Is catch and release a good idea all the time or just some of the time? In this episode, we consider the ways that the practice of catch and release changes the experience of fishing for us — how our approach shifts when the goals are different.

Continue reading Podcast: Catch and Release: Always or Sometimes? And How C&R Changes Things — S5, Ep5 at Troutbitten.

Will climbed up the mountain path and out of the canyon. He walked through the back door and into the old sunroom to sit at his grandfather’s wooden desk. He paused in thought and then put pencil to paper.

When he’d finished, he looked up through the sunroom glass toward the fading orange October daylight. Will walked to the porch and felt the cool stone under his feet as he scanned the landscape of his life.

The rooster crowed before dawn . . .

Continue reading I’ve lived, and I’ve left some good things here . . . that is enough at Troutbitten.

Hundreds of times Aiden has snagged the bottom, pulled the rod back, and either asked me if that was a fish or has told me flatly, "I think that was a fish."  This time, he finally experienced the certainty that a couple of good head shakes from a trout will give you . . .

Continue reading Aiden’s First Brown Trout at Troutbitten.

You probably voted this past Tuesday, right? You walked into the booth and cast a ballot in this midterm election cycle for your state and local representatives. Or maybe you voted early. Maybe you mailed in a ballot. However you voted, it’s pretty easy to think that your one, single vote didn’t matter much, because even close state elections are often determined by thousands of votes. It’s understandable to feel like your vote doesn’t make a difference. It does, but that’s another discussion . . .

By contrast, you can personally have a direct influence on the way wild trout policy is directed in Pennsylvania. And many of you have.

On October 16, 2018, the Pennsylvania Fish Commission voted to add 3.8 miles of Catch-and-Release regulated water on Penns Creek. This
“Section 5” water now doubles the miles of C&R river available to anglers, and it protects the Class A wild trout population within. This is an enormous success, and many of you are part of it . . .

Continue reading Penns Creek Catch-and-Release Miles Doubled — Yes, You Did It at Troutbitten.

As I backed into my driveway the other night, I glanced at the outside temperature reading on the rearview mirror. 81 degrees Fahrenheit. It was 11:45 pm. Yikes. For trout streams, perhaps the worst part of a heat wave is the high overnight temperatures. When the mercury dips only into the low eighties after dark, the water doesn’t get […]

Continue reading PSA – It’s Hot Out There at Troutbitten.

My transition to a catch and release angler paralleled the wild trout takeover of Laurel Run. And like that stream and its wild trout, it was a gradual process. I eventually replaced the excitement and anticipation of a full creel with the joys of fooling trout and knowing that I might catch the same fish again . . .

Continue reading What happened to Laurel Run? The story of a stocked trout stream and a fisherman at Troutbitten.

That pivotal moment when everything changes. The event that makes the trip. The defining instance that separates all the memories that come before from the ones that come after. It’s what I wait for — what I look for every time I’m out there — and it’s why I keep fishing . . .

Continue reading Wait For It . . . at Troutbitten.

Will climbed up the mountain path and out of the canyon. He walked through the back door and into the old sunroom to sit at his grandfather’s wooden desk. He paused in thought and then put pencil to paper.

When he’d finished, he looked up through the sunroom glass toward the fading orange October daylight. Will walked to the porch and felt the cool stone under his feet as he scanned the landscape of his life.

The rooster crowed before dawn . . .

Continue reading I’ve lived, and I’ve left some good things here . . . that is enough at Troutbitten.

If I had a million dollars I would still approach fly fishing with a low budget mindset. I guess it comes from my fishing roots as a boy: cheap spinning tackle, rubber hip boots (big enough that I would “grow into ’em”), minnows and some Berkley Trilene.  We used 6lb test, though — we weren’t […]

Continue reading Net Fix at Troutbitten.

Things fall apart. That’s why I don’t do many gear reviews. Usually sooner than later, everything I fish with breaks, separates, leaks, delaminates or disintegrates, so I don’t recommend things very much. Entropy swallows up fishing gear pretty quickly. But the  could, quite possibly, last a lifetime. Even as a troutbitten kid, I hated carrying […]

Continue reading Of Nets and Holsters — The Smith Creek Net Holster at Troutbitten.