Three of my sons and I used our old Stinson Voyager Station Wagon, 1948 vintage airplane, to get us to the beginning of our hike off the Nebesna Glacier. We carefully picked our landing spot on the glacier, one we had thoroughly investigated, and lan...

Margaret and I honeymooned on Nes Perce Creek in Yellowstone Park. We camped in the exact spot where I pitched my tent years earlier as a boy scout and earned merit badges. My new bride celebrated catching a husband by landing the first, most, and bi...

My youngest son Easten was a 10-year-old Webelo Boy Scout when he landed his first fish. Just after the snow melted, and before the ice was off the lakes, I spent an afternoon on the front lawn with his den teaching them to cast a fly rod. Easten and...

Steve Mahay was thinking about operating a lodge at the confluence of Clear Creek and Talkeetna River. The lodge was established, and Steve would be taking it over from the owners who had not been able to make a go of it. Steve invited me to come up ...

The Talkeetna river runs toward the ocean at the foot of Mt. Mckinley, North America’s tallest mountain. Each fall, it’s not climbers that rush to Talkeetna village, located at the river’s mouth. The climbing is done in the spring. ...

Talachulitna River is a unique stream. It’s less than an hour’s flight from Anchorage in a small plane; it’s crystal clear. Almost all of it is wadable for fly-fishermen, all five species of Pacific salmon run its waters, and it has...

Carrie became an official angler on the spit at English Bay. She was fishing in saltwater when a 14-inch Dolly took her bait. English Bay is a short flight from Homer. The airport, such as it is, is a wide, flat, narrow strip of gravel on the spit se...

Russian River is one of my favorite fishing holes. Of the ones you can drive to, my favorite. Sure it’s crowded during the red-salmon run, but that’s part of the fun. After the red run winds up, and most anglers put away their equipment o...

Kids don’t care if it’s in a plane, a boat, or just the family clunker. Jesse, for example. When he was barely three, he and I took our old converted camper Corvan and went fishing. A Corvan was Corvair’s minivan. Both the Corvair a...

You often hear me recommend that when you go fishing, take a kid with you. When I say kid, I mean either boy or girl. Some of my best times on the fishing stream have been with my daughters. Diane became acquainted with hiking in the outdoors before ...

Miss Shapen was constructed for the sole purpose of taking her builders fishing on the Swanson River. And fishing we did. It was from the deck of Miss Shapen that my oldest son Alan took his first fish. It was early spring in the second year of Miss ...

Do you remember your first fish? Of course you do. I remember mine like it was last week. On opening day, I was in Oak Creek Canyon, fishing with a 10-foot cane pole, no reel, a piece of line tied to one end, and nightcrawlers for bait. I have relive...