By Colin Kearns

Lots of books come across my desk. Stories of survival. Manuals on “manly” activities. Hunting novels. Fishing memoirs. You get the picture. I get a lot of books. The ones I enjoy receiving most, though, are cookbooks. I’m not a very inventive cook. If I don’t have a recipe in front of me, I’m lost as far as ingredient quantities or cooking times. I need instructions. And I just love the character cookbooks acquire over time—with dog-eared recipes and stain-splattered pages—and how they look on a bookshelf. [ Read Full Post ]

By Tim Romano

Yup, we're giving away another rod this week. It's a nice one too.

Since it's October, the good folks at G.Loomis thought that we should be giving away some salmon and steelhead graphite. All you have to do is write the funniest caption to the image above for a chance to win your choice of ANY G.Loomis Native Run GLX series rods. Of course the line weights run from six to nine. These rods retail from $685 to $715, so choose your words carefully. [ Read Full Post ]

By Editors

Field & Stream's Catchbook app for the iPhone is a social fishing journal that automatically turns fish photos into catch records complete with detailed weather conditions, then lets you share that information on a map with fishing buddies you trust. The map is private, but the photos of your fish are public, which means everyone can see what all Catchbook users are landing around the country (and around the world!).

Since we launched the app in April, more than 6,300 people have installed it on their phones and have posted thousands of photos (check out our editors' picks for the 50 best shots from September here).

If you fish, and you have an iPhone, we'd love it if you'd check out our app. Here's an extra incentive: We're giving away a 16GB iPhone 5 (MSRP: $649)—plus OtterBox Defender Series ($49.95) and Commuter Series ($34.95) cases to go with it—to the best photo posted to the app during the month of October. Also, the best photo each week wins one of OtterBox's great new iPhone cases. Click the link to download this fishing app from the iTunes store.

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By Kirk Deeter

I don't think any group of people outside of baseball is more closely associated with the caps they wear on their heads than fly anglers. The lid you wear is more than a fashion statement. It's the "been there, done that" statement. The badge of honor. The telltale that you proudly belong to a fishy culture.

And for some of us, it's what keeps the bald spot on top of our head from getting sunburned. (Although I've come to embrace baldness to the point where I don't actually feel like wearing baseball caps indoors. I tell people the bald crown is a solar panel for a fishing machine.)

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By John Merwin

A kayak is one answer to crowded trout streams. Last week, while camping and fishing in northern New Hampshire, I was discouraged to find three or four vehicles at every riverside access. So Mrs. Merwin and I loaded our kayaks in the truck and headed into the backcountry.

It was a great choice, despite--or perhaps because of--some rough woods roads we bumped along on our way to various remote ponds. Being able to soak up the September sun while casting for brook trout (which is what I’m doing in the photo) was pure pleasure. And best of all, there was nobody else around.
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By Kirk Deeter

Okay, time to revisit some "see this, do that" lessons. Here's a textbook fall trout scenario: The water is low and clear. It's a bright cool day. We have some caddis flying around. The fish are rising sporadically.

I actually caught three trout from the water shown in this photo — two 10-inch rainbows and a 14-inch brown. Can you guess where I caught them, and how I did it?

Okay, I'll tell you.

As you have probably noticed, I was looking upstream when I took this shot (admittedly after I had caught the fish). The sun was high overhead, so there really isn't a shadow factor that would benefit one approach over another. I was fishing a size #14 elk hair caddis single dry fly. [ Read Full Post ]