Orvis Staff

A short trip home for the holiday provided one angler with her trout of the season so far. photo courtesy Katie Cone

On my recent trip home to Arlington, Vermont, for Memorial Day weekend, I set my sights on fishing Otter Creek. After visiting the Orvis store in Manchester to get the fishing report, I headed out for a relaxing day on the river. There were already a few people milling about, so I decided to walk in farther, toward a spot that had been promising two years ago when I had visited Otter Creek as a fly-fishing beginner. With the mountains surrounding me and the ferns growing clear above my head, I began to remember. . .

Many of us take for granted our ability to wade strong currents or rocky bottoms or to stand all day on the bow of a rocking boat. But as we get older we lose muscle mass, strength, and endurance as part of the natural aging process. More importantly, we lose our balance and proprioception (the unconscious awareness of where we are in time and space) and. . . 

By the time we realize the caddis hatch isn’t going to happen, we don’t care. One morning, we boat two hours to another river with a steeper gradient and faster water. After traveling a mile upriver, we get out to wade. Within minutes, each of us has landed a brook trout from four to seven pounds. For the rest of the afternoon, Jim and I leapfrog up one bank, while Mike and John work the other.

Alec Kauffman shows off a Rogue River steelhead, while his younger brother mugs for the camera. Hey, if you don’t have a fish of your own, it’s your only option, right? photo by Zac Kauffman

EDITOR’S NOTE: Zac Kauffman—the Outdoor Operations Manager for Morrison’s Rogue River Lodge in Merlin, Oregon—sent us this story by his 14-year-old son Alec, who had written it for Ms. Coleman’s 6th period Language Arts class. As Zac wrote, “It does seem to capture the child’s excitement about fishing.” We couldn’t agree more.

After a year of trying, guide Rob Snowhite finally landed his snakehead on a fly. photo Courtesy Rob Snowhite

I have wanted to catch a northern snakehead (Channa argus) since I first heard about their introduction into the Potomac river around 2004. I didn’t give much thought as how to go about catching one on a fly or even think it was possible until I saw a photo of one caught during the 2010 shad run by Trent Jones–who works at Orvis Clarendon and is a fellow member of the Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders, our local Federation of Fly Fishers club. From then on, I was dedicated to catching one of these elusive fish.