The 50 Best Field & Stream Reader Photos of April 2012.
A collection of jaw-dropping hunting and fishing photos from Field & Stream's "First Shots" magazine section.
![]() | How To Freeze Your Fish In A Block Of IceWant frozen fish to come out fresh? Try the ice-block method. |
Heroes of ConservationThese three grassroots conservationists are preserving our lakes and rivers. |
![]() | FIeld & Stream Picks the Best New Fishing Gear of...Our field editors led test crews that fished with scores of... |
Ducks, Geese, & Walleye: The Fall Cast-and-Blast...Join F&S Deputy Editor Jay Cassell on his recent trip to... |
![]() | Cheap Taxidermy: How to Mount a Fish TailEver notice that you can gauge the size of a fish just by looking at the tail? If you... |
![]() | Catch Fall Steelhead Using The "Dead Drift" Tactic...Fall steelhead anglers typically cover water with cross-stream casts until a fish hits....... |
by Bob Marshall

Fish, wildlife and sportsmen got good news Friday when Tom Vilsack, the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, announced recent and future sign-ups of 5.65 million acres in the Conservation Reserve Program, keeping that keystone conservation program close to its current authorized cap of 32 million acres.
But in an interview with Field & Stream, Vilsack also urged sportsmen to keep the momentum going by urging their congressmen - particularly House members - not to swing the budget axe on conservation funding in the new Farm Bill currently under consideration. [ Read Full Post ]
by Kirk Deeter

You know what we don't see nearly enough of in fly fishing these days? Products that actually work better than advertised. We're promised everything from rods that will seemingly cast themselves to waders that wear like footie pajamas, and rarely does the performance really, truly live up to the billing.
SmithFly, an Ohio-based manufacturer of modular fishing gear, on the other hand, over-delivers. From waist packs and vests to boat bags, the best way to describe this stuff is to say it's born of a "tactical" influence: Super rugged and extremely functional. At first glance, they're perhaps not what the "fashionista" angler has in mind. [ Read Full Post ]
by David Draper
Fried Anchovies and Sea Bass vs. Fried Mussels 
You, and all my friends, are going to be sick of hearing this, but did I mention that I recently spent a couple of weeks in Turkey? This trip is going to make up my main conversational fodder for the rest of the summer, with much of it focusing on what I ate — some of which was good and some of which was not the best decision. Of the former, the seafood stands out as highlights of the trip. I’ll say this, Turkish people know their fish, which isn’t a surprise considering that waterways like the Bosphorus Strait define their country. Here are a couple of dishes I encountered. [ Read Full Post ]
--Chad Love

Landing one of these babies is pretty much a catch-and-release-only proposition. I hear they're not good eating and extremely difficult to fillet. Not to mention the fact that they thrive in some pretty nasty water...
From this story on therepublic.com:
Robot "fish" developed by European scientists to improve pollution monitoring moved from the lab to the sea in a test at the northern Spanish port of Gijon on Tuesday. The developers hope the new technology, which reduces the time it takes to detect a pollutant from weeks to seconds, will sell to port authorities, water companies, aquariums and anyone with an interest in monitoring water quality...The fish, which are 1.5 meters (5 feet) long and currently cost 20,000 pounds ($31,600) each, are designed to swim like real fish and are fitted with sensors to pick up pollutants leaking from ships or undersea pipelines. They swim independently, co-ordinate with each other, and transmit their readings back to a shore station up to a kilometer away. [ Read Full Post ]
by T. Edward Nickens

A little bit here and a little bit there. You keep your eyes open. That’s how you learn. You pick up a new knot from a new fishing buddy, or try a decoy trick you saw in a magazine. You make mistakes. And if you’re lucky, like I was, there will be a mentor along the way. An unselfish someone who cares enough about you that he wants you to know everything he’s ever learned.
That’s the good thing about hunting and fishing and camping: You can never know it all, and you’re never as good as you could be.
Over the years, I’ve learned from the best—mentors, buddies, guides, story subjects, and some of the most dedicated outdoor-skills competitors this world has ever seen. Put them together, and they’ve got a half dozen different ways to shoot a double or cast a fly rod. Here’s the best of what I’ve learned from them, and on my own, in 35 years of hunting and fishing. And this is what all sportsmen should do with such knowledge: Pass it on.
[ Read Full Post ]
by Kirk Deeter

Most of you who follow FlyTalk might realize by now that Romano and I are both shameless streamer junkies. We'll pound the banks from a boat, trying to turn big fish with blind casts, but we also like to wade and sight-fish streamers in low, clear water. Big flies catch big fish, to be sure. Yet in clear water, you have to make the right presentation for streamers to work well. While I've learned many valuable tips from streamer gurus like Kelly Galloup, who said, "You have to dictate the action, and not wait for something to happen," the greatest streamer lesson I ever learned didn't happen on a trout river, and it didn't even involve a true streamer fly. [ Read Full Post ]
by Tim Romano

Here's another sweet little bug from our friends at flyrecipes.com. It's called the Banksia Bug (formerly known as the Patchouli Pupa) and was created by my friend and warm water fly fishing guru Jay Zimmerman.
"I began tying this fly to imitate the masses of free-living caddis larva in all my home waters here in Colorado and elsewhere in trout streams all over the West.
[ Read Full Post ]
by Bob Marshall
Are they crazy or brilliant?
That's a question Trout Unlimited and a growing number of sportsmen are asking about the House leadership after it launched yet another attempt to block a proposed new wetlands guidance that could restore protection to millions of acres of wetlands, including headwaters of trout streams across the West.
The latest effort comes from the House Appropriations Committee, which voted along party lines for a measure that would prevent the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from spending any money to implement the guidance, expected to be issued by the Obama Administration in the next few months.
Two House GOP budgets previously contained similar policy directives, neither of which made it through Congress. But the fact this try came so late in the game – and from a different vector – makes many conservationists nervous. [ Read Full Post ]
by David Draper

Everyone must be catching fishing fever as we got two submissions featuring finned fare for this Friday’s Food Fight. The first comes from Wild Chef reader Split 484, who sent in a great looking photo of some smoked trout and killer accompaniments. Deputy editor Colin Kearns also passed along a fish-themed food photo of a batch of halibut ceviche. Both look so good, I can’t decide who should win, so I’m leaving it up to you.
[ Read Full Post ]
by Kirk Deeter

Take a close look at this photo Tim Romano took of Oliver White battling a small tarpon. You'll notice something is missing... the reel. That's because there isn't one.
We just came back from a gonzo jungle expedition (in a place I'll tell you about later) where we literally caught hundreds of trout- to salmon-sized tarpon every day. So to make things even more interesting, we decided to catch some on a Tenkara rod (Yamame). We landed over 50 tarpon on Tenkara, the largest weighed about eight pounds. [ Read Full Post ]
by David Draper

Last Friday’s Food Fight featured a couple of great-looking fish dishes, including a fish stew from my good friend Chris Ellis. Now, some folks might think the words “fish” and “stew” don’t go together, but I’ve eaten enough cioppino—a wine-based seafood stew—to know the pairing can be incredible.
Also, for a former river rat and affirmed West Virginia hill jack, Chris has some pretty good chops in the kitchen and he’s been on a big soup kick lately. Luckily, he agreed to share his recipe with Wild Chef readers.
[ Read Full Post ]
by Kirk Deeter

The rules for this contest are simple: Tell us what kind of fish this is, where we caught it and what the fly this fish is chewing on looks like. Yes, this fish ate a fly.
[ Read Full Post ]
by David Draper
Trout Stew vs. Basa Oreganata

From the results of last week’s Bourbon vs. Scotch fight, it’s evident Wild Chef readers not only like to have a nip now and then, but also have strong opinions on what they splash in their glass. If you haven’t checked the results lately, my single-malt got a pretty good licking from Colin’s Four Roses, which I’ll admit wasn’t all that surprising. I’m also man enough to admit the next time I see a bottle of Four Roses I’m going to give it a try.
[ Read Full Post ]

Congratulations to Austin Bockwinkel, whose spring Iowa largemouth bass takes top prize in our weekly Catchbook Photo Contest! Austin gets a PFG Blood and Guts™ Ball Cap from Columbia, and also qualifies to win our monthly prize, a Columbia Airgill Chill™ Long Sleeve fishing shirt and his mug in the pages of our magazine. Click here to learn how you can enter this contest by. Click here for the official rules. [ Read Full Post ]