COVER “Wizard falls is well-known among those who are lucky enough to have visited Oregon’s Metolius River. A deep chasm allows light to penetrate, illuminating the striking blue water. Arriving at the Metolius on this morning genuinely stopped me in my tracks. A thick blanket of snow covered everything. Low mist hung above the trees, slowly thinning. The unmistakable silence that can only be experienced after heavy snow dominated my senses. Fishing could wait.” Photo: Toby Nolan RISES 01 Fresh snow fell early, blanketing the trees around Wisconsin’s Rush River. The freezing temperatures kept the trees frosty, a scene that made the slow fishing more enjoyable. Frozen, defeated and beer-less, Grant Meyer checked out the hole beneath the bridge to confirm there were still brown trout in the river—just enough motivation to return another cold winter day. Photo: Justin Carfagnini 02 Beto Mejia goes for a swim in the lagoon while reviving a large, three-bar peacock bass in February 2020. Cichla temensis grow to extreme sizes in the upper reaches of Colombia’s Orinoco River, where the hottest days easily exceed 90 degrees. Photo: Wesley G. White 03/04 Tom Darling gets a tow from a northern pike in the Norfolk Broads, a series of more than 60 lakes, each one a flooded peat excavation dating from about the 12 th century. Shallow and warm, they produce northern pike to over 30 pounds, which in England is about the closest thing you get to a crocodile. These lakes weren’t proven to be human made until the 1960s. Photos: Ben Etridge 05 “There are some things I’m good at and there are some I’m not. Beach-launching boats like the Orca is one of the latter. Lucky for me, it was just another day in the life of this group of salty folks on a trip to the famed Ranfurly Banks, an underwater mountain range off the East Cape of New Zealand’s North Island. The Banks are home to some of the largest yellowtail kingfish this side of the equator.” Photo: Jeff Forsee 06 You gotta pay to play, and for Rob Wood the pay was hours of walking and casting in subfreezing temps and snow squalls. But the reward, found in a special Utah spot, was well worth it. Photo: Adam Barker 07 Kara Moore learns the hard way that it’s probably not smart to throw streamers during freezing temperatures. But who can resist a couple casts when the ice shelfs on Colorado’s Roaring Fork River look so inviting? Photo: Shannon Outing 08 “Kota Tsuji and I have a lot in common. We both immigrated to the same small town in New Zealand, we both love flyfishing, and when I shot this photo we were both expecting our firstborn. Coming out of a long, cold and pregnant winter, we were eager to get on the water. We spent a week camping, fishing and living our best lives on the dams and small streams of Central Otago, one of the highest and driest parts of NZ. Kota’s daughter, Sakura, was born a few weeks later.” Photo: Jeff Forsee 09 John Hardin’s perspective shifts as he looks for sipping heads in the back eddies of Idaho’s Big Lost River. Photo: Ed Sozinho THE FLYFISH JOURNAL 015
The Flyfish Journal Volume 13, Issue 2: Page 15
