Fishing Junk Water
What started as the sketchiest junk lake turned into something much harder to leave behind
3/20/2026Michelle Jarvie9 min read
Fly-fishing
Gradual Untangling
Fly Tying? You want me to tie a fly? No way. I can’t even darn socks. I knew I had enrolled in a fly fishing school, but I never thought about the fly tying aspect that would accompany my studies. School started and there I was, my instructor persuading me to give it a try. Reluctantly I went to the tying area. With a heavy heart, I tried my hand at tying my first fly, and managed to make a large and splendid bug. That disheveled fly went on to startle many fish, but one showed interest; all was
Oman
Oman … the name alone conjures up images of the desert, sand dunes and camels. This is the place that I now call home and where my husband and I have started our fishing business: Arabian Fly Sport Fishing. Most people’s first reactions are “Oh yeah, I saw the movie Fly Fishing in Yemen. Is it like that?” Well we haven’t built our own river and stocked it with wild salmon, that’s for sure. Our business is saltwater fishing. Oman has over 2000 kilometers of coastline - from rugged, unforgiving cl
Wild
Laurentian Great Lakes steelhead are a complex stock of fish. The population is a mixture of hatchery-released and wild, naturally reproduced fish originating from many different streams. Knowing the natal streams of the fish is important to best managing this species, as it allows for targeted conservation and management to the areas that are the major contributors to the total lake population. Fortunately, we may be able to determine the natal stream of a fish by looking at its otolith. Otoli
Latest
Dance
Her hips swayed in opposition to her arms. Hands held just so -- fingers extended, as if accentuating the beat. Head bent. Neck elongated, in contrast to her chin and closed eyes downcast. Gazing past her swaying thighs and knees and feet and toes, pointed just so. To her daughter. The mother was not watching the daughter. The mother was dancing with her pre-teen daughter. And I was a voyeur -- captivated by this innocent couple dancing along side the stage of a outdoor music festival. I was si
Firewater
It’s a relatively cool, cloudy, Sunday in late August. AKA … brewing day. I am a homebrewer - beer, wine, mead and anything in between, even a traditional Finnish drink called Sima, which is a delicious sparkling lemonade. I’ve been waiting for cool weather (and spare time) all summer so I can try out new recipes. I also grew hops this year for the first time, and although they are not quite ready for harvest, I can’t wait to use them. In fact, I planted an entire garden dedicated to brewing
The Seaducer
This simple streamer is deadly for both fresh and saltwater fish. If that wasn’t reason enough to start adding them to your box, they are super easy to tie as well. Strip the fly back to you with an erratic retrieve and hang on! Dun Magazine - Tails & Ties - The Seaducer from Dun Magazine on Vimeo.
Canoes and Cold Hands
Our green Coleman canoe gets some strange looks at the Gallatin River put in. There’s snow in the forecast for the afternoon but for now the sun is out, warming up my waders that hang from the review mirror. We pull the canoe off a cutbank into the small eddy and I eye the sharp fence between upstream and downstream water. “If we tip over here, we just swim back to the car, right?” I say. I’m half joking. The water is winter cold and I really, really don’t want to go for a wader swim. Two men
The Eagle's Nest
It was late March and my husband, no longer able to resist the call of fishing, had taken us to the Poconos. Like the rest of the residents of the North East we felt the call of spring. We were all tired of the gray days, the snow and the cold. We were seriously wishing for sunshine and warmth and trout. That day, we drove up to the mountains from South Jersey with the promise of temperatures in the 60’s. Even so, there was still snow on the ground, patches of ice on the edges of the streams an
The Responsibility
When Josh and I found out we were having a little girl, we both cried tears of Joy. Josh won’t admit that, but I’m telling his secret. I cook his meals and am the mother of his children. He can’t get too mad right? Besides the “She’s never dating”, “She’s never leaving the house” spiel, he said three things to me that day that melted my heart. Through the tears he told me “I really want her to be proud to have me as her father.” “I’m going to work really hard to be the husband to you that s
Walk on the Safe Side
"All women are b**ches and liars." Those were the exact words out of an older man’s mouth a few years ago when my partner and I were fishing on a famous Lake Ontario steelhead river. When this man first approached us, thanks to our completely gender-neutral appearance, he just seemed a little jealous that we had been out-fishing him and he wanted us out of “his space,” but when he figured out we were women, he began blurting out a rant about how horrible women were, including his own mother. Thi
The Art of Angling
My earliest memory is learning how to draw a house with perspective. Since then I’ve been hooked on art of many kinds. From taking courses while I was in college in printmaking, glass forming, pottery and sculpture to fine art, graphic design and jewelry making, art of all kinds has always inspired me. I graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Illustration from the Rochester Institute of Technology without the clear sense of personal style that many of my peers had evolved. I could draw anyt
Liquid Gold
I have water in my veins, a common thread, starting from when I was a young girl growing up on the shores of Wild Fowl Bay, off of Lake Huron’s thumb of Michigan. It was a great place to explore woodlands, wetlands, fishing, sailing and swimming. You could not keep me out of the water then and it continually pulls be back now. As an adult, I am constantly being pulled back to the need for water, sort of a “Fish out of Water.” I have lived in a suburb of Illinois, not far from Chicago and the
Side By Side
Sliding down cellar doors, slapping a hand ball against cement stoops, drawing on steamy, black asphalt with chalk bought at the corner deli…these were my day-to-day adventures growing up in Queens, New York. Any sign of greenery was sparse: four sycamore trees that lined our corner row home, a 10’ patch of “grass” in our tiny yard, and the occasional dandelion that found its way into the cracks of the endless sidewalks. Skies rarely brightened beyond a smoggy, pale blue and the only likeness o
The Ice Shad
This fly was created for the Great Lakes, but is at home in the saltwater, a bass lake, a smallmouth river, swung for steel or in a trout stream. We tie Ice Wing in like EP for an EP style baitfish. A little tricky to get the hang of at first, this fly is worth the mess it makes. Tie one on today! American Shad - Ice Shad from Dun Magazine on Vimeo.