. When the sun comes out it's a bonus and we were fortunate to have a little sun here and there.

olympic coast beach.jpg

The FlyFish Journal

Below are a couple of images of mine in the new issue of The FlyFish Journal (Issue 9.3). 

Zac Mayhew and John Huber on a drakeless evening on Silver Creek. For those of you who don't know, Silver Creek opens each year on the Saturday of Memorial Weekend, which is this coming Saturday.

Brown Drakes can start anytime, even before opening weekend (hopefully that doesn't happen) and it's a hatch that really kickstarts our season. Many of us look forward to it all year. It doesn't last long (about a week) and usually happens in the evening.

Catching the Drake event on the first evening means, usually at least, fewer people around and fish keyed in on emerging bugs and duns. It's less complex in many ways. There's no debate, for example, between using a spinner or dun or how far upstream the hatch has progressed.

In any event, a few of us start showing up on Silver Creek every evening once we think conditions are good enough. It can be burdensome for family members who are not interested and stay at home on years when it could be as many as fourteen consecutive evenings without any sign of bugs. I think fourteen consecutive drakeless nights is my record (It wasn't too long ago that the first night of Drakes was June 13). Compound that with the fact that once it starts, non-interested family members are potentially left in the dust for an additional week.

The image above was one of those drakeless evenings where the downside is a beer or two with friends and a stunning evening.

Above, John Huber throws a mouse on the early end of what he and I now think of as our best mousing night ever. Silver Creek.