“Fuego!” And thus Vicente Guerreo’s life–though not his legacy–ended by firing squad in 1831. Guerrero, hero of Mexico’s war for independence with Spain, abolished slavery in 1829 as the country’s second president. But known for his hot-blooded personality, he was deposed by coupe after only nine months in office. In 1971, the General Vincente Guerrero…
For every great fishery in the Americas, there has been a golden era. Whether you are fishing off the Florida Keys or Central America, life has changed in the last generation. Encroachment from resort living onto what was wild habitat, increased commercial and recreational fishing, and a general increase in the population of fishermen who…
Business had been good since moving into these new offices. So good, in fact, it was…dictatorial. I sat there alone. It was getting late with work still piled on the desktop. My usual long-range fishing trips to Central and South America had been pushed back and back. Where had they gone? Modern clocks don’t tick…
We grow up with songs and poetry of plains, grasslands and mountains. But life teaches us that all rivers are storytellers. Guyana means “The Land of Many Rivers,” but the 630-mile-long Esseuino dominates one of Earth’s greatest regions of biodiversity. Portuguese, Spanish, French, British, Dutch The Essequino witnessed billowing sails upon Christopher Columbus’s third expedition…
What to do when Jaws shows up in the chum slick. Story and photos by Michael Love Jr. We were three old college roommates, now consumed with fly fishing, meeting in San Diego to get our fix. On the first afternoon with On the Fly Charters, we whipped Clousers into Mission Bay and hooked up…
The nose of the inflated raft crashed steeply down into the white water, soundless in the river’s throaty roar. Its Kevlar surfaces would face a mortal test- fail for once, fail forever. So very cold that brisk spray from across the confirming across our faces how early was the season in these mountains. At least…
He was tiring of the cold and wet Paris apartment life that winter. Celebrated fellow author and friend John Dos Passos recommended the island of Key West to Ernest Hemmingway. “A good place for old Hem to dry out his bones.” Hemingway arrived from Paris via Havana on the docks in April 1928 with his…
The winter of 2015 was a bitter season. Fishermen railed against it, but gales and hoarfrost blustered from the north. Sons and fathers gazed out the windows at the ruthless milieus and longed to be on the water, forced to live on the stuff of their dreams even as their patience withered to suffering. While…
Cast your eyes to the northern sky and you will find it. It is cold, white and brilliant, the distilled essence of the north itself. Gleaming at the tail of Ursa Minor, “the little bear,” its radiance cannot be mistaken. Polaris, the North Star, has guided ships’ captains through dark nights since ancient men first…
Nolo contendere and on to the next good story, you say? But it happened here before. Just a stone’s throw from where you’d knock back a cold one on the beach is the Chixulub crater. This is where the world ended, some 65 million years ago with a meteor blast of such magnitude that it…