Innehållsförteckning för Fall 2020 från Anglers Journal

Call (800) 877-5207 or visit anglersjournal.com. Subscriptions are $29 for one year (four issues: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall). Please send letters and comments to Anglers Journal, 10 Bokum Road, Essex, CT 06426, or email wsisson@aimmedia.com. A PICTURE IS WORTH … I am enamored with Anglers Journal. It is, quite simply, the best. I think of this image I took a few years ago when I look at the beautiful photography in every issue. It was taken at dawn, during autumn, just north of Port Aransas, Texas, while tossing out a line with a live shrimp on the end. Pure bliss and the awe of Mother Nature. Christopher Brundage San Antonio, Texas NEVER ENOUGH I’m new to your magazine, and I absolutely love it. The quality is outstanding. Having worked for…

The sun had gone to bed hours ago in a sea of oranges and yellows spread across the sky. Constellations and planets winked at us as the Gulf of Mexico flattened out like a slick, black puddle. Classic rock tunes that I know every word to rang out of a head-high speaker. My best friend stood next to me, cracking jokes and talking smack. And every time my bait hit the bottom, it got bit. Surely this must be what heaven feels like, especially after being stuck at home for weeks with dreams of adventure flooding my thoughts. But this was no dream. This was real-time, and I had just flipped another keeper over the rail. Last fall, I decided I needed to do something special for my 45th birthday.…

Long Island, New York, 1983. And don’t show-up drunk, Ziggy warned. But I had one helluva hangover, waking in my parked car to the window-thump of his greasy fist. I was eighteen. We baited a hundred wooden pots, stacked the deck and ran that dirty Down Easter toward Shoreham, the nuclear plant they never finished, where my dad worked for ten years. Goddamn waste, Ziggy shook his head. And we’re gonna pay for it. He smoked down cigarettes. I splashed heavy pots. Every time he yelled, Drop it fuckin’ flat, I thought of my girlfriend and getting paid. We’d pick ’em up in a couple days. No numbers, all in his head. Black and white bullet buoys, line on the davit, seaweed, plastic, spider crabs, snails and marble-brown lobsters pulled…

In offshore fishing circles, the 42-foot Merritt is instantly recognizable. The design combines a seaworthy hull and timeless good looks with the critical elements needed for big-game fishing. And the best of the best covet these boats because they were purpose-built for catching big fish. Few older sportfishing boats have the bones and receive the care required to survive 50 years of hard fishing. That cannot be said of the Merritt 42 Picaflor — Merritt hull No. 18 — which launched in the spring of 1969. She has been updated and maintained throughout her illustrious career because she has that special something, a pedigree instilled by her builder. There aren’t many boats that have caught the number of big fish that Picaflor has. She’s fished the Atlantic and Pacific, as…

Kenning tempts me with a well-cast email: “Wilderness fishing.” Rob drifts the perfect attractor down my lane: “Miles of untouched water.” It’s an invitation to join two friends on a 10-day, 90-mile trek through the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in north-central Idaho. We would enter the fabled bear- and wolf-haunted wilds of the Nez Perce; trace Norman Maclean’s footsteps through Blodgett Canyon, Montana; behold majestic groves of old-growth cedar; and touch miles of pristine trout water. “Sounds great. I’m in!” I type back. We train and gear up. Kenning, an experienced hiker, researches the route and contacts the Fenn Ranger Station overseeing the area, asking if there is anything we should know about the trail. “Well, that’s very rough country,” the ranger says. “Rough?” Rob shakes his head, gulping water and smacking…

The walking hour is early, just after 4.am. Only those who work with their hands rise at these hours Darkness lingers over the dock as the bridge mounted flfloodlights click on, illuminating the cockpit in a blinding glow that bounces off the fiberglass. The coffee pot hisses, bubbling hot water onto the grounds. The deckhand’s mind, however, focuses on different grounds. ThThe continental shelf. The Gulf Stream. ThThe off shore grounds. ThThe captain is still snoring in his berth as the mate moves by muscle memory. The young man’s body is fatigued from the lon day yesterday. ThThey found the bite. ThThe reports were on the money, and the blue marlin chewed. Today, he hopes, will be even better. Coffee is consumed, and frozen bait is removed from the freezer.…

I had just stepped off the de Havilland Twin Otter that brought us from Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina, to Jurassic Lake Lodge’s private landing strip when my hat blew off. It landed about 30 feet away, and a guest who was leaving the lodge snatched it up and returned it with a smile. The smile was a premonition of the week to come. I was about to experience an otherworldly rainbow trout fishery, but I first had to make friends with the wind. I’d known of Jurassic Lake for many years. Its actual name is Lago (Lake) Strobel, and it’s in southern Argentina, about a six-hour drive from El Calafate, the nearest point of civilization. The landscape surrounding the lake is pretty much what one would expect to see on Mars:…

I was 17 and on my way to pick up a date for a high school dance when I caught a glimpse of a rising moon on a cool September evening. Bright and fat as a peach, it stirred me. I rushed home, grabbed the keys to Dad’s boat and headed out in search of striped bass. In my delirium, I forgot my date. True story. It was, after all, a striper moon. The incident inspired my oldest brother to create a collage of images clipped from magazines. On a beach in the foreground stood a beautiful woman glancing longingly out to sea. Far in the distance was a figure fishing from a small Boston Whaler like my father’s. The caption read, “Oh well … I guess he’d rather chase…

I have been a self proclaimed “fly-only guy” for many years. Not because of some egocentric gratification, but in the name of pursuing the highest level of angling thrill (in my humble opinion). A sight-casted fish that willingly eats a fly created by my own hand is a rush that has only grown with time. However, there are equal lows to such highs. A dry spell can leave feelings of torment, provoked by others catching fish, or a lack of pelagic table fare. Distant daydreams still include leaping tarpon from one of the fabled $50K skiff s, feet atop flawless non-skid and keel floating safely above any danger to virgin gelcoat. But something primal awakens in a man when he sees the weathered old salt at the ramp. Dragging crusty…

Nick Mayer ambles along Main Street in Bristol, Vermont, population 3,894, on the kind of crisp fall day when the sun provides all the warmth. He looks out of place in his lobster T-shirt and white Nikes, an average Joe in a sea of flannel. He slips into a doorway and walks upstairs to a high-ceilinged hallway with creaky floors. He unlocks the first door on the right. Sunlight floods the room, and immediately we are in the land of sharks and tuna, a saltwater fishing oasis in a landlocked state. Mayer’s meticulous paintings line the walls surrounding a plush red couch on wheels and a long wooden table with two paintings in progress, a muskie and a giant trevally. The studio has just the essentials: pencils, paper, paint, brushes,…

The wind off the beach on Long Island’s North Fork had turned my cheeks candy apple red as I swung the 10-foot rod toward a boulder 50 yards out in the surf. It was late November, just after the fall migration of striped bass had wound down. Not believing the last of the stripers had finned out of the Northeast, I was determined to pick up a straggler surf casting with the only lure I had brought with me: a white bucktail jig. The 1-ounce jig sailed into the dark blue sky, needling into the surf like an Olympic diver with hardly a splash. Before the bait had a chance to hit bottom, I was reeling for all I was worth to pick up the slack. I did this over…