Unlimited Fly Fishing News and Articles...

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For lawmakers, an afternoon float on the Colorado River reignites an age-old question: Who gets access to the state's streams?
Colorado's river access laws are murky. A coalition of advocates is hoping state lawmakers will do something about it.

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State lawmakers and public lands advocates float the Colorado River while discussing river access policy on June 19, 2025.
Robert Tann/Steamboat Pilot & Today

Sporting sandals, swim shorts and baseball caps — and hopefully plenty of sunscreen — a cohort of state lawmakers hopped aboard several rafts on a hot June day to talk policy as they floated the Colorado River.

Splashing their way downstream from Kremmling, less than 60 miles from the river's headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park, the group of roughly a dozen politicians found themselves in a quintessential setting for their wide-ranging conversation on what outdoor recreation means for the state.

The June 19 trip was donated by the Grand County-based rafting outfitter Downstream Adventures and organized by public lands advocates and river conservationists, who joined lawmakers for the expedition.

https://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/for-lawmakers-an-afternoon-float-on-the-colorado-river-reignites-an-age-old-question-who-gets-access-to-the-states-streams/

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On the North Platte, where anglers maim 1 in 4 trout, Wyoming goes barbless, bans some bead rigs
'Pegged attractors' on fly fishing leaders, which caught on in the last decade, will no longer be allowed in Gray Reef and Cardwell sections of the popular fishery.


Research has translated into regulation on the North Platte River, a famous central Wyoming tailwater where up to a quarter of trout have sustained hook-related injuries to their gills, body cavity or eyes severe enough to be lethal.

On Wednesday, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission agreed to proposed regulation changes designed to help brown, rainbow and cutthroat trout survive the swarms of flies and lures that besiege the world-renowned commercial fly fishing destination every year.

Only single barbless hooks will be allowed in the future along all four North Platte River sections downstream from Seminoe Reservoir. Additionally, fixing egg patterns and other attractants to lines above hooks — a setup known as "pegged attractors" — will no longer be permitted on the river's Cardwell and Gray Reef sections. (They'll still be allowed on the Miracle Mile and Afterbay stretches, where bait will also remain legal.)


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https://wyofile.com/on-the-north-platte-where-anglers-maim-1-in-4-trout-wyoming-goes-barbless-bans-some-bead-rigs/

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The government stepped in to clean up a disaster in North Carolina. Then they created another one.
Debris removal after Hurricane Helene did more damage to the environment than the storm itself in some parts of the state, scientists claim.

POLK COUNTY, North Carolina — The small section of forest before me looked as though it was clear-cut. The ground was flat and treeless, covered in a thin layer of jumbled sticks and leaves.

This region, a wetland formed by beavers near the South Carolina border, was flooded last September by Hurricane Helene. But it wasn't the storm that razed the forest. It was the machines that came after. They were part of a hurricane cleanup effort, bankrolled by the federal government, that many environmental experts believe went very, very wrong.

https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/420513/flooding-debris-removal-hurricane-helene-wildlife

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Why you should go fishing, even if you think you'd be terrible at it
I tangled my line, caught rocks and cast so haphazardly that fish miles away must have heard me. But there's a reason it's called fishing, not catching.

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Kirk Deeter, vice president for angling at Trout Unlimited, fishes on Colorado's Yampa River. (Photos by Dana Milbank/The Washington Post)

GYPSUM, Colo. — I fished for seven hours on the upper Colorado River last week, and I landed an epic haul.

I caught my shirtsleeve.

I caught a stick.

I caught the boat — three times.

I caught four or five boulders — "catching Colorado," as it's known here.

Twice I caught the line of Kirk Deeter, the vice president for angling at Trout Unlimited, who was bravely and patiently trying to teach me fly-fishing.

And I caught my own rod at least a dozen times, each time creating a mind-boggling tangle of line.

But in all that time on the river, there was one thing I did not catch: a fish.

My two companions, Deeter and veteran river guide Jack Bombardier, with a century of fishing know-how between them, tried everything to persuade a trout to bite my fly. They gave me dry flies, streamers, nymphs and foam hoppers, with names such as Zonker, Sculpzilla, Psycho Prince, Copper John, Parachute Adams and Wooly Bugger. They showed me roll casting and false casting, twitching and stripping, lifting and drifting, and mending the line. They pointed out seams, eddies and riffles.

https://wapo.st/42zKfpN

https://archive.ph/En9dQ

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Reflections on a family's 4 decades in the wilderness of Maine's Rangeley Lakes region

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In the summer of 1985, my wife and I followed Route 16 across the New Hampshire border into Maine. Not long afterward, we passed over the little bridge that spans the Magalloway River. I stopped to watch water spray off an angler's backcast, the drops sparkling like tiny prisms when the sun emerged from a bank of clouds.

Shortly after that, we turned off the macadam, catching glimpses of the wind-swept surface of Aziscohos Lake through breaks in the stands of spruce and balsam growing tightly along the dirt-and-grit logging road.

I recall stopping once for a snowshoe hare and another time for a grouse with her parade of squealers scrambling behind her. Twenty minutes later, Trish and I pulled into Bosebuck Mountain Camps, a traditional Maine sporting lodge at the head of the westernmost lake in the Rangeley Lakes Region.

https://www.bangordailynews.com/2025/10/29/outdoors/family-4-decades-rangeley-lakes-region-wilderness-joam40zk0w/

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Blue Ridge Conservancy recently transferred three properties totaling 439 acres to the NC Wildlife Resources Commission for inclusion into the Three Top Mountain Game Land in Ashe County. BRC had previously transferred ownership of 800 acres to the game land. With this transfer the game land is over 3,500 acres encompassing the majority of the mountain's ridgeline.
Three Top Mountain is approximately six miles long and located in the Amphibolite Mountains, known for their ecological significance. The mountain has a large, intact forest that consists of several high elevation natural communities and noteworthy plant species. According to the NC Natural Heritage Program, Three Top Mountain is an "Extremely significant location in the landscape as a connector between other core sites in the Amphibolite Mountains Macrosite."
"Most lands situated at high elevations have excellent natural values and biodiversity- Three Top Mountain Game Land is no exception to this and serves as an important reservoir for a number of endangered, threatened, or rare species," says Paul Thompson, Northern Mountains Land Management Biologist with the NCWRC. "It's a great feeling knowing that we are expanding the protection of these natural resources and providing additional opportunities for wildlife related activities. Three Top Mountain Game Land is a lot larger today thanks to Blue Ridge Conservancy's continuing hard work and their commitment to natural resource protection."
More here: https://blueridgeconservancy.org/recent-news/brc-adds-additional-land-to-three-top-mountain-game-land

[Woolly Bugger]

How Long can 'A River Runs Through It' Keep Running?
Next month is the 50th anniversary of the little fish tale that sparked an angling frenzy. There's even an opera slated in celebration. So what was 'A River Runs Through It' about?

When Robert Redford was wrangling with author Norman Maclean over the screenplay for the 1991 movie adaptation of the most famous fly-fishing book ever written, Redford described it as a "story of two brothers, one rising and one falling." Maclean told him the screenplay needed more fishing.

Cinematographer Philippe Rousselot, who won an Oscar for his work, said "the goal of this film is not to bring more tourists to the rivers of Montana, and not telling people you should fish." John Dietsch, who was a fly-fishing consultant on the movie set, observed the book was between 60 and 70 percent about the experience of fishing.

In 1976, Norman Maclean published his 104-page novella chronicling events of his family during the summer of 1937. He also stuffed an image of piscatorial Eden into a time capsule that modern trends have shattered beyond repair. The Blackfoot River fishing holes where the Maclean brothers tangled with trout and family radiated splendid isolation on the page. Today, it's a different story: That same river now sloshes with what Maclean called a "Spanish Armada" of floating anglers taking more selfies than fish from the waters.

https://mountainjournal.org/how-long-can-a-river-runs-through-it-keep-running-and-influencing-flyfishing-culture-in-montana/

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