Richard Donnelly

For some reason people think I catch fish. A fly rod is always in my pickup. I wear fisherman’s polarized glasses, rain or shine. I have a cap with a huge Royal Wulff stuck in it, and maybe this is the giveaway. People think I’m a real pro. The fact is I can’t get that sucker out, no way. No one ever sees me with fish. That doesn’t stop Lance from...

For a quarter mile West London Creek flows through a campground with trimmed lawns, a swimming pond, swing sets, fire rings, and picnic tables. The local Trout Unlimited chapter has been busy, removing beaver dams and downed trees. The water runs clear and deep and tumbles through well-placed, rocky chutes. It looks like a trout creek ought to look, but...

Side by side, we fished the spring Baetis hatch on Minnesota's Whitewater River, one of the great Midwest trout streams. Not liking something, Eddie paused to check his tippet. He clipped off a fly and shortened the line, then opened a fly box. He had caught six trout. I caught none. I looked over his shoulder the way a man reads another man’s newspaper...

I am a fly angler, and like a lot of sportspeople (and what are we if not sporting) I will find, pick up, and throw away the occasional plastic bottle. Or aluminum can. Or rusting Honda 125 motorcycle gas tank. How some of this gets in the river I do not know. I do this for myself as much as others. Fly fishing is done in beautiful places, and it represents...

The other day two kids walked by the porch with cane poles and a two-pound goldfish. You heard right. Someone threw a mess of goldfish into Lake Pepin where they mixed with carp. Birds of a feather, as they say. Or fish of a fin, in this case. With nothing to limit growth the fish just got bigger and bigger. One boy carried the goldfish by the mouth. It was...

As I age, a disturbing fact is emerging: I take more chances. Why? I want to catch bigger trout. Bigger trout live in nasty, unpredictable places. They hide under ledges, in deep holes, behind boulders in fast moving water, or at the base of old dams choked with submerged branches and swirling with undertows. Big trouble. And big trouble means big fish. I...

Fly fishing is a philosophical pursuit. It is more an approach to life than sport. You find yourself alone on a creek. You get to thinking the river is like life, moving always and without pause to that one final destination. If you’re like me, that destination is Chub's Creekside Tavern in Pierce County, Wisconsin. If this isn't the deep thinking of a...

An unsullied creek is a rare thing, and an unsullied creek with brook trout much rarer. For most of North America, at least east of the Mississippi, brook trout are the original trout. For thousands of years they have adapted to the cold, clean waters of spring creeks. In the bluff and valley country of western Wisconsin, rainwater percolates and is...