Scott Bowen

by Scott Bowen With its cheap but effective approach, the synBAM movement is probably here to stay Maybe you’ve seen a strange comment posted on various rod-makers’ Instagram or Facebook accounts: “synBAM **fail**” Streamside this spring, you might see hand-made signs posted on trees or taped to windshields: “synBAMs stay home.” Who or what is a...

For a quarter century, the film industry has roiled with rumors about a sequel to the 1992 hit A River Runs Through It — rumors that have fueled wild enthusiasm and staunch resistance. Now, MidCurrent can reveal that a two-page document obtained earlier this year is, according to deep Hollywood sources, the official treatment for a named sequel. This...

In mid-March, when the International Fly Pattern Authority (IFPA) issued its first official “Guide to Pattern-Naming Standards,” its rulebook for fly-name acceptability in wholesale and retail channels, few people in the fly fishing business expected any merchants to submit new fly names for review. A surprise announcement today from the IFPA, however...

Published April 1, 2015 Not to be out-done by Tough Mudder or the Spartan Race, semi-pro guides (and hot fly-fishing couple of the moment) Khät Connors and Xhonny J started the official Rough Rod Run, or “R3” race, in 2013. Combining natural terrain with artificial obstacles, R3 races require participants to wear chest waders and wading boots and carry...

In the first study of its kind, the Federal Institute of Human Sexuality and Sexual Health (FIHSSH) surveyed 2 million American fly fishers about their sex lives, in a search for data about the potential impact of fly fishing on human sexual behavior. Research scientists at FIHSSH carried out the “The American Fly-Fishing Omnibus Sex Survey” over four...

“We saw dark, massive trout hovering in the pools. These were the Korean jamjari—‘dragons’—we had heard about from earlier recon teams—fish as big as the fabled taimen. On the next mission, we had our fly rods.” So begins the wild tale recounted in A Bridge To FUBAR: Long Walks and Nice Casts in North Korea 2006-2011, a memoir by Nicholas...

MARINE FISHERIES scientists across Florida have begun to agree begrudgingly with the results of a five-year university study, announced today, that proves conclusively that the Atlantic tarpon is actually a kind of smallmouth bass, having descended directly from an ancient, anadromous bronzeback. Ichthyologists at Southern Florida Animist College (SFAC...

IN ALL DIRECTIONS around me I can see nothing but an endless world of blue and green — water, mangroves, sky. There are no other boats or people, nothing but the wind blowing notes through my rod guides. Standing on the bow deck of a small motorboat, I scan the wide, sandy shelf for movement but see only mirages. Out on the flat, everything can look like...

BRYANT EARL BAINES tells a plain-spoken but mind-blowing story: the George Perry largemouth-bass record was topped four times in the 1960s, he says, all due to a fly named the Quittman Special. Only five men knew what this fly looks like, and four of them are dead. Unfortunately, Baines is now the target of what might prove to be the nastiest legal battle...