Compleat Journal

As I wrote this fall, the albies -- they saved us. Or, at least, they saved me. They arrived in prolific numbers, and salvaged what was, up until then, a mediocre to poor saltwater season. Following the photos I posted this fall, I've been working on a video of the day. Settling in to the couch, while Juno raged outside, I put together the final edit. It was the perfect antidote: we had an awesome day on a beautiful, clear day, with fish busting all around us.

As I've written about before in these pages, my father recently donated his bamboo fly rod workshop to the Catskill Fly Fishing Center & Museum. (For past posts, read here and here.) Over Thanksgiving, I shot video of him explaining his relationship with Everett Garrison, who owned most of the workshop equipment before him, his love of working with bamboo, and the importance of it being in a museum. After a few months, the video is almost complete, and so I thought I would share the below preview. 

It was great to see everyone at the Marlborough Fly Fishing Show this weekend. I ran into some old friends, made some new ones, and met a bunch of fans of the site.

Winter in New England. The time for some to tie flies and buy new rods, to read and reflect, to dream. For most, it’s not a time to fish. But for a few hearty souls who brave the weather and toss a line over water’s colder self: ice.

From all of us here at The Compleat Angler, thank you for such a great year. We wish you all a very happy and fishy 2015!

One of the things I love about fly fishing is the craftsmanship involved. In this sport you can make most of what you use: rods, reels, flies, lines, wading staffs -- I know people who, when they fish, they fish with these instruments made by their own hands. To me, that's inspiring -- a good way to spend the winter, to spend a life.

In planning a fishing trip, what do you think of? For many, the answer is a place far away. This is partly due to the decline of local rivers and streams over the 20th century, and partly due to fly fishing’s affinity for adventure and for beauty, a pair most often found out there and not right here. How refreshing it is, then, to discover a fishing destination close to home. This discovery is what the best of Ron Lasko’s book, A Tale of Two Rivers.

“They’re right there. Right theeeere. There…..” This is the point at which your guide, or your friend, usually turns to you, notices you forgot your polarized glasses, and asks with furrowed brow: “You don’t see them?”

In preparing for my trip to the Gaspé Peninsula, I was planning on searching for two types of tail: Atlantic salmon, and striped bass. I needed a reel whose drag system was strong enough to stop a Gaspe salmon, and durable enough to withstand nights in the surf and hours on dirt roads. Moreover, I wanted something that looked good: something a bit classic, and bit modern, but not custom.

Over the coming weeks and months, I'll be publishing a few product reviews for New England on the Fly and The Compleat Angler. Given that, I’d like to start with some ground rules -- rules grounded in personal experience.

Before summarizing the new catch limits set by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (AMFSC), let me start with a simple observation: This was the worst year of striped bass fishing in New England I have ever experienced. I'm not alone in that observation, either.

Birds and breaking water. The quick cast. The mad stripping of line, hand over hand. The hard set. And then the speed—the speed of the take, the speed of the run, and the speed with which you need to throw the fish back into the ocean, headlong, like a hand-launched torpedo. This is the experience of false albacore on the fly. The whole thing, a rush.