November 9, 2026 / San Luis Reservoir: About 481 feet, 1,295,079 acre-feet, or 63% of capacity, at 1 p.m. Weather: Sunny; the forecast called for a high of 69–75°F and north winds up to 10 mph. The conditions on the water felt perfect. Fishing has always been more than just a hobby for me.…
Two days of incredible stillwater fly fishing, freezing weather, and a few camping upgrades that made all the difference November 2026 | Bidwell Ranch, Northern California Sometimes the best fishing trips are the ones where everything doesn’t go according to plan. Our recent trip to Bidwell Ponds, near Baum Lake in Northern California, turned out to…
The last time I was out on the lake, I noticed my Minn Kota Ulterra was starting to act up. It was struggling to deploy, sometimes refusing to budge until I hit the deploy button three or four times. Other times, it would shudder and groan while trimming. I recognized the symptoms immediately. The damn thing…
October 18, 2026 Another day of trying to outsmart striped bass at San Luis Reservoir. Two days ago, I went to O’Neill Forebay to test my new Garmin LiveScope 2 system. I caught over twenty striped bass, most of which were approximately the size of the bait people use in Alaska. A couple barely made…
It’s been a week since I returned from the Kodiak wilderness, wrapping up a whirlwind year of fishing adventures. I’m not sure whether there’s some subliminal voice telling me I need to get all these trips in before I’m too old to go, or whether working just two days a week has given me entirely…
September 24- Oct 3 2026 There is a strange cult living along the steelhead rivers of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Its members can usually be identified by absurdly long fly rods, wallets full of flies that don’t look much like anything, and an almost pathological willingness to stand waist-deep in freezing water casting to fish…
I’m happy to announce that the Sapsuk fished better for us this year than it did last year—which, as fishing reports go, is already a pretty low-risk opening statement. Week One, which had been phenomenal last year, got absolutely washed out by storms. My friend Dave, who fished with our group four years ago, managed only…
Last May was my first trip fishing the Delta with Richard and Mike, and it was so good that I was literally counting the days until I could do it again. That’s saying something, because I’ve fished all over the world since then. When I wrote about how fishing away makes the heart grow fonder…
August 7-15 2026 Not far from the organized insanity of Cancun, on the north coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, sits the little fishing village of Río Lagartos and Tarpon Cay Lodge. It’s one of those places where you can spend the morning casting to juvenile tarpon in six inches of water and the afternoon wondering…
If there’s one thing we’ve learned after four trips to Wilderness Unlimited’s Bidwell Ranch and Lake Margaret over the last two years, it’s this: camping is a never-ending science experiment. Every trip teaches us something that makes the next one just a little more dialed in. We’ve become experts in the truly important questions…
For the past year, Gina had been planning what was supposed to be the perfect getaway: a week of luxury, sightseeing, and hiking in British Columbia. The itinerary was flawless—half the week at the iconic Fairmont Empress in Victoria and the other half at the Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver. First-class flights. Beautiful hotels. Great…
Ever since I built the Synabego, I’ve been obsessed with finding the perfect boat system—something I could carry in or on the van that would let me fish bigger water without towing a trailer. I love trailers about as much as I love untangling a bird’s nest in a fly line. Over the years, I…
Father’s Day changes as you get older. Our kids now have kids of their own to celebrate with, and honestly, that’s exactly how it should be. Watching my son become such a terrific father is the best Father’s Day gift I could ask for. Seeing him build the same kind of family memories that Gina…
nbsp; Sunday June 14, 2026. Only three days ago I discovered something I hadn’t experienced in what feels like forever: the new mussel regulations finally allowed me to fish both San Luis Reservoir and O’Neill Forebay without serving the mandatory eight-day sentence in quarantine. I think it’s been close to three years since I’ve had…
It had been a couple of months since I’d fished the lake — possibly my longest dry spell on local water that I can remember. The problem with a layoff like that is you have to relearn the place. San Luis fishes completely differently depending on the height of the reservoir, the water temperature, and…
May 28, 29 2026 I’ve wanted to book a day with the legendary, “Wizard of the Delta”, Mike Costello for years. The problem is, so has everyone else. Mike is booked solid years out by repeat clients who guard their dates like trust funds — the man has the availability of a Supreme Court seat.…
May 23-26, 2025- I got home from chasing tarpon in Mexico around eleven at night, and instead of unpacking, I packed. The van, the rods, the trolling motor, the cooler. Some trips you ease into. This one I jumped from saltwater straight into the Sierra without much of a landing in between, and I’d…
To honor my Father in Law who landed on Easy Red in the first wave and survived, I repost my 2022 Memorial day post. Thank you dad for your service to our family and our country. A Special Memorial Day 2022 Memorial Day is supposed to be sacred. In our family, it is. I have…
May 15-22. 2026 May was an exceptionally busy month of fishing for me. I don’t think I’ve ever had a stretch where I went from one fishing destination to the next, and then straight to another, without even a single day off in between. In fact, this trip to Campeche was only the first leg…
Some trips you go to catch fish. Some trips you go to be with your people. The best ones manage to do both and somehow this late-May run to Henderson Springs did exactly that, even if it took a couple of days to warm up – this being the eighth annual Dirk and Jim memorial…
Sunday April 19, 2026 -Today, the lake decided to throw a tantrum. Two days prior, I’d had a near-perfect day on the water with five mile per hour winds and a cooperative fish population. Today, the same lake turned moody — wind ramped up to eight to ten miles per hour, and suddenly everything I…
Friday April 17, 2026 · San Luis Reservoir A scouting trip, a leaky boat, and possibly the greatest fishing partner ever… who never once left his couch. It had been months since I’d been out—November, to be exact—which is just long enough for a fisherman to forget two important things: where the fish are… and whether…
There’s a peculiar kind of intimacy that comes with returning to the same place — the same water, the same fairway, the same bend in the river you’ve fished a hundred times. Standing in that familiar current, you’re not just casting into water; you’re casting against every version of yourself who stood there before. It’s…
March 17 through April 3. – There are trips you take… and then there are trips that take something out of you—in the best possible way. The kind where you come home a little sunburned, a few pounds heavier, slightly sleep-deprived, and completely convinced you’ve been doing life wrong the rest of the year. The…
March 8 – 12 2026. What would the perfect four-day fly-fishing getaway look like? It might look a lot like these last four days at Henderson Springs. Four straight days of perfect spring weather in March is a rare thing. Last March I spent most of the week fishing through snow, hail, and rain. And…
