CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS The Drake Magazine Flyfishing Video Awards will be a special night on Sept. 26, 2023, in Salt Lake City.   While showcasing flyfishing’s premiere filmmakers—as it has since 2006—this year’s event will also feature four very talented musical guests: Chris Pandolfi and Jeremy Garrett from Grammy Award-winning bluegrass band, The Infamous Stringdusters, and National Flatpicking Champion Tyler Grant and bassist Adrian “Ace” Engfer, from Grant Farm. This is a benefit concert for the non-profit AFFTA Fisheries Fund, the conservation and advocacy&n ..read more

Colorado's Access Issue A long history of questionable proceedings. Words by Tom Bie Photos by Sammy Chang & Jeffrey Beal On June fifth, the seven members of Colorado’s court of last resort unanimously ruled that 81-year-old flyfisherman Roger Hill “lacks standing” to continue his decade-long legal battle for public access along the Arkansas River (Hill v. Warsewa). Put another way, the Colorado Supreme Court unanimously ruled that its justices lack the resolve or the readiness to pursue a rational clarification of the state’s river-access laws. It’s hard to blame the judges. Their rel ..read more

Swift Thinking Look what you made me do Words by Pete McDonald Photos by Andrew Gilbert The look in my wife’s eyes suggested that what she was about to tell me would be a crushing blow. “I wasn’t able to get a ticket for you,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” The ticket in question was to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which, in the world of our teen and pre-teen daughters, is serious currency. My wife had secured six such tickets to the sold-out concert at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. All of which were allotted to my daughters, their friends, and their moms. I put my hands on my wife’s shoulders ..read more

Launch ramp on Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon   Questionable Collections Where are our recreation.gov fees actually going? By Tom Bie Type “fly fishing” into the recreation.gov search window, and 260 results appear, allowing bookings for anything from a campsite on Oregon’s Umpqua River ($28) to the “Sunrise House” on Cape Cod ($6,600 for Memorial Weekend). There are at least two fees involved with every checkout: a “Recreation Use Fee” and a “Reservation Fee.” Recreation fees vary based on location and demand, and this money finds its way back to our public-land agencies via a dedi ..read more

Tip-Toeing Through Russia By Justin Miller Despite the whole universe seeming to conspire against me, I made it to Russia for steelhead season this fall. Even better, I made it back home, although my mother and sister had their doubts. It wasn’t easy, to say the least. But I wanted to be there, and I felt it was important that I be there. Obviously, I do not in any way support the invasion of Ukraine. But I also don’t blame my friends in Russia for their government’s decisions. I’m the only American who made the journey this year. I’m also the only one who tried, which wasn’t a surprise. Th ..read more

What Really Happened in Bolivia?  By Tom Bie The first email arrived on July 14. “Reaching out to pass along some fresh ‘industry happenings’ from the heart of Bolivia’s golden dorado region,” it began. “I figured the Drake might be interested in looking into it, as it seems on par with the prior articles investigating Deneki.” The “happenings” had occurred the week before, when the Angling Frontiers (AF) lodge owned by Bolivian-born/Dallas-based outfitters Patrick Taendler and Frederico Marancenbaum was burned to the ground in the Bolivian jungle. One might assume that this initial em ..read more

And Hot Carp Flies, 150 Centuries Old. By Eben Pindyck Flyfishing for carp holds about as much appeal for me as getting a face tattoo. But what if my ancestors—or yours—were doing just that at the dawn of civilization? University of Connecticut anthropology professor Natalie Munro hypothesizes that this may indeed have been the case among the prehistoric people who regularly visited an ancient lake in what is today northern Israel. In 2014, an international team of scientists, including Munro, started to excavate an archaeological site on the Jordan River. It contained remarkably well-prese ..read more

What’s happening to our favorite hatch? By Beau Davis Living in Eastern Idaho allows me to fish some of the finest trout water in the country, from the South Fork of the Snake to the Madison in Montana. But lately, nostalgia has drawn me south, to northern Utah’s Logan and Blacksmith Fork rivers, both of which flow through the fifty-mile-long Cache Valley where I grew up. Each of these rivers had healthy salmonfly hatches when my grandpa was a kid, but now only the Blacksmith Fork does, and few people seem to know why. A typical Logan River Canyon scene. Photo by Beau Davis The Logan’s an ..read more

By Beau Davis Once known as little more than a railroad hub, prime agricultural center, and adjacent to the first economically viable nuclear reactor in the United States, the community of Idaho Falls has since become known as centrally located to some of the best trout fisheries in the country. These include the main Snake River, the Bear River, American Falls, the South Fork of the Snake, the Henry’s Fork, Yellowstone National Park, and more water in-between than you can literally and metaphorically shake a stick at. And, if you’re looking for one of the best all-purpose and all-species f ..read more

Chasing pike in the name of science By Kevin Fraley Clouds and rain threatened as I stepped from the single-prop onto the tarmac at the Alaskan village of Galena, home to a few hundred residents along the north bank of the Yukon River, 270 air miles west of my home in Fairbanks. Home to bears most of the time. Photo by author Waiting for me in the parking lot, leaning against his vintage Toyota pickup, was Wyatt Snodgrass, fisheries biologist for the Innoko, Koyukuk, and Nowitna National Wildlife Refuges (combined acreage: 9,450,488—the size of six Delawares). I was visiting in my capacit ..read more