2014 Summer Contents

Drake 2014 Summer Issue

    Features

  • Holy Trinity of the Right Coast
    Striped bass on the flats, false albacore from shore, and bluefin tuna from anywhere.
    By Jason Skruck. Photos by David Skok
  • What the Smallmouth Tells Us
    Smallies are a marquee summertime fish.
    And the health of smallmouth bass populations tells us much about our waterways.
    By Pete McDonald
  • Brown Drake Bonanza
    It's an annual Gem State event: A bazillion brown drakes hatching on world-renown Silver Creek, near Picabo, Idaho.
    By Nick Price
  • The Bass Phase
    A coming-of-age story about the power of popper-eating largemouth, and how they can change a boy's life, forever.
    By Tosh Brown

    • Departments

  • Page Six Chix
    Four great smiles, four great fish, one lucky lab.
  • Put-in
    Let's not forget about floating mayflies.
  • Rises
    A few words on weed, warmwater, and public access.
  • Tailwater Weekend
    Asses and elbows on the South Fork of the Snake.
    By Geoff Mueller
  • Scuddlebutt
    Transboundary rivers, Clyde nearly gets shot, artists Hartman and Larko, Stilly after the slide, Penny's for breakfast, beer and hatches, hope for wild steelhead, a headbanger's fly shop, a flyfishing Bassmaster, drama on the Dean, and Trask takes on Hero Cat.
  • Tippets
    A woman's perspective on fishing trips; skeeters in the ‘Glades; mahseer by motorcycle; a plea to quit yer bitchin'; an African license plate hunt, and more.
  • Redspread
    Fishing the TFZ in Louisiana's Calcasieo Estuary.
    By Ron Begnaud
  • Passport
    It hurts to miss fish on Patagonia's Rio Chimehuin.
    By Christopher Solomon
  • Bugs
    August means white fly fever in New England.
    By Stephen Zakur
  • City Limits
    Milwaukie's got baseball and steelheading. Together.
    By James Card
  • Rod Holders
    Lacy Kelly heads to Belize.
    By Larry Littrell
  • Backcountry
    Golden trout in California's southern Sierra.
    By Brett Wedeking
  • Permit Page
    The flies of Enrico Puglisi.
    By Monte Burke
Idaho's South Fork

2014
2014 Summer Issue

Views and variety along the Snake

DURING THE WANING DAYS OF SUMMER 2000, guide Dave Deardorff rowed his drift boat one stroke too far.

Idaho's lower South Fork of the Snake had fished well that afternoon. Cutthroat sipped BWOs under tormented skies, while Deardorff storm-jumped his way downstream. Finally, something angry surrounded him and his two clients. He sunk oar blades into the flow and opened throttle through a tempest of marble-sized hail. Then fireworks erupted.

Matching the Batch

2014
2014 Summer Issue

WHEN MY PARENTS SHIPPED my sister and me off to college, they didn't expected to receive a craft brewer and a flyfishing writer in return. But we'd both seen enough of corporate America to realize that a lifetime spent living in it might not be worth the paycheck. A collaborative effort between the two worlds was inevitable, and after much deliberation our musings have molted. A bottle of Bud and a can of worms may have laid the foundation for pairing beer with bugs, but these are our contemporary favorites.

Girls Night In

2014
2014 Summer Issue

Fishing Widow Tells All

EVERY TIME A GIRLFRIEND COMPLAINS about her husband or boyfriend going fishing again (insert big sigh), I bite off a small chunk of my tongue.

I'd love for my husband to go fishing. A week in Montana? Hmmm- That doesn't seem far away enough-or long enough. I hear there are big fish in Kamchatka. And if you're going to go that far, why not take a whole month? Here's my PayPal password, honey.

The Anti-Artist

2014
2014 Summer Issue

Dave Hartman's cool, quirky creations

THERE WAS A TIME when skateboarder-turnedgraphics- creator Dave Hartman excelled at the art of being aimless.

Bucking the law and generally lacking purpose, Hartman bounced from home to home in suburban Arizona and California, rural Alabama, and southern New Hampshire. Until fishing intervened. He found a fly rod and carried it to Montana. And there he dove into the tactics of what makes humans falter and function. A degree in social work followed. And for the past 15 years Hartman has coalesced with the imprints of a former self—counseling troubled youth at the Montana Academy in Kalispell, on the outskirts of Glacier National Park.

"Instead of being a self-centered teenager, I found a new purpose," he says. "It was to be on the water as much as possible, while studying to be a person outside myself—focusing on others, as opposed to just me."

The Flies of Enrico Puglisi

2014
2014 Summer Issue

I WAS A LITTLE SURPRISED when Enrico Puglisi told me that his favorite permit fly was not his EP Crab. Nor was it his lifelike Descendent Crab, or his Palometa Crab, or even the fly he named after the fish itself, the Permit Crab. It's a shrimp pattern. More precisely, his Spawning Shrimp, #4, in tan.

I was telling Puglisi how, for a while now, I've been a huge fan of all of his flies, including the Spawning Shrimp, which I've found to be effective on Bahamian bonefish. But I loved his crab patterns the most, and in particular, his Permit Crab. I use it for stripers on my local flat, since the fish there are as liable as a permit to take offense to my offerings. I felt that by using his Permit Crab, I was letting my stripers know that I took their concerns seriously. And then the 60-year-old Puglisi dropped it on me: "No, no. It is the Spawning Shrimp that is best for the permit," he said in his guttural, Old World Italian-accented voice. "You should really try it on your stripers, too."