Fishing Junk Water
What started as the sketchiest junk lake turned into something much harder to leave behind
3/20/2026Michelle Jarvie
DO
Snowshoeing: Proof You Can Love Winter
A funny, honest take on snowshoeing for the “real you” not the expedition you. Learn what you actually need, how to pick the right size and bindings, and why walking-speed winter can be the season you start to love.
3/2/2026Dun Team
Winter Hiking Safety for Normal People (Not Expedition Athletes)
Winter hiking doesn’t have to be extreme to be safe and fun. This guide gives you a simple system—how to pick the right trail, dress in layers, pack a small safety kit, and know when to turn around—so you can enjoy cold-weather miles with confidence, not stress.
2/3/2026Dun Team
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
7/20/2018Mari Kitagawa
Latest
Brook Trout & Blueberry Pie
I am eight years old. I live in Texas, and I fly fish with my dad. I didn’t realize how rare that was until I tried to find someone my age to fish with. Not easy. I started fishing with a spin cast rod and apparently caught my first bass at the age of two. I don’t remember that, but I have a photo. Dad, me, pigtails, and a largemouth. I picked up my first fly rod at the age of four. For a few years, my dad would carry a spinning rod and a fly rod for me. When I was six, I caught a large catfish,
11/5/2018Lil D
Life Choices
My love for fishing started on a dock in the Adirondacks. Every summer my family spent a week or two at my grandparents’ lake house and my older brother, Charlie, and I would sit out on the dock every day with a Styrofoam cup of worms catching sunfish. We sat out there from sunrise to sunset, excited over every fish we caught. I also fished with my other grandpa from the surf in Cocoa Beach, Florida. The first time I ever saw someone fly fishing was at a neighborhood pond during my freshman year
11/5/2018Katie Pelnik
Winging It
There are two ways to experience fly fishing. Anglers can diligently research each proposed fishing location, painstakingly scrolling through site descriptions and reading up on local guidebooks and scheduling trips to local fly shops. The first day on the water, they are perfectly prepared, sporting the ideal fly, the proper technique, the best tackle. Or, one can wing it. My husband Brian and I definitely fit into the latter category as we pulled in through the gates at Rocky Mountain Nation
11/5/2018Erika Zambello
Tips
I always enjoy reading about fly fishing excursions to exotic countries, primarily because I’ll never get to visit any of those places myself due to, shall we say, financial considerations. My fly fishing travel experiences have therefore been limited to the domestic sort, such as Montana, for example. A teeny little fishing village, Craig, is located about an hour north of Helena along the western bank of the Missouri River. Craig’s population in the winter months is zero, because, I’m just gu
7/20/2018Kimberly Smith
The Pink Lady: a Catskill Legend
A good stream-side stiffener never fails to elevate a good story...but we must wait and travel back to the late 19th century. We travel to a famous Catskill inn, sit by a hand-hewn, rock fireplace to remove our waders and boots. We hang our rods by the fire before we partake of the bar that was built to connect and serve both this raconteur’s retreat and the main lodge—home to our subject, The Pink Lady. There, not one, but two pink ladies await. One, just off the dawn and dusk stream - rode ha
7/20/2018Rita R Schimpff
Gold Rush
Quietly crawling through marshland with my rod balanced on my shoulder and doing my best to stay out of sight, I was reminded of stalking chalk stream trout in the British countryside, not a technique I had anticipated when fishing for the aggressive golden dorado in the Ibera Marsh of Northern Argentina. But, I was in fact after salminus brasiliensis, and this morning’s delicate roll casting in the small and intricate channels of the marshland was one example of how golden dorado fishing consta
7/20/2018Kathryn Fensterstock
Lahontan Through Different Eyes
“Our entire existence has been dedicated to protecting our natural resources for our future generations. Within our lake, the fish are viewed as sacred … They have given us life and we are responsible for their protection.” Autumn Harry, Paiute member and environmental activist When it comes to leading change, there is no one more fierce than a woman backed by history, tradition, and a passion for a place and people. Autumn Harry is such a woman. Though most anglers know Pyramid Lake only for i
7/20/2018Sarah Landstrom
Albies & More
Anyone with a keen interest in saltwater fly fishing will likely find their Facebook news feeds loaded with captivating images of glamorous flats trophies such as bonefish, permit, tarpon, and the occasional redfish. While angling for the species is some of my favorite fishing, there is so much more to saltwater fly fishing. If there’s one reason people write off saltwater fly fishing, it’s because flats fishing looks too expensive, time-consuming, and difficult. As a Mid-Atlantic saltwater gui
7/20/2018Sarah Gardner
Taking the Leap
The whispers still come, “Have you completely lost your mind, to give up your career to go fly fishing?” My heart answers back, “No, I have found it!” No longer encumbered by killers of my inspiration, I am taking a leap. I’m jumping off my 35-year career as a software engineer into the world and industry of fly fishing. I’m taking my favorite route on this journey, the one that is unknown even to myself. I can only recognize that I am headed in the right direction as I travel from guidepost to
7/20/2018Robin Schmidt
The Lesson
I preach the value of learning for a living, but I am not always comfortable as a novice. The first time I fished the Owyhee River with my friend Kaitlin about four years ago, I was skunked. I was a typical beginner—I’d fly fished a few times before, but never really learned the craft. I was practicing a basic cast with a hand-me-down rod and eight-year-old fly line, somehow drawn to this pointless activity of catch-and-release fly fishing. I couldn’t, like Kaitlin, shoot the line a straight 25
7/20/2018Meagan Newberry
Finding Inspiration
Darrian White Stepping away from the everyday and taking control The thing that inspires my fly fishing lifestyle is the simplicity of just being out on the water. The diversity of flies, casts, rods, and locations takes my mind away from the reality of stressors and insecurities of my everyday life. The thing that really attracted me to fly fishing was the capability to be in complete control of the situation; the fly, and the cast. Being 23, I’ve been through a multitude of situations some
7/20/2018Dun Magazine
Dealing with line twist
Does this sound familiar? You’ve been making long casts, but then decide to make a series of short casts, leaving a pile of line at your feet. You see fish blowing up bait near the shore. You bomb out a long cast, but instead of the fly heading to that perfect lie, the fly line ends up tied in a huge knot around the stripping guide. Or how about this? You’ve been fishing with an indicator all afternoon and then decide to switch to a dry fly. Your first cast has the fly turning over, and over,
7/20/2018Dun Magazine