Innehållsförteckning för Winter 2019 från Anglers Journal

Kevin Dodge captured this photo of a 130-pound yellowfin tuna off Kona, Hawaii, in July 2018. He was on the Big Island for a few days of fishing aboard Mark Davis’ charter boat, Sea Genie II. “The captain was hellbent on catching marlin,” Dodge says. The tuna changed that plan. Dodge, who specializes in underwater photography, grabbed his Nikon D4 and waited for the right moment to jump into the water. “It’s nearly impossible to shoot big fish like that on a big boat,” he says, because the boat is always moving to stay ahead of the fish. Dodge had but a second to find the best light and composition before getting his shot. On top of that, he was exhausted from swimming against the current, trying to keep up…

What the Son Says Boulders dwarf my father as he casts to the green water on the far side of the plunge pool. The current has carved the rock the way a bone is worn by time, divoted and eroded by use, easing the flow of snowmelt. A brook trout appears from the crease, its silhouette hovering under the Royal Wulff. The moment the trout relinquishes its doubt and trusts the fly, a deception that marks all fishermen as charlatans, is clouded in the colors and sounds of dappled sides and a sunlight-etched back breaking the surface. Dad’s line jumps, and I scramble to net the 7 inches of Northern Appalachian brookie. “Worth the trip,” Dad laughs as he reels in the slack. We’ve driven over 400 miles north to…

A cold snap brings strong northeast winds that whip the western boundary of the Gulf Stream into a rolling countercurrent. Small craft warnings are raised, and locals used to warm-weather pampering scurry to find appropriate clothing. This is the time of year when generations of anglers descend on South Florida for the winter sailfish season. During the following three months, fishermen from Fort Pierce to Key West will brave the brisk air and challenging seas to participate in one of bluewater fishing’s most iconic and enduring traditions. Recreational billfishing was born here, and for decades, the pursuit of sailfish has enamored devotees of the species. The true believers include Nick Smith, one of the most accomplished billfish anglers in the world. He’s 77, and he’s been at it since he…

There is no town in Argentina that epitomizes the character and soul of Patagonia quite like the sleepy town of Río Pico — a small, frontier settlement of a thousand or so people, perfectly situated in the middle of the best trout fishing in South America. With the feel and atmosphere of a town pulled from the set of an old Spaghetti Western, Río Pico is the kind of place that is quickly forgotten in the rearview mirror at 90 kilometers an hour on the way to the river. In the middle of the town sits a decrepit, one-level brick-and-wood building that for years served as the town’s one and only watering hole. The proprietor of the small bar was Bautista Donghy, a 60-something gaucho who looked as if he…

Last April, in the heart of autumn, I took a trip to Argentine and Chilean Patagonia. It was my first time visiting both countries during the same trip. One was arid, expansive and windswept. The other was lush and rugged, with relatively short river valleys. As a region, Patagonia is a dream destination to be sure, but there are certainly distinctions between Argentina and Chile beyond the fact that their respective people don’t always like each other. I traveled with my friend Zac Mayhew. The two of us met up with Jorge Trucco, Argentine Patagonia’s first outfitter, in San Martín de Los Andes. Our first stops were the Aluminé, Limay and Chimehuin rivers. We proceeded to fish by drift boat, and by walking and wading, all three rivers in eight…

The moon rose, the wind dropped off and the sharp sound of fracturing ice reverberated through the evening as the tide pushed up the brackish Cathance River in Bowdoinham, Maine, smelt capital of the Pine Tree State. Somewhere out there, schools of rainbow smelt were pushing toward their spawning grounds about seven miles upriver. The temperature was in the low teens, but the four of us sat comfortably in our camp, tending our lines, sipping brandy and Scotch, and dining on fresh lobster rolls as the wood stove tossed off plenty of warmth, with 16 solid inches of ice below the wood floor of our shanty. Snug as slightly tipsy bears. We’d come to Jim’s Camps to catch a mess of these small, silvery, anadromous fish, which have a mild…

It’s late July in Livingston, Montana, and I’ve just picked up my clients. We’re heading out of town, my raft trailer rumbling behind my truck, a plume of dust rising from the gravel. It’s the final day of a four-day run with this group — Texas oil and gas millionaires, a legitimate billionaire or two in the mix, no doubt. The two men assigned to me for the day are clutching their coffees, admiring the scenery. It’s good scenery, and I’ve seen it countless times, but I’m admiring it, too. “It’s going to be 103 in Dallas today,” one of the guys says, and we all shake our heads in disbelief. I roll down my windows, and I can see them in the rearview, noses tilted up slightly, breathing in…

My admiration for yellowfin tuna started when I was young and fished with my father. It’s relatively rare to catch yellowfin off Florida, at least consistently, but we caught one quite by accident, and Dad was elated. He liked nothing more than eating fish he’d caught himself, and this small tuna was a treat. When I bought my own boat as an adult, I began fishing in the Bahamas, and I prized yellowfin more than any other fish, except maybe marlin. The yellowfin in the Bahamas don’t usually run large, as they do in the Pacific and off Venice, Louisiana. Hundred-pounders are rare, and I’ve never seen one more than 200 in the Bahamas, although I’ve heard of them. The average school fish probably runs 40 to 60 pounds, a…

The night before my arrival in Chile was restless. A collection of nerves and a contracted case of airport plague kept me awake for all 30 hours of travel. The drive into the campo was more dramatic than expected. The company of a Montanan friend, a few warm cervezas and an empanada eased my tensions while driving deeper into the Patagonian expanse. The world I’d known evaporated at every gravel turn on the back roads. The landscape felt colossal. Spires and glacial fields lined the horizon on our drive to the lodge, which is lakeside, built upon the rocks at a tapering between two springfed lakes. Its function is rudimentary, yet in its unadulterated isolation, the place is elegant. The driveway is a narrow two track that would be designated…

In 1998, I went to the southernmost point of South America to fish for sea-run brown trout that reportedly reached 30 pounds. Before my trip, I spoke with Larry Dahlberg, who had been there recently filming an episode of The Hunt for Big Fish at Estancia Maria Behety in Argentine Patagonia. He explained that I needed 500-plus-grain sinking lines and 9- or 10-weight rods with big, black leach patterns. The river was big, deep and fast, and the wind blew 30 knots on a calm day. These were sea-run fish that wanted big flies: 4 or 5 inches long with beaded or lead eyes. I arrived, loaded with heavy lines and big flies, only to find that the water was unusually low, the sun was out, and all the fish…

Any last hope we had of catching a summer steelhead on a dry fly that cold morning late in the year evaporated when we encountered two fishermen on their way downstream. Bomber, my longtime fishing partner, and I had driven through the predawn, thrown on packs and hiked through forest and canyon to reach this section of the river, a place where fish tended to congregate and we rarely encountered other anglers. When we saw the two bearded men with long rods ahead of us, we swore in unison. Bomber knew the guys. He had worked at a fishing shop for several years and knew just about anyone we ever met on the local rivers. Bomber traded around a can of Copenhagen, and we listened to the story they told…

I would lift him and wind him up a hundred feet or so, and then he would take the line away from me. It happened so often that it must have looked funny. All of a sudden my tuna started to sound. He did not run. He just plugged down and down and down. The reel screamed zee—zee—zee! This procedure grew alarming. Two hundred yards — three hundred yards — three-fifty and finally four hundred yards of line he took straight down. This was the deepest I ever had any fish sound up to that date. Captain Dan stood beside me, watching the reel. He shook his head at every zee. My rod lay in the hollow of my left elbow and the tip was doubled straight down. The zee—zee—zee…

You might say that my 30 years of fishing in Patagonia have been one big pilgrimage to the south in search of bigger water and huge trout. To be sure, all of Patagonia — from the Montana-like landscape of the northern rivers that Charles Ritz and José “Bebe” Anchorena made famous to the harsh, wind-swept Pampas of Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego — is a fine place for a fisherman to find him or herself, if you like less-pressured water; steak, steak and more steak; robust red wine; and a sense of style that is half John Wayne and half Fred Astaire. Still, as Joe Brooks, the airline pilot turned fly-fishing pioneer, once observed, as anglers move on in years, they will finally confess that the goal is bigger…

I was introduced to the Futaleufú River by my fishing partner Adrei Gallardo, a retired Chilean ranger who patrolled on horseback the cordillera, which is the high, remote mountain border between Chile and Argentina. Adrei looked after the interests of the huasos, the skilled horsemen and Chilean equivalent of the Argentine gaucho or American cowboy. In his retirement, he married a young woman and started a family. He had two sons, and the family lived in a small cabin by the river where it crossed the border. And Adrei fished. One day, he landed an enormous sea-run brown weighing 39.1 pounds. It made the news and made him a legend. Upon my arrival in Futaleufú in 2000, I heard tell of this fish and went in search of Adrei. He…

We roll out of the campground toward Long Key with the windows open. Bleached shells and limestone gravel crunch under the Westfalia’s tires. Birds make their vibrant predawn racket, a symphony in stark contrast to my brain’s lethargy, stymied as it is from last night’s festivities. At least I remembered to set an alarm clock. My good friend Toby interrupted his slumber, too, and left the rest of our spring-breaking comrades to their own convolutions so he could chauffer me up the Florida Keys to meet a flats guide. In the pocket of my khaki shorts, I clutch payment for the charter, a post-deposit $250 that I hid, lest it end up in the rum fund, but other than that I’m ill-prepared. I’ve caught a few trout on streamers in…

These images depict life in the small fishing village of Stonington, Maine, during a four-year period starting in 1989. You don’t have to look hard to see the bone-weary tiredness of long days on the water. A fisherman holding his head in his hands. Another looking off vacantly, nearly asleep on his feet. Men in flannel, slouching, leaning on a pile of nets, a cigarette stuck to the lower lip of one, pinched between the thumb and index finger of another. The photos were taken by Jeff Dworsky, who moved to Stonington when he was 17 and worked for 40 years as a fisherman. Revealing in their honesty and documentary feel, Dworsky’s images capture a bygone era, a way of life in a tight-knit community on the cusp of change.…