The Dirtbag Diaries - What We Had

A re-run of one of our favorite episodes of the Dirt Bag Diaries featuring our friend Mark Rutherford who is currently on the mend post hip replacement.

Mark Rutherford and John Merritt grew up sharing the same sand box. As they grew up, they each followed separate paths. John had a successful career in the Chicago financial world. Mark moved to Alaska and raised a family in tiny cabin he built with his own hands. Twenty years ago, Mark began a successful adventure fly fishing guide service in the Bristol Bay region. An avid fisherman, John got in touch with Mark and scheduled a trip. On that first trip, John revealed that he had been diagnosed with M.S. Ten years prior, doctors told him he had seven years to live. That first trip marked the beginning of decade of trips, each more adventurous than the last. Today, we are headed up stream to the confluence of several lives. Friendships are a bit like rivers -- when they converge, they swell into something greater.

What A Middlebury Professor Learned About Life From Fishing

Middlebury College Professor Matthew Dickerson, along with David O’Hara, gets readers out of the classroom and into the great outdoors with the book Downstream: Reflections on Brook Trout, Fly Fishing, and the Waters of Appalachia. The book takes the fishermen to the waters of Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina.

LINK (via:VPR)

Fishing for Science in Kamchatka

In 2003 National Geographic's Radio Expedition's NPR's Elizabeth Arnold ventured to Russia's Far East for a glimpse into the past.

Methow Valley Irrigation Gets Overhaul For Salmon, Steelhead, Bull Trout

Construction begins this week on a state project in the Methow Valley to give fish a boost of cold, clean water in rivers near Twisp, Washington. The state and a trout conservation group are pouring about $10 million into a whole new irrigation system there.

(via:KPLU)

Who is Hank Patterson, Your Fly Fishing Guide?

Steelhead Tough to Figure, Tough to Save

A 2006 NPR piece on the plight of wild steelhead that rings as true today as it did when first broadcast 8 years ago.