Kayaks make an ordinary angler a fishing ninja. They’re stealthy. They can get into target-rich skinny water that a larger boat can’t reach and would be impossible to wade, and they hold all the gear you’ll need for a day on the water or a multiday ...
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10 Fishing Podcasts Every Angler Should Check Out
You can’t swing a dead possum without hitting an “outdoors” podcast these days. All you need is a microphone, a laptop, a subscription to a podcast hosting service, and a half-assed idea of what you want to talk about. Okay, maybe even half of ...
Boat Building: Pat Smith’s Handcrafted Cedar-Canvas Canoes
Pat Smith’s boat shop is not a place for those with OCD. One step inside and you get the smell of Captain Black pipe tobacco, cedar sawdust, epoxy, and varnish. "A Whiter Shade of Pale" drifts from the transistor radio in the back of the ...
In Praise of Shad
Shad and shad fishing became real for me on a backwater hole in eastern North Carolina when my first buck hickory danced across the water on his tail like a miniaturized, silver-scaled tarpon. I was hooked more surely than that spawning fish ...
The Hunter Recruitment Project Introduces Veterans to Fly Fishing
Conversation the night before covered the usual bases. Everyone knew the shit that everyone else had seen and no one really wanted to rehash most of it anyhow. Everyone spoke the language, the shorthand of combat experience, and that acknowledgment ...
Zebra Mussels: The $1.5 Billion Invasion
The pike is as visible 20 feet away and 10 feet down as it would be in a fish tank in some doctor’s waiting room. Suspended in gin-clear water in the shadow of a forest of milfoil, he spooks before a single cast can be made. It’s the curse of the ...
Minnesota: There’s a New Trophy Game Fish in Town
Pike just aren’t cutting it anymore. Minnesota wants its monster sunfish back. In light of angler reports of declining sunfish size in the land of 10,000 lakes, the state’s Department of Natural Resources has announced new regulations that aim to ...
WATCH: Fisherman Lands 12-Foot Great White Shark on Pensacola Beach
Ah, yes. With the COVID-19 pandemic winding down at last, and with summer just over the horizon, many Americans are probably jonesing for that idyllic beach holiday that's seemed out of reach for so very long. Well, just when you thought it was ...
Starter Kit: Learning To Fly Fish — Flies
There are as many fly-fishing patterns as there are bugs and baitfish in nature. Understanding fly patterns and then selecting the right flies to put in your box is actually pretty simple though, which means you won’t have to rely on luck alone to ...
The Spider-Web: An Odd Fly-Fishing Rod Used Beyond WWI’s Trenches
Pvt. John Henry Hirst was determined to land a trout on the fly. It was nearing the summer of 1915, and the Germans had just launched a surprise offensive along the Western Front. While other British soldiers braced for impact from a German artillery ...
Starter Kit: Learning To Fly Fish — Casting
Learning a basic fly cast is probably the coolest part of the process aside from actually catching a fish. Fly casts are inherently beautiful, for sure. But when you drop a fly on the water above a fish and it happily grabs that fly and puts a great ...
Proposed Legislation That Impacts the Outdoors and Outdoor Sports
Legislation that directly affects our legacy outdoor pastimes like hunting, fishing, and shooting is in a constant state of flux. In an effort to keep you informed, we’re pulling together a monthly roundup of national and state-level policy-making ...
Starter Kit: Learning To Fly Fish — Gear Up
Fly fishing can seem overwhelming at first. Truth is, it’s not. Learning how to fly fish is actually easy and fun as hell. And it won’t immediately empty your wallet. With the right gear and some fundamentals, you’ll be ready to pester farm-pond ...
Winter Storm Uri Devastates Texas Exotic Wildlife and Fish Numbers
Winter storm Uri has dealt a devastating blow to coastal fisheries and exotic game species in Texas, and with only preliminary reports and anecdotal data currently available, officials say it will take months to fully understand the scale of this ...
Firefighter and Avid Fisherman Wins the BRCC Ultimate Outdoor Giveaway
Brandon Crimmons, a firefighter from White House, Tennessee, has won the fishing package of a lifetime — Black Rifle Coffee Company’s Ultimate Outdoor Giveaway. Crimmons landed more than $110,000 worth of prizes, including a brand-new Toyota Tacoma ...
Take Down Those Dams: New Legislation Could Save Snake River Salmon
Rep. Mike Simpson, an Idaho Republican congressman, has just put the Northwest energy and agriculture sector on notice: Salmon and steelhead will join them at the table, and not as the entrée. In a video statement posted over the weekend, Simpson ...
Doing What You Love: How Dallas Hemeyer Turned His Passion Into a Career
Most hunters reluctantly leave the woods to go to a job they may not particularly enjoy, but Dallas Hemeyer found a way to turn his passion for hunting into a lucrative career. During a recent chat with Evan Hafer on the Free Range American ...
Sex Dungeon? The Best Named Fly-Fishing Flies of All Time
Fly-fishing used to be a particularly stodgy affair. That was true also regarding the names of flies; they were either named after their inventor or given an unimaginative moniker based on what they imitated. Fortunately, that has all changed as new ...
5 Reasons Why Hunting, Fishing, and Shooting Will Be Awesome in 2021
By pretty much every metric, 2020 was a dumpster fire. A global pandemic and civil unrest the likes of which haven’t been seen in a lifetime rocked the globe. Normal has gone out the window, and who knows when it will be back. But not everything is ...
Favorite Stories of 2020: Free Range American Editor’s Picks
We are young, but we are mighty. Free Range American launched in October and in just over 10 weeks we’ve published a deep-dive profile on an alt-country rocker, decided once and for all what exactly is the best hunting bino harness on the ...
Where the Brook Trout Run: Pond in the River
If I’m in Maine, it’s raining. This trip was no different, with an early spring drizzle dancing on the lake’s surface as we put in on the southern corner like we had so many times before. As the sun began its westward procession across the gray sky, ...
2020 FRA Holiday Gift Guide: The Fishing Wish List
The holiday shopping season is in full swing, and for outdoors enthusiasts that means one thing: new gear. New gear to gift our buddies who fish and hunt. New gear to put in our own letters to Santa. This year, FRA decided to go big and asked ...
The San Diego Bottom Scratchers: The Men Who Hunted Sharks Barehanded
All 19 members of the San Diego Bottom Scratchers are dead. At the bottom of the ocean, a few hundred yards northwest of Boomer Beach and the Point in La Jolla, is an underground cemetery of tombstones and rock cairns. Inscribed are the names of some ...
Wildfires, Hunting, and Fishing: How the Fires Will Change Your Next Trip
I’m beyond angry. I’m pissed off, standing with two US Forest Service employees while my good friend and hunting partner Anthony Noriega, almost a mile away and 1,000 feet higher than us, inspects the ruins of a man-made fire high in the Idaho ...
Muskie Fishing: Fish of a Lifetime on Ontario’s Pipestone Lake
It was only a matter of time before someone hooked into a monster. That someone happened to be my uncle. While leisurely patrolling patches of weeds sprouting inside a shallow bay, he saw a fish — a BIG fish — swimming away from the boat. Without ...
Meet Morgan Mason, BHA’s New Armed Forces Initiative Coordinator
Morgan Mason has done a lot. The Kansas farmboy went overseas for the invasion of Iraq as an intelligence analyst with the US Army. After returning home, he bummed around the Rocky Mountains — and Baja, Mexico — hopping between various outdoor jobs. ...
Baghdad Angler’s Club: How a US Navy Sailor Brought the Fly Fishing to Iraq
When Joel Stewart arrived in Iraq in February 2005, he didn’t expect he would be able to fly fish in the middle of a combat zone. Fortunately, he came prepared and even started teaching others the sport. The Baghdad Angler’s Club was born. The US ...
The Frank: A Fly-in, Fly-Fishing Adventure in Idaho’s Largest Wilderness
There is a rattlesnake somewhere near my left boot. I can hear it, but I can’t see it. My dad is sitting on the ground 10 yards away with his back against a log, holding a sandwich in one hand and pointing frantically with the ...
More Than 80,000 Acres of Public Lands Inaccessible to Hunters, Anglers
More than 80,000 acres of federal, state, county, and municipal public lands in the Mid-Atlantic are inaccessible to hunters and fishermen, according to a new report from onX Maps and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP). The ...
Fish Candy: Dry-Brined and Smoked Lake Trout
The best part about fishing with Big Spoon Sportfishing isn’t all the fish you catch but the snacks that Capt. Chris Bomysoad serves up on the water. “Fishermen,” he likes to say, “fish on their stomach,” so this New York guide keeps his clients ...
