Anglers Seda Witten and Judith O’Keefe run rapids and throw dry flies for cutthroat trout on Idaho’s Salmon River.

Produced by Simms Fishing Products

Catch Magazine: Issue 11

Featuring “Snookzilla” video by Todd Moen, Bavaria photo essay by Thomas Wolfle, golden mahseer by David McCoy, and a “Moving Water” photo essay by Brian O’Keefe.

This Is Fly: Volume 2 Issue 1

Ryan Hammond on a Zambezi River trip, Los Roques bonefish with Paris Fleezanis, Great Lakes steelhead with Tim Miller, and an interview with AEG media–all on a new platform.

This past Sunday anglers from as far away as Montana gathered at Gates Au Sable Lodge in Grayling, Michigan to celebrate the life of Rusty Gates. Gates, who lost his battle with lung cancer in December at the age of 54, had been the voice of the Au Sable River for more than 30 years.

For those who were fortunate enough to have met “the Gator,” as he was called by those close to him, it is impossible to look at the Au Sable without feeling Rusty’s presence. Even after his passing, Rusty continues to inspire others to stand up for the river he loved so dearly. His spirit and tenacity had an affect on everyone involved in environmental causes, from hikers and hunters, to the many who came to northern Michigan to fish the Au Sable and its neighboring streams.

Dave Smethurst of Gaylord, 66, said, “Rusty was a teenager when I met him, and he’s been a friend ever since. When I was the state Trout Unlimited chairman, Rusty usually was the source for getting information we needed to fight the excesses of the oil companies in the Pigeon River Forest. He understood the scientific and legal issues as well as the scientists and lawyers.”

Gates, who was named Fly Rod & Reel’s “Angler of the Year” in 1995, founded the Anglers of the Au Sable in 1987. Through Rusty’s leadership and ability to rally those around him, the Anglers of the Au Sable were able to win numerous battles in the name of the river, including: Catch and Release on the Holy Waters, National Guard noise pollution on the North Branch, Oil exploration along the South Branch, and toxic chemicals on the main stream.

“A tap on the shoulder, a glance, and a short conversation. That was usually all it took. We set to our tasks with a brio, partly for the cause, partly not to let him down.”

Tim Romano, photo editor for The Flyfish Journal and contributer to MidCurrent, interviews fly fishing videographers Ben Knight and Travis Rummel of Felt Soul Media about years of collaboration, river guiding, and their new film Eastern Rises.

Ben Knight on his most memorable fishing trip: “Russia. It was brutal. I’ve never been so miserable in my life. Trying to film with thick swarms of insects drawing blood from any exposed skin they could find… It may be the last fishing film for me. Sure, maybe I’m just a pansy, and not a true fisherman. That’s fine, I can take it.”

• Great Lakes’ Asian carp and water rights: CNN
• California’s costly trout recovery: AP
• Gulf of Mexico oil spill threatens fishery: The Wall Street Journal
• Salmon returning to the West Coast? Los Angeles Times
• Saving endangered fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta: San Francisco Chronicle

Midcurrent photo contributor Aaron Otto just released the third “issue” of his online magazine “Sleeping InThe Dirt.”

Contributors include Brian O’Keefe, Alex Landeen, Jay Morr, Rich Schaaff, Brian Schiele (who writes about his favorite camera, the plastic Holga), and Bob White.

Effluent carp, “Chrome Corner,” and some excellent work by a few of the industry’s icons as well as some of the newer image makers.

Fly fishing guide Terry Peach and writer Justin Williams of DelawareOnline spend the afternoon chasing American shad below the West Street dam in downtown Wilmington, DE.

“Like Atlantic salmon, the three local varieties of shad spend most of their lives in saltwater but return to their freshwater birthplace in spring to spawn. When the water temperature in the big mid-Atlantic rivers — the Delaware, the Hudson, the Susquehanna — reaches the mid-50s, shad start moving through in large numbers.”

Chris Santella is, like Susan Cocking, a writer who can’t seem to shake the need to land a fly-caught permit. In The New York Times, he offers a brief history of the pursuit and describes his recent trip to the inner lagoons of the Turneffe islands.

“Until a few decades ago, the popular perception was that permit could not be caught on a fly with any regularity. In the early 1980s, several anglers in the Florida Keys — the guide Steve Huff and Del Brown among them — began building flies with epoxy to imitate the small crabs that are a staple of the permit’s diet.”

Bob Sherwood of The Financial Times writes about fly fishing Argentina’s Rio Gallegos River (roughly a three-hour flight south of Buenos Aires) for broad-shouldered sea run browns on the wind-blown landscapes of southern Patagonia.

“Sea trout are not native to Patagonia. Stocking of British brown trout early last century appeared to have been a failure until years later a large migratory influx revealed that a healthy population of sea-run fish had been established. Now this region of southern Argentina claims the best sea trout fishing on the planet.”

photo credit: Kirk Deeter