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.
Get Tight With Spring Fish
It's time to get tight with Spring fish because just like that, we are surrounded by stripers, squid, tautog and all the while, largemouth bass are making their beds while the smallie bite just better. Tune into our weekly Fish Wrap Fishing Report each Friday on Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.
How Do You Value Opening Day?
How Do You Value Opening Day? Is this day for fishing stocked ponds, stringers and bacon? Is it for an overdue hour on a rolling river with the hopes of possibly finding some wild brookies? Or is it a wash because you just want to fish for something? There is great value in everything so we ask, what do you value the most?
Fish and Regs Are Back
Finally, a busy week here on the water. Regulations are being finalized, hatchery trout are circling for food and anglers are readying their trout gear or looking west for signs of striped bass. The RI Marine Fisheries Council convened to finalize regulations for...
It’s Time To Ban Nips
It's Time To Ban Nips. End of sentence. Nips are those small, shiny booze bottles that are all the rage now and they keep ending up on the side of the road and in fish's streams. They are unrecyclable, they are unnecessary and they need to go. Drop the nip.
Everett Littlefield’s Epic Spring Passing
Everett Littlefield's epic Spring passing was a celebration of a good man who lived life on his own terms, surrounded each day by his family, on the island home he loved. And when he was laid to rest, he cheered us on with biblical rains, storm force winds and memories to last another lifetime. So long Mr. Littlefield.
River Herring Come Home
After two years at sea and a million years miraculously returning to the very waters of thier birth, river herring arrived with a full moon. Now their challenge is to get to their natal waters through countless animal predators and decaying impediments which quite often force them to turn around and return to the sea without spawning. Read how you can help these mighty forage fishes.
Walleyes Through 40” of Minnesota Ice
In search of walleyes through 40” of Minnesota ice, in February, outside, in the cold, what could possibly go wrong? Fish Wrap finds the fish with River Bend Resorts but there will be a few more laughs next week as we explore the comedic "dark side" of fishing in The Nation's Icebox. What could possibly go wrong?
Meeting Writer Don Barone
Don Barone, DB as he prefers, has won all the awards and accolades a writer of his level deserves but more importantly, he has provided us with a window into a small piece of America, one fisherman at a time. This week, we are lucky to meet DB, see how he ticks, and how he's not so ready to settle down.
Gourmet Goddess Warms Winter Kitchens
Rhode Island's Gourmet Goddess warms winter kitchens with her shrimp and grits recipe, featuring The Ocean State's Kenyon Grist Mill white cornmeal and Lola's Fine Hot Sauces fresh from West Des Moines, Iowa. This is the right seafood dinner to make with a group of friends huddled in a kitchen, telling stories of Spring and warm water fishing, or after a good day on the ice. Enjoy!
Glasswater Angling Lead-Free Lures
This week we meet John King and his wife Kathy who own Glasswater Angling Lead-Free Lures to help us all catch more fish in fresh and saltwater without poisoning the very waters we love. It's a great company and an even greater story. Lead-free is the way to be.
We’re all about ice
Finally, we are enjoying a solid shot of solid ice throughout the Northeast. Once temperatures dropped, some magic wand cleared people’s calendars so we could get out ice fishing, sailing, skating and plain old winter relaxing, from South County to North Smithfield...
Trees, Trout, Guides, Flies & Film
We're all about trees to help trout, guides to help fish and flies to help a film be absolutely killer. Not a bad winter Fish Wrap week. And you get to meet Peter Jenkins of The Saltwater Edge and the American Saltwater Guides Association.
One Who Got Away
This one got away. I don't often keep fish I catch anymore but that's of little salve to the wound of seeing a giant winter bass come to the edge of your kayak then watch it slip back down when a piece of leader gives way at its tipping point. It was amazing to find fish stacked up in cold waters but to lose the biggest was a heartbreaker I may never get over. It still hurts.
2022 Fish Wrap Winter Calendar
The 2022 Fish Wrap calendar is ready to go and full of options to keep you busy for a few months. Firstly, Trees For Trout happens this weekend so please, before you toss your Christmas tree over a fence or into some crushing garbage truck abyss, truck it on over...
2021 Fish Wrap Review
Our 2021 Fish Wrap Review highlights several of the characters and events which made last year so remarkable. Now, cheers to 2022 and fish abundance, more opportunities to hunt, hike and love the outdoors. Sign up for our newsletter and as always, thanks for reading Fish Wrap.
Fish Wrap’s 2021 Year In Review
We’re wrapping up a solid Fish Wrap 2021 with a two-week review of three large issues: COVID, coastal access and total characters. The first continues to dominate our news and lives, the second threatens our freedom to walk a beach and the latter is the heartbeat...
Trees For Trout Returns
Rhode Island’s Trout Unlimited Chapter welcomes a new year with their popular and important Trees For Trout program. RI TU Chapter 225 President Glenn Place has worked with RIDEM Biologist Corey Pelletier and Dana Kopec, Division of Fish and Wildlife’s Aquatic...
Winter Means Surf Day
Don't let the calendar fool 'ya, meteorlogical winter is a full on time to fish, hunt, hike and tie a few flies with your feet on a cooler and steak on a plate. Read Fish Wrap to find out how you can get outdoors or hang inside this month to make the most of our newest season. And as always, thanks for reading.
2021 Fish Wrap Holiday Gift Guide
Our 2021 Fish Wrap Writer Holiday Gift Guide will help you choose some fun, handy, thoughtful and maybe even perfect gifts for any outdoorsman or womann on your shopping list. We are very fortunate to meet lots of wonderful people and many of them create great products we can share with you. Happy Holidays!
RISAA Needs Your Help, Potter Pond Gets Some
Rhode Island's CRMC subcommittee has recommended that Perry Raso's application to expand his shellfish business into a salt pond with a long history of various recreational uses, be denied. The RI Saltwater Anglers are looking for some help with their own subcommittees. RIDEM wants to help you learn to tie flies and our good friend Tom Adams help us understand the benefits of tree saddles for deer hunting .