Innehållsförteckning för Spring 2020 från Anglers Journal

We’re sitting in an 18-foot skiff at the head of the Kvichak River next to the village of Igiugig, looking out over Lake Iliamna. It’s the beginning of September, and during the summer more than 2 million sockeye salmon swam upstream to lay eggs in and around the lake — one of the most active spawning grounds in the world. At 77 miles long and 22 miles wide, Iliamna is the largest lake in Alaska, covering 1,600 square miles. Thirty-two major tributaries drain into Lake Iliamna, whose deepest areas reach nearly 1,000 feet. The Kvichak River connects it to Bristol Bay and the ocean. Brian Kraft owns three lodges in Bristol Bay, including the Alaska Sportsman’s Lodge, a few miles downriver from us on the Kvichak. “The proposed mine site…

It’s easy to see why zoologist Achille Valenciennes in 1847 named the tarpon Megalops atlanticus — “Atlantic big eye.” Indeed, at close range, a 100-pound tarpon’s golf-ball-sized eye, with its massive, gold-rimmed pupil, is mesmerizing. Imagining what that eye has taken in through decades of pan-oceanic migration plunges you into the sub-terranean, a realm only slightly more familiar to us than space. But to dwell on the eye alone is a disservice to a creation of exceptional design and beauty. In comparison with the smallish, delicate head of, say, a rainbow trout, the tarpon’s head is oversized, industrial and blocky. All heavy machinery and nearly devoid of soft flesh, it is entirely plated bone, emblazoned with an iridescent veneer of silver, gold and bronze. This is the stuff only millions…

Richard “Gibby” Gibson has taken pictures of fish, fishermen and fishing boats from the Caribbean to the Bahamas and beyond. Of all the fish he’s photographed, one remains a challenge: Coryphaena hippurus, commonly known as dolphin, mahi-mahi or dorado. “The great thing about dorado is they jump — a lot. And they’re beautifully colored, so you could say they’re photo-genic,” Gibson says. “The problem is they’re so damned fast, which makes them sometimes impossible to photograph. I’ve shot a few hundred frames before and not gotten a clear shot.” Gibson says the photo above, captured in June 2014 off Islamorada, Florida, during the University of Miami Dolphin Tournament, was a “very lucky shot.” He was fishing aboard Free Enterprise, a 65-foot American Custom Yachts sportfish, with Capt. Randy Jendersee while…

To obey, wake in the dark and put your head in your hands. Look out the window and rest your cheek on the shoulder of the mountain. Rise and walk to where the creek falls finally into the river — there an apple tree stands hung with one last fruit: pick it, or if it hangs too high knock it down with a branch and eat it in three juice-spilling bites. From your knees kiss the rill surrounded by forget-me-nots, beckon a brook trout to your hands, and if one arrives study the vermiculate script worming along its sides. Over a stick fire cook the fish until its skin pales and peels back from the orange flesh, then feed yourself — clean every last silver rib and feed the skin…

Codfish keep me thinking. They are the reason I walk the winter docks, and why I have older fishermen as friends. Cod are the reason I sometimes spread worn paper charts across my dining room table and run my fingers along the fathom curves. I remember my first cod. This fish came well after I’d caught my first largemouth bass, striper, bluefish, scup and mackerel. It came after my first albacore and bluefin and mako. After my first blue marlin. I caught my first codfish at age 19 on the deck of a lobster boat. We had taken a break from hauling pots on the north side of Coxes Ledge, east of Block Island, Rhode Island, and made a couple of cod drifts for fun over a piece of broken…

Ever since I first went to sea with my uncle, Capt. Bill Dunn, I’ve been fascinated with swordfish. On a slick, calm August day in 1981, running out of Shinnecock Inlet on Long Island, my uncle calmly proclaimed, “Swordfish, 1 o’clock.” We were on the bridge of his 38-foot Scopinich sportfisherman, Last Resort, and he physically guided my head in the direction of the fish, whispering the distance and pointing. He made certain I got my first glimpse of the unmistakable silhouette of that basking Atlantic swordfish, its proud, distinct dorsal fin leading the way like a submarine’s periscope, followed by the sickle of its crescent-shaped tail. What transpired next was both exhilarating and frustrating. We deployed a rigged trolling squid as we made a large, slow, swooping circle. The…

One thing I’ve noticed in my travels is that the best fishing is usually in places that are almost impossible to reach. Magdalena Bay, in Baja, Mexico, is one such place. I’d heard stories for years about the fantastic run of striped marlin that appear in the Pacific off Mag Bay in October and November, but I only recently figured out a way to get there. A noted breeding and nursery ground for gray whales, the bay is about 550 nautical miles from San Diego and 150 nautical miles from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, as the crow flies. The main point of access is Puerto San Carlos, a tiny town with only four paved streets, no marina or dockage, and limited gas supplies. It’s an 18-hour drive from San Diego…

For Kendall Osborne, the skinny waters and back bays of Virginia’s Atlantic seaside — home to one of the northernmost tarpon fisheries in the country — are a fly-fishing heaven. “I love the challenge of that fishery, and the scenery and solitude. It’s my kind of fishing,” Osborne says. “I try not to tally up the tolls I’ve paid running back and forth across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel with my boat.” Osborne’s boat is an Emerger 16, one of the technical skiffs that Dragonfly Boatworks builds in Vero Beach, Florida. “I’ve put in years exploring behind the barrier islands, and the Emerger is a great boat to do it in,” says Osborne, a retired U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent who hails from Norfolk, Virginia. “It draws only five inches,…

I recently said goodbye to my oldest piece of fishing tackle: a split-willow wicker creel I bought at Abercrombie and Fitch in San Francisco when the company still specialized in sporting goods. I was partial to Abercrombie because I grew up outside Manhattan and, as a boy, loved to browse at the flagship store on Madison Avenue. The eighth of its 12 floors was devoted to angling, but the sixth-floor gun room drew the most visitors with its display of stuffed big-game heads, including a rhino that Teddy Roosevelt shot. The store lived up to its motto, “Where the Blazed Trail Crosses the Boulevard.” No aspect of the sporting life was left unaddressed. You could outfit yourself for a Kenyan safari, buy wickets for your croquet set or replace the…

Before my father and I became business associates, we were fishing partners. I’ve been thinking a lot about our relationship since his passing a month shy of his 97th birthday. Some people would say his life was defined by his service in World War II, serving 35 missions as a navigator/bombardier aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress to defend the United States. Others would say his life’s work was the 38 years we were partners in a South Florida public relations firm that continues today. But for me, the strongest memories of Lt. Stuart G. Newman will always be the fishing. Our Miami Beach house was on the water, right off Biscayne Bay. As a kid, I’d fish off our sea wall. My sister, Cathy, and I would catch mangrove snappers,…

Jimmy Buffett has impeccable taste in boats. Look no further than the 2018 launch of Surfari, his 48-foot sailboat with a unique, open-concept deck layout designed by naval architect Ted Fontaine and built by Pacific Seacraft. Other boats that have graced Buffett’s docks include a 42-foot Rybovich express and a couple of Cheoy Lee sailboats. An avid angler now in his 70s, Buffett likes to get to the bite and back without spending hours underway, according to his captain, Vinnie LaSorsa. “We were in the middle of deciding whether to repower and fix up the Rybovich, but Jimmy was looking for something faster,” says LaSorsa, who looks after the singer-songwriter’s fleet. “Plus, the refit was going to put our only fishing boat out of commission for six months.” LaSorsa got…

Before he was a boatbuilder, he was a fisherman. And fishing is the activity that continues to define Scott Deal. “Fishing is the way I connect with family and friends,” says Deal, who is the president of the Maverick Boat Group, which builds four brands of fishing boats. “It’s challenging and focused and relaxing at the same time. Many of my customers have the best days of their lives fishing. I think of the saying about fishing being hours of boredom interrupted by moments of panic. That I get to play some part in that experience is humbling and challenging.” Deal grew up in Winter Park, Florida, years before nearby Orlando became a Disney-driven tourist attraction. It was a sparsely populated area of spring-fed lakes and interconnected canals that generated…

It’s pronounced kri-VA-lē, sounding just like its Australian cousin the trevally. I’m guilty of consistently mispronouncing the fish’s name for as long as I can remember. But no matter how you say it, crevalle jacks (which many refer to as jack crevalle) will have another menhaden or mullet or pilchard or pinfish or whatever baitfish or lure you have available. They aren’t picky, and their agreeable appetite is what makes crevalle jacks my favorite fish. More than 20 years ago, my dad and his friend Jamie hatched a plan to catch an International Game Fish Association line class record crevalle jack. We chased jacks every summer for several years, sometimes five days a week. Spend that much time with any fish, and you gain an appreciation for the way it…

Rush hour on North Carolina’s Hatteras Island starts long before sunrise. Pickup trucks, minivans and station wagons snake down Highway 12 on their way to local marinas. In the parking lot of Hatteras Harbor, diesel fumes and excited voices fill the air as anglers climb out of their vehicles and pile into charter boats. It’s early fall, and the ocean is cooling, driving every wahoo on the East Coast past Hatteras Island on their way to winter grounds. The migration attracts hard-core anglers looking for world-class action for one of the tastiest fish on the menu. But it’s the wahoo’s vicious personality that brings me back each season. I’m here to fish for the perfect predator. Clocked at more than 60 mph, wahoo are one of the fastest fish in…

The reports of huge numbers of striped marlin being caught from mega-sportfish yachts off Magdalena Bay in Baja, Mexico, in the Pacific have been astonishing. At times, well more than 200 marlin a day have been caught by a single boat. Last winter, Anthony Hsieh — founder of consumer lender loanDepot — decided it would be great fun to attempt a world record for the most billfish released in a day. In November, he set up a trip with his 144-foot Trinity Bad Company, which is one of the largest sportfishing yachts in the world, and his other Bad Company, a 92-foot Jones-Goodell. He recruited eight professional anglers and two veterans from the Wounded Warrior Project to accompany him. The larger Bad Company would act as a mothership and bait…

Sixty-five miles out of Seward, Alaska, on the 50-foot Glacier Bear, I lie in my berth waiting for a bout with food poisoning to fade enough so that I might be able to crawl to the deck and fish for a few hours. Above, I can hear Capt. Aaron “Butters” Tompkins telling his deck-hands to cut more herring for a “bait bomb.” The deckhands — Jake and Garret — spring into action. They wear rubber bibs that repel fish guts and slime. They are quick to produce bait knives, which they wear on their belts. I hear their fluid movements, and I wonder if I’ll ever be able to move like that again. The other fishermen, three Minnesotans, are trading stories about deer hunting, ice fishing and other Midwestern adventures.…

Nikea and I will be married at the pond in June. It’s really an old reservoir. A dam of cut stone laid across a small brook-trout stream that flows east off the Allegheny Front. The dam is old, circa 1923. The stones are older. During the past two decades, brown trout have moved upstream from the big river in the valley. Above the pond, natives are the only trout that rise to our flies, but below the dam, German and Scottish browns often beat the brookies to our floats. Dad and I keep the browns we can, frying them in butter and dill. Trying to buy the brookies more time. Browns made it into the pond seven or eight years ago. In the clear water and open space, the fish…

Fort Frances, Ontario, is unseasonably cold this year — even for the unforgiving belt along the Canada-Minnesota border. The rain pours, seeping into every seam of my gear. My dad and I are approaching our eighth straight hour in the boat. Bad weather is manageable, but only if the fish are biting. No whining, I remind myself. My numb fingers can hardly grasp the leader as I switch out my lure yet again. Maybe a spoon this time. My dad and I catch eyes through the torrents pelting Lake Manitou. Genuinely content, I offer him a big smile. I’ve never been a girly-girl. Maybe that’s why I took so naturally to a canoe and a fishing rod when my father first brought me out on the lake. I must’ve been…

I have misspent the last 32 years of my life in pursuit of Atlantic salmon. I have very little to show for it. A dented Subaru; a singular collection of double-handed rods; enough fly lines to stretch from Doaktown, New Brunswick, to Cascapédia, Québec; a handful of beat-up Bogdan reels. I’ve never been married and have no children. I do own my home, which is perhaps my finest achievement. As I’m gone most of the summer, I have a “lawn” consisting of cedar chips. I got the idea from a children’s playground. My neighbors complain. There is considerable evidence that we as a species are drawn to a mix of trees, fields and water. A marriage of savanna and hardwoods with, as Norman Maclean would say, a river running through…

You could say I’ve been a bass fan since my first encounter with a largemouth at age 6 or 7. Once summer vacation arrived, our family vacated our apartment in Manhattan, where my parents were college English professors, and headed north. My brother Tom and I were turned loose upon Adirondack lakes in upstate New York, where we taught ourselves to fish. We enjoyed catching a variety of species, but tossing plugs for largemouth bass inspired both of us to spend our lives studying and pursuing fish. In the ensuing 60 years, I’ve chased largemouth across 36 states. I’m hardly alone. The most recent angler census points to some 13.5 million adults who pursue this species, making the largemouth one of America’s premier gamefish. And it is the undisputed king…

It will be at least two hours before the sun comes up as we speed eastbound on State Route 404 toward Cape Henlopen, Delaware. I’m packed inside the cab of a cranky diesel pickup truck with one of my best fishing pals and a friend of his, all of us sipping coffee as I regret a foolish night of fire-pit drinking. “What the hell were you thinking?” my friend Tony Friedrich asks. “You knew we were going to meet at 5 a.m.” Shut the hell up and pour me some more coffee, I say to myself as I muscle down a convenience store bear claw. Folks who drive this route are generally beach-bound, with surf gear and bikes strapped to the tops of their vehicles, but not us. We’re driving…

My first visit to Magdalena Bay was with Shark Diver magazine two years ago. It was strictly a photography expedition, and I didn’t know what to expect. We ran offshore in a local panga, spotted frigates circling, ran up on them and jumped overboard. It’s hard to convey what it’s like being in the water when several marlin and a few sea lions are attacking a bait ball. Nothing I’ve ever seen compares to a lit-up striped marlin chasing bait 30 feet in front of my face. The bait clusters comprise anywhere from a few dozen to a few thousand sardines or mackerel. I was so impressed I returned to Mag Bay last fall. In the morning, when the bait is running, it’s difficult to keep up with the action,…

A thin man with wispy white hair beckons me from the top of the steep attic stairs. “I’m up here,” Bill Beattie shouts. A Portuguese waterdog named Cruz barks his welcome. I feel as if I’m climbing out of the hold of an old sardine carrier and onto a bright deck. Or ascending into the crow’s nest of a square-rigger. I stare for a moment as light streams in from seven skylights and two windows at the east and west ends of the attic. Hanging from the ceiling and rafters and nailed to the walls is a collection of rods and reels, lures, paintings, photographs, ship models and other ephemera. Part museum, part tackle shop, part nautical antique collection, the attic is the magnum opus of a lifelong fisherman who…