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.
They always seem to strike in the middle of the night, making their arrival even more demonic — the darkness hiding their face. We hunker down in the center of our home, camping out in the windowless family room. While exhausted from all the prep and the sea of emotions, sleep is impossible. Wind screams against the side of the house. The dog growls and barks as debris from the 100-year-old live oak in our front yard bounces off the roof. I pace the hallway, stare at my two young sons sleeping on mattresses dragged from their bedrooms and placed on the floor. My wife looks at her phone, her face aglow in blue light. Has the path changed? Is the eye still projected to run over our lives? The…
AND THE AWARD GOES TO … The Winter 2024 issue of Anglers Journal won the 2024 Folio: Eddie award for best full issue in the Sports/Recreation category. Each year, the Folio: Eddie & Ozzie Awards recognize editorial excellence and design accumen in magazine publishing. “This is a huge honor for our editorial team and all of the talented writers and photographers we work with,” says editor-in-chief Charlie Levine. “Seeing our niche fishing magazine beat out some heavy hitters in the sports world feels pretty darn good.” Two AJ contributors also won awards from the Outdoor Writers Association of America. Noah Davis’ “Restoring Balance” in the Winter 2024 issue earned a first place Excellence in Craft award in the Conservation or Nature category for magazine writing. The piece focused on the conservation…
Jason Arnold is an awardwinning photographer, author and director based in Florida. He spent many years shooting for the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and other sports leagues. While the world of sports photography was actionpacked, he never lost his attachment to the sea. He began shooting outdoor photography as a side project, which became his passion. Jason shot the cover photo for this issue. Third-generation south Miami native Kevin Dodge spent 20 years photographing high fashion and other elegant subjects. An avid free diver and lifelong water-sports enthusiast, he turned his lens underwater to capture the beautiful and sometimes dangerous world that belongs to a vast collection of creatures. Kevin took the “Mug Shot” openingspread photo at the beginning of the issue. Photography is Rick Griffiths’ passion — driven by…
Casting Homeward By Steve Ramirez Lyons Press When a friend invites you into their home for a meal or a drink, it’s a nice gesture to say that they like you enough to fulfill basic, human needs together. But when a friend invites you fishing, the trust and love that is implied is a privilege that should never be taken for granted. Steve Ramirez has etched his way into the canon of fly-fishing writing through his Casting series, and Casting Homeward is the fourth book of the collection. While readers recognize Ramirez’s home waters are the creeks of the Texas Hill Country, some might be surprised that the book follows a similar affinity to travel as his Casting Onward and Casting Seaward, ranging from the Northeast to Alaska to Montana.…
THE STREAM FLOWS SOUTH out of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area through western Montana. A marathon of waters running great distances. The waters cling to us long after we’ve cut off the fly and stepped out of our waders to sit with an exhausted grin. Each day away from this stream, I think of these waters, think on them, playing every whit of their great length. I like to imagine the journey trout make in the hottest days of summer, from the river in the valley rising into the mountains where waters grow colder, narrowing to their source, which of course is our source, too. The blue clarity they assume is akin to what I think the world’s beginning must have been like. It’s along sections of this stream, in…
ANGLERS, ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO FLY-FISH, hold common bonds that tie them together like a blood knot: a love of the outdoors, a passion for the pursuit and pull of a fish, the desire to share stories. These bonds bring us together, whether it’s through the pages of a book, or sitting around a table tying flies. The fishing world last fall lost two men who embodied this spirit, author John Gierach and fly-tyer Bob Popovics. Gierach, who penned more than 20 books and thousands of essays and articles, passed away Oct. 3 from cardiac arrest. He was 77. The renowned fly fisherman could capture the spirit of a trout stream with insightful introspection and a knack for moving past the frustrations or snobbishness often linked to fly-fishing. Gierach moved from the…
