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EVERY CAST
Stephen Sautner
There is a Thoreau quote that haunts Stephen Sautner's latest collection: "Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after." Sautner knows. He has always known. And in Every Cast: Chronicles of a Deeply Hooked Angler, he invites readers into the restless, waterlogged consciousness of someone for whom fishing is less a hobby than a way of organizing the world.
Gathering more than 60 essays — blending previously published work with more than a dozen new stories — the book roams from fly fishing for trout, salmon, and bonefish to surfcasting for striped bass and ice fishing for perch. It is a generous, wide-ranging collection, and its breadth is its greatest strength. With so many pieces assembled under one roof, the reader is treated to a truly expansive journey.
Sautner casts and writes with equal enthusiasm, whether stalking bonefish on a lonely Bahamian flat or chasing schools of striped bass on a beach crowded with fellow anglers. His range as a writer mirrors his range as an angler: he is as comfortable conjuring the hush of a trout stream at dawn as he is capturing the chaotic camaraderie of surf fishing from a crowded New Jersey beach. The prose is clean and unadorned, shaped by years of journalism, yet it carries a quiet lyricism that lifts the best essays well above the genre's usual preoccupations with technique and trophy counts.
What distinguishes Every Cast from the shelf of competent fishing memoirs is Sautner's willingness to be present to the whole experience — not just the catch. His stories are not only about angling adventure, but also what can happen between casts: dealing with a surly fishing guide, insect hatches declining on a favorite stream, even witnessing a drowning on a river. These darker, more unexpected moments give the collection its emotional weight. Sautner is honest about failure, about the passage of time, about friends who no longer appear on the water. The essays remembering lost fishing companions are among the most affecting in the book, lending Every Cast an elegiac undercurrent that runs beneath all the comedy and adventure.
Sautner's insightful, sometimes poignant, and often humorous observations have been refined over three decades of writing for publications including The New York Times, The FlyFish Journal, and The Drake. That experience shows. The pacing is sure-handed, the anecdotes well-shaped, and the humor arrives naturally rather than being performed. He is the rare outdoor writer who can make you laugh on one page and grow genuinely melancholy on the next.
Ultimately, Every Cast is a book about devotion — to water, to wildness, to the stubborn ritual of returning again and again to places that offer no guarantees. Anglers will find it deeply familiar; non-anglers will find, perhaps to their surprise, that it speaks to something universal about the things we pursue and why we pursue them. Sautner has earned his reputation as one of the finest writers working in this tradition, and Every Cast cements it.
PONCHO
Technical shirts
I've been fishing since I was old enough to hold a rod, and I've ruined more shirts on the water than I care to count. Fish slime, bait, salt spray, hook snags, sunscreen — a serious fishing trip is basically an obstacle course for clothing. So when I say Poncho shirts are built for it, I mean I've subjected four different models to a full season of exactly that punishment, and they've come through looking nearly new.
My go-to for hot summer mornings on the flats has been the Gunnison. The performance nylon breathes well in the heat — you know that miserable, soaked-through feeling by 9:30AM? Gone. The magnetic pocket closures are a genuine revelation on the water: one-handed access when you're fighting a fish or working quickly to net one, and they stay shut when a wave hits. There's also a hidden vertical chest pocket that swallows a fly box, tippet spools, or a phone without creating an awkward bulge. Poncho also built a sunglass cleaning cloth into the inside of the shirt — a small detail that sounds trivial until you're sight-fishing and desperately need a clean lens.
For cooler early-morning and overcast days, I leaned on the Original (the shirt that started everything for Poncho) — the fabric weight is just right for layering under a fleece without bunching or restricting your casting arm. The fit across the shoulders is generous enough to give you full range of motion, which matters more than most people realize over a long day of casting. It's not baggy; it's cut for people who move in their clothes.
When the temperature really climbs, I switch to the Ultra-Lite. Single chest pocket, simplified design, and noticeably lighter than the other two — it's the shirt you reach for when you want to forget you're wearing one. It wicks and dries fast enough to stay comfortable through wade fishing in knee-deep water, and after a quick rinse with freshwater it's ready for the next day.
Durability across all three has been impressive. Hook snags, a rough gunwale dragged across a sleeve, repeated washes after trips that left the shirts smelling like a bait bucket — the stitching at every stress point has held without a sign of fraying. These aren't shirts you’ll have to replace any time soon. They're shirts you still have five years from now.
If you spend serious time on the water and you're tired of burning through cheap technical shirts that pill, fade, or fall apart at the seams by October, look to Poncho. They really deliver the goods. Start with the Gunnison if you fish warm saltwater. Go with the Original if you want one shirt that handles everything. Either way, you can’t miss.
Poncho offers a multitude of models to choose from. Many come with UFP 50 sun protection.
Highly recommended.
ECHO
Dry Series fly line
The Echo Dry Series is a thoughtful approach to dry fly presentation, delivering performance that punches well above its price point. We tested the WF-3-F.
Taper Design
Echo engineered the Dry Series with a refined weight-forward taper that prioritizes delicacy over distance. The front taper extends a generous 14.5’, longer than many competing lines, allowing for very gentle turnover and softer presentations. This extended taper excels when protecting fine tippets and presenting size small-to-medium dry flies to picky trout. The 38.5’ head provides sufficient mass for loading modern fast-action rods while maintaining the control needed for technical water.
What distinguishes this taper is its progression. Rather than an aggressive transition from thick running line to heavy belly, Echo employs a gradual power transfer that feels intuitive throughout the casting stroke. This design attribute shines during the final delivery, where the leader unfurls with minimal disturbance - critical when targeting fish in undisturbed water.
Precision and Presentation
The Dry Series allows you to attain accuracy at the range where most dry fly fishing takes place: 20’ - 40’. The line loads quickly, allowing you to capitalize on brief feeding windows. I found myself consistently placing flies within a one-foot radius, even in light crosswinds that would typically compromise lesser lines.
Presentation quality stands as this line's defining characteristic. The line jacket reduces surface friction, enabling longer drag-free drifts. Mends execute cleanly without excessive disturbance, and the line lifts from the water with little effort and considerably less disturbance than expected, even for a 3wt line. When approaching spooky fish in clear water, these qualities translate to more hookups.
The jacket material is also well balanced - supple enough to avoid memory coils in cold water, yet firm enough to shoot cleanly through guides. Distance casting, while not this line's primary mission, remains respectable, 40’ to 45’ presentations are achievable, if necessary, though the line shines at closer ranges.
The Echo Dry Series delivers where it matters most: putting flies exactly where you want them, softly enough to fool educated fish. We tested the 3-weight in various conditions, and concluded that precision casting needn't require a premium investment.
Summed up: this line is an outstanding value for technical dry fly fishing.
Highly recommended.
