The Fish Wrap Writer Blog
For more than 20 years, we have been learning from and writing about outdoorsmen and women who fish, hunt, hike, pause, and sometimes just look around. Fish Wrap has been published over 480 times. Here you will find articles, interviews, reports, laughs, a few stretched truths (that’s true), and an unfortunate number of obituaries from good folks we have lost.
Please search, enjoy, and let me know if you know someone who we should meet.
Stripers and tourists moving south
Summer is a gift to fishermen and this year is no exception. Certainly it’s been a solidly slower striper year but there’s lots of speculations for that situation. Bass are moving south with the tourists to Brenton Reef, Beavertail and all those lovely south facing...
Stone Walls and Stripers
Is There Writing On The Stone Wall for Stripers? Are we taking more than we need and arefireflies telling us so? Are we running out of space, on land and sea? And will this be one of those pieces we refer to when we sit around a table and say, "Damn?" For now, catch and release and stop trying to conquer the world with a lawn mower. Let Nature be in charge for once.
Is it time for a catch and release striper fishery?
Seems the HOV lane is open to the Cape Cod Canal. Last winter, Peter Vican and Don Smith gave a talk to the RI Saltwater Anglers Association about how they used to catch big stripers south of Block Island. They fished a few honey holes, mostly at night and with...
Fishing is tough but vets are tougher
For those of you scoring at home, here's that update on the Stars and Stripers and Project Healing Water Fly Fishing event on Narragansett Bay and a quick note about a group of friends looking for fish all night long. It had been a tough few weeks on the Bay. Fish...
He was the son of a fisherman
Gabriel Littlefield was the son of a fisherman and the strongest young man. His legacy has much to teach us about living a good & kind life.
How to fish for healing waters, patient guides & 400 lbs. of largemouth. Yikes.
Project Healing Waters and Stars and Stripers teamed up for a second year to give veterans a day fishing on Narragansett Bay. Blessed with a perfect Saturday, the non-profit group of passionate volunteers matched a few dozen vets with local captains to find blues,...
SCORP is guiding the future of public lands, parks and beaches but probably could use some GORP
What if the State held a meeting about the future of our outdoor recreation and no one went? How would we know how our parks, beaches, woods and trails were being managed, purchased or changed? Public participation in public policy is tricky since couches are more...
Nature’s Amazing Cinder Worm
Nature's amazing cinder worms are twirling, dancing and shimmying little mud creatures and striped bass wait all year to eat hundreds of them. Now you can learn all about them and how to be on the water at the right time to catch bass which, because Nature is always in charge, may not actually be the right time. It's a tough way to catch bass but so fun...
Up from the ashes, Big Bear is a local sportsman hot spot
Fire can destroy everything as it tears through roofs, walls and hearts. What fire doesn’t always do is destroy the human spirit and the shared passions to rebuild. When Big Bear Hunting and Firearms in Harmony burned in January of 2018, the building was left in...
We walked The Capital for fish, conservationists and for generations of abundance
The Ocean Conservancy invited a flotilla of fishermen from all over the country to Washington D.C. to discuss long-range protection of fish stocks and the path to abundance. Our mission was to meet with our congressional representatives to ensure a strong...
It was raining fish on opening day and Peter Jenkins is building fish abundance
Spring’s greatest day, the opening of trout season in Rhode Island was a soggy success. Steady rains came early and often, winds pushed everyone around and skies were zebra striped with sheets of clouds racing south to north. Two days later, under far more obliging...
4 Anglers See A River’s Future
When four anglers talk water and see a river's future, it's to protect what we have neglected; their timing could not be better for trout. Meet Trout Unlimited, RIDEM, Protect RI Brook Trout and the Flat River.
There’s much to learn from three veteran fishermen
As a bluebird Saturday drew fishermen out to tear off shrink wrap or frantically start organizing gear they should have combed through while it was snowing, the Kayak Centre in Wickford was packed. Randy DeGrace, Ian Clark and...
The Saltwater Fishing Show: rods, jerky and white camo pants before Memorial Day
The R.I. Saltwater Anglers Association hosted their most successful Saltwater Fishing Show ever. They broke attendance records all three days. There were fishermen and women queued up an hour before doors opened. They hosted dozens of speakers, seminars and...
One last shot of ice for the year
Southern ponds had largely thawed. Only Maine and points north still had solid ponds. Spring be damned, we needed one more day on the ice, so we got the band back together, sort of. We assembled nine die-hards: three sharpies from Connecticut, the two owners of...
Winter, it’s been good to snow ‘ya
The last edge of winter was tough. Temperatures and winds fouled up fishing plans. It was tough hearing teenagers complaining about bringing in firewood. The wise didn't dare put away snowblowers because odds were good for one last storm on the horizon. With all...
Life is short, so Bob Buscher is going fishing
Bob Buscher expects to catch a thousand pounds of largemouth bass this year. That’s an unreal amount of fish caught one at a time, from a small boat by one fisherman. On a good year, Bob fishes about four days a week; some years he’s out there two hundred days....
Joe Tex was indeed The Man
Joseph W. Tiexiera has passed. It's a two sided function of my age: people I know are passing away with an uncomfortable regularity that is only partially balanced by a rekindling of the memories I have from being with them. This past week, Joe Tex departed...
Two old salts talk Block Island fishing and it’s not all good
Block Island has an allure like no other. It offers regular ferry service, beaches without insulting parking charges, almost endless empty stretches of shoreline after dark plus a history of big stories about big striped bass and until recently, lots of both. At a...
A north to south look at winter fishing and paddling
Close, close we are to those warm mornings of Spring, when there’s time for a few casts before work and those first tender plugs of daffodils part cold mulch but first, first we have some weeks of skating on thin ice, a few shots of root beer and watching movies to...