Guyana: In Pursuit of Pacu

How to be a Fish Bum: Lessons from the Best

“If you’re too successful to fish whenever you want, one could argue that you’re not really a success.”  -John Gierach John Gierach coined the term “trout bum” in his 1986 book of the same name. He used the phrase to affectionately refer to hardcore anglers who devoted all their time and money to fishing for trout. “A trout bum,” Gierach wrote, “is someone who has made fishing the center of his life. Everything else is secondary.” While Gierach...

You Won't Believe How Far this Muskie Traveled

This article comes from the Bent Fishing Podcast’s “Fish News” segment, where hosts Joe Cermele and Miles Nolte go head-to-head to find and report the most interesting and amusing fishy stories across sources far and wide—from respected scientific journals to trashy tabloids. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources tagged a muskellunge in the Detroit River in May 2016 with tag number 007. Understandably, the muskie acquired a name to match...

Where Trout Eat Ducks and People Eat Horses

I just rolled my eyes when I saw the lure. Logic and conventional wisdom are no match for my father’s fishing hunches. My irritation belonged elsewhere anyway—with the wind, the miles of unproductive lakeshore, and the omnipresent gnats trying to slurp all the liquid from my eyeballs. At 11 p.m. in the subarctic summer my sunglasses remained on to keep the demon insects at bay, so Dad couldn’t register my look of disapproval. He walked off...