Essay: Sleeping with the Fishes

Most anglers consider themselves above the petty squabbles that so often erupt in the fly-fishing community, content to let other anglers define the boundaries of the sport for. . .

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Classic Story: Patience Pays Off in Alaska


The huge rainbows that Alaska is famous for are not always easy to catch.
All photos by Jeremy Kehrein

In early July 1995, I was guiding two of my favorite clients of all time—a father-and-son team from Annapolis, Maryland—on the Copper River, which drains into Alaska’s Lake Iliamna. Tom and. . .

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Classic Story: The Doc, the River, and Lessons Learned

Although I had been a fisherman since early childhood, I didn’t learn to fly-fish until I was in graduate school at the University of New Hampshire in the late 1980s. My older brother, Brian, lived nearby, and he taught me to cast one chilly January day in . . .

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Story and Photos: Just What the Doctor Ordered

One August afternoon several years ago, I returned to my desk at Orvis HQ to find that my neighbor, Tom Rosenbauer, was missing. Taped to the back of his chair was a hand-scrawled sign that said, “At an appointment with Doctor Triceau.” Once I . . .

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“Gone Fishin’” by William G. Tapply

We usually rumble across the iron bridge, turn off the road, follow the bumpy ruts beside the field, and park Dad’s station wagon at the water’s edge to offload the canoe. But on this gray afternoon . . .

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Armed to the Teeth: The Northern Pike of Wollaston Lake

Orvis’s Tom Evenson prepares to release a 43-inch northern pike, which hit a topwatere slider pattern.
Photo by Joel Ruby

“Can we please change this fly?” Guide Dan Lembke–all six-foot-eight, two-hundred and ninety
pounds of him–was sitting in the center of the boat, rebuilding my wire leader
and considering what fly to tie on, . . .

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Classic Story: The Trout Stream That No One Else Wanted

With a sparsely attended Catholic church at one end and a Taco Bell at the other, Benmont Avenue is representative of the hard times that have befallen many American mill towns. This is not the scenic Vermont of postcards, but instead a hardscrabble . . .

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Photos and Story: Big Dreams, Big Fish

Muskellunge are the fish of legends—top-tier predators that are notoriously challenging to catch on even conventional tackle. Back in the mid ’90s, when I first started chasing muskies with a fly, people thought I was nuts. Now, these toothy monsters . . .

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