On Fly-Fishing the Bear River Watershed: Essays and Exceptional Misadventures

by Chadd VanZanten

The Bear River rises in the high Uinta Mountains and flows through Wyoming, Idaho and Utah before emptying into the Great Salt Lake. Within the watershed are scores of secluded trout streams, dozens of reservoirs and one of North America's largest populations of native cutthroat trout. Angler and author Chadd VanZanten offers a compelling portrait of the most extraordinary fly-fishing destinations you've never heard of. It's also a story of embattled but resilient ecosystems, warring factions of the American West, a dash of San Francisco counterculture, cataclysmic upheavals of the planet itself and, of course, pursuing big, elusive trout.

176 pages, Paperback

Published April 12, 2021

Reviews

[Ben Jailler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first came across Chadd's writing in Fly Culture magazine and this is the second one of his books that I've read. Like all the best fishing authors he writes about so much more than just fishing. Primarily a book about his trips to fish the Bear River with various buddies, Chadd also riffs on everything from the Utah Lottery and home-made stink bait to the Curtis Creek sneak, his distain for the month of February and being a slacker bachelor. It's the next best to being there myself and catching a Bonneville Cutt!

[Brian Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once you get over the author’s self-righteous self hate and disdain for for everything that made his life possible as an angler and writer, this is a good book with some great fish stories about one of the great places to fish in the American west.