Anglers Journal celebrates the best writing, photography, illustration, design and sporting art on the topic of fishing. Come join some of the most prolific fishing editors and writers in the industry for the best angling experience on the water.
A funny thing happened somewhere in the middle of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We asked a total stranger for some local fishing dope, and he happily shared it. This past spring I was feet in the sand with my friend and colleague Bill Sisson, getting punched in the face by an onshore wind as we watched a surfcaster in chest-deep water fire his plug into the caving surf. A couple of fly fishermen stood a few yards behind him, struggling to punch their flies through the morning gusts. Bill and I were fishing partners in the Cheeky Schoolie Tournament, the largest land-based fly-fishing tourney in the country. In this one-day, catch-and-release event, you must fish for striped bass from shore anywhere on the Cape. Neither of us knew the local topography…
Michael Carr is an English teacher and writer from New Jersey who chases stripers with a fly rod whenever and wherever he can. He is working on a collection of fishing essays in the off-hours between hikes, pond trips and driveway hockey with his sons. Michael takes us off the south shore of Massachusetts to target striped bass in “A Change of Plans.” Kelly Dalling Fallon is a secondgeneration Australian charter operator. She currently works alongside her husband, Capt. Luke Fallon, running Kekoa Sports Fishing on the Great Barrier Reef. She is a veteran of 18 black marlin seasons, and her photos have appeared in numerous fishing publications worldwide. She also is the author of the Black Marlin Blog, documenting the Cairns marlin fishery. Kelly’s work appears in “A Dingo’s…
THE REAL DEAL Just a fan note to say how much I enjoyed the piece on Janet Messineo [“Indomitable”] in the Summer issue. A lively, honest story so unlike so much of the fluff that passes for angling writing these days. Bravo! Bob DeMott She is the real deal when it comes to her craft. Stephen Desisto A talented artist and fisherman, for sure. Love Janet! Leah Fraumeni MY NO. 1 GOAL About seven years ago, I picked up my first copy of Anglers Journal at an airport and read it cover to cover during my flight. Each story — laid out to perfection with inspiring photos — truly made me feel as if I were on the water with the writers, sharing their experiences. I quickly realized I had…
The Catch of a Lifetime By Peter Kaminsky Artisan Books Peter Kaminsky writes passionately about the world of angling, but he now flexes his curating muscles in this beautiful fly-fishing anthology. A common pitfall of anthologies is the repetition of subjects and entries so long you forget the book is a collection of voices. Yet Kaminsky has set a format with The Catch of a Lifetime that balks at those shortcomings. The essays are “moments,” some less than 500 words. They are glimpses into a writer’s glory, the type of story that could be shared on the ride back to the dock or while leaning against the bar. And the subjects range from trout, salmon, marlin and stripers to peacock bass, carp and the light one witnesses while fishing. We…
“I’M GIVING YOU ONE MORE SHOT, DUDE, AND THAT’S IT. This is getting stupid.” I heard my good friend Capt. Eric Kerber loud and clear but pretended I didn’t. He wasn’t wrong. This was both stupid and selfish. I was the only guy on the charter who cared a lick about fly-fishing. We ended up more than an hour from port off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, before finally spotting the hard tails of false albacore slicing the October chop. The schools were tight and fleeting — up for five seconds, then down for 30 before popping up 50 to 100 yards away. The other fellas, all standing around with epoxy jigs dangling from their spinning rods, could have easily hit several of the blitzes from 70 feet, but Kerber told…
FLY-FISHING IS TRANSITORY. We live it gracefully — some of us less than gracefully. The cast, the retrieve, the hopeful connection, all appear and disappear in blissful evanescence. When you get a chance to partake in it, the moment should live on longer than the minutes and hours actually spent fishing. Occasionally, you’ll find yourself in a little pocket of the world that you didn’t think existed, and yet it does — and originated long before you got there. I spent a morning getting to know captains Parker Mauck and Chris Killenberg of Westport Fly Fishing. They’re genuinely nice guys, and they showed me a secluded area around Westport, Massachusetts, a fishing village on Buzzards Bay where no one seemed to be fishing on a Saturday during the height of…
