FLYING TROUT

The water pressing against my waders is cold — genuinely cold — the kind that reminds you winter hasn't fully let go. But the air above is telling a different story. It's warm and dry, carrying something I haven't smelled in months: the bright, sweet scent of new growth. Bugs are already coming off the surface in lazy drifts, and somewhere nearby a bird breaks into song as if it's been waiting all winter for this exact moment. I scan a boulder midstream and find what I was lo

My First Elk Hunt My boots crunched over loose shale as I climbed the last few yards to the ridgeline, a bead of sweat running down my temple despite the cold air pressing into my face. I’d been moving uphill since well before sunrise, headlamp cutting a narrow tunnel through the dark, and now—finally—the mountain opened up in front of me. As I reached the top of the ridge I could the air becoming thinner, my breaths became more shallow and sweat dripped down my brow turnin