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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.

YETI

Tundra 35 cooler

There's a moment on day two of a fishing trip — sun high, ice starting to sweat in a lesser cooler — when you start questioning every gear decision you've made. The YETI Tundra 35 is designed to make that moment a non-issue. After time spent hauling it across boat decks, gravel campsites, and a few tailgates, it's clear why YETI has built the cult following it has. This isn't a cooler that coasts on marketing. It earns every dollar through engineering decisions that show up where it counts: in the field, on day three, when cheap coolers have long since surrendered.

At the core of the Tundra's thermal performance is the Fatwall design: extra-thick walls packed with Permafrost insulation that create a deep, continuous thermal barrier. The interlock lid system works in tandem with those walls, forming a seamless seal that stands up to extreme temperatures on either end of the spectrum. It's the primary reason the Tundra outperforms standard coolers by days rather than hours. Reinforcing that seal is the Coldlock gasket — a commercial-grade freezer gasket that circles the entire lid perimeter. The same technology found in professional food storage equipment, it blocks heat from breaching the seal point, locking cold air in and warm air out with serious intent. In testing, packed with a standard bag of cubed ice and a weekend's worth of food and drinks, the Tundra held ice well past the 60-hour mark even through repeated sun exposure. Beverages pulled on day three were still properly cold.

Moving the Tundra 35 is where the Doublehaul handles come in. Thick, UV-resistant rope handles at both ends are built for two-person carries — a smart concession to physics when the Tundra 35 is loaded to capacity. They're more comfortable under real load over distance than molded plastic grips, and they hold up to the kind of abuse that comes with repeated use on rough terrain. Once you've got it where it needs to go, tie-down slots molded directly into the body let you run a strap or bungee cord through and anchor the cooler to a truck bed, boat deck, or ATV rack. In rough water or on dirt roads, a sliding cooler becomes a hazard — these slots eliminate that risk without requiring any add-on hardware, a practical detail that anyone who's watched a cooler migrate across a boat deck will appreciate.

On the ground, Bearfoot non-slip feet keep the Tundra planted on slick surfaces — boat decks, wet dock boards, polished truck liners. They also raise the housing slightly off the ground, protecting the base from hot pavement and rough surfaces while improving airflow underneath. In testing, the cooler held its position even when used as a step, with no shifting or skidding under weight. The lid itself can handle a standing person, and the bear-resistant latch system closes with a satisfying click that signals genuine security.

At 35 quarts, the Tundra hits a practical sweet spot — large enough to provision two to three people for a multi-day outing, compact enough to fit under a boat seat or in a truck cab. Tall interior clearance accommodates a standing wine bottle, and smooth interior walls with rounded corners make cleanup quick even after storing raw meat. Hardware throughout — hinges, drain plug, latches — operates with a solidity that signals longevity rather than showing off. Available in a range of colorways, it also avoids looking like work equipment.

Is it expensive? Yes. But the Tundra 35 operates in a fundamentally different category than the cooler you'd grab at a big-box store. The Fatwall insulation, Coldlock gasket, Doublehaul handles, tie-down slots, and Bearfoot feet aren't a marketing checklist — they're a coherent system, and every piece of it shows up in real-world use. The cost-per-outing math improves every season you use it. For anyone serious about keeping food safe and drinks cold, the YETI Tundra 35 earns its place in the kit without apology — and it's very likely the last cooler you'll need to buy for a long time.

Put simply, the YETI Tundra 35 is a benchmark cooler that others are measured against. Best for multi-day fishing trips, camping, overlanding, and anyone who’s just tired of replacing cheap coolers every other season.

★★★★★