Dan Mottern hasn’t gone too far this year to look for fish. Been staying close, is how he phrased it. Close means a few miles this or that side of his fly shop in Avery. It’s July and the holes we all remember from last year and the year before haven’t changed a lot. The trails we walked are only slightly trampled. Different tread marks, different line, but the patterns are the same. The fishing, though, is always new. “He broke me off,” he said. “I think it was a dolly.” Mottern has been wrestling trout. The biggest fish he ever caught in this river, his home river: North Idaho’s still pristine St. Joe was a 2-foot long cutthroat and he hasn’t ever topped it. He was 18 and fishing a canyon where the water spilled on one side and you had to use a rope to get there/Ralph Bartholdt, Skookum Photography. More here.

Question: How long was the biggest fish you've caught in fresh water?