By Bob Marshall

A press release from the Department of Interior last week held some of the best news in recent years for sportsmen—and the quality of life of all Americans: After decades of steady declines, the number of hunters and anglers in the U.S. showed significant increases over the last five years.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2011 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation showed the number hunters and anglers increased 9 and 11 percent respectively, part of the 38 percent of all Americans who participated in wildlife-related recreation. That was an increase of 2.6 million participants from the previous survey in 2006. A Service spokesperson said the survey, which has been done every five years since 1955, last showed an increase was in the late the 1980s — which means we've halted a 30-year slide. [ Read Full Post ]

By Joe Cermele

Spearfishing is definitely not my game, but I can't help appreciating the recent catch of Hawaiian angler Wendell Ko for multiple reasons. According to this story on the blog of photographer Jon Schwartz, Ko doesn't want to dive the reef where fish abound. That's too easy. Ko wants to stalk his fish. To best the 188-pound yellowfin tuna in the video, he dove down 60 feet on a single gulp of air. That's impressive. What's more impressive is that once he reached depth he waited. He patiently hovered for "minutes" hoping a tuna would cruise by. It did, and he hit his mark. Then he had to get it to the surface while oceanic white tip sharks swarmed. Not for me, but good for you, bro!

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By Tim Romano

Surely I must be talking about "A River Runs Through It," right? Wrong.

While I have a huge place in my heart for "the" movie -- it's one of my favorites -- the new documentary Low and Clear is without a doubt one of the best movies I have seen in regards to fly fishing, period. It ranks right up there with the best documentaries and is simply one of the most elegant movies on fishing.

Filmmakers Tyler Hughen, Kahlil Hudson, and Alex Jabonski have finally released the full length version which is available on Kickstarter.com. [ Read Full Post ]

--Chad Love

A British commercial fishing trawler recently dredged up an ancient and giant fossilized oyster that just might contain the largest pearl the world has ever seen. But the world may never see it because opening the oyster would destroy the extremely rare fossil. What to do?
 
From this story in the UK Daily Mail:
 
A 145million-year-old oyster fossil trawled up off the south coast by fishermen could contain the mother of all pearls. Experts used medical MRI scanning technology to analyse the fossil to discover if there was a rare gem inside. And their results showed up a mysterious smooth object about the size of a golf ball. If it were removed and identified as a pearl, it could be worth many thousands of pounds. But experts will not explore the contents any further because it would mean the fossil would have to be destroyed. The oyster – which measures about 7in across – remains at the Blue Reef Aquarium in Portsmouth, where it is kept securely and brought out only for lectures. [ Read Full Post ]

The winner of last week's Catchbook Photo Contest for the month of July is Ryan Brownlee, who submitted this photo of a king salmon.

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By Kirk Deeter

As many of you know, we are now knee-deep in the trade show season; when new products for 2013 are being unveiled at breakneck speeds and the hype machine is running full throttle. I admit to having been made a sucker by that hype machine in the past. The benefit of hindsight and many months of actually fishing with some of these products has helped me realize that, in some cases, I probably drank a little too much PR Kool-Aid. So in the interest of clearing my own conscience (before I start gulping the next batch), I want to come clean on some cases where I whiffed. [ Read Full Post ]