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Fly Fishing for Yellowfish in Lesotho With African Waters

March 5, 2023 By Jess McGlothlin

The end of January and early February was spent exploring the Johannesburg area with good friends, then I flew to Pietermaritzburg and met up with the African Waters team. From there, it was a 10-hour drive across the border into Lesotho, crossing over mountain passes and winding our way along dirt roads past the massive Katse Dam (Africa’s second largest double-curvature arch dam) and on to Makhangoa Community Camp. The small camp rests in the Maluti Mountains, not far from the local village of Makhangoa.

Maluti Mountains and Bokong River in Lesotho, overlooking from the Makhangoa Community Camp run by African Waters.

Guide Greg and I arrived as dusk was falling, on a cool, foggy, rainy night that challenged my perceptions of African weather. We met up with the rest of the guide team—Kyle, Riley, and Chris were awesome—and settled in for a “get to know you” before the work started.

It’s still one of my favorite parts of this job; arriving into a new camp or lodge and getting the lay of the land and the crew at hand. It’s never boring.

You’ll read more about the week in upcoming magazine articles, but suffice to say, yellowfish are unlike any species I’d fished for anywhere else around the world. South Africans call them “African bonefish,” and the same fits. Constantly on the move, picky dry fly eaters, and almost comical in appearance, yellowfish have quickly pressed near the top of my “fish I like fishing for” list, and I’m already very keen to get back to Africa for more chances to chase the fish.

Yellowfish caught while fly fishing the Bokong River in Lesotho, Africa.

My time in Lesotho was epic, and I can’t wait to share the stories. From long walks along the nightly Bokong River, to galloping young two-year old horses along dirt paths, to sitting outside in the dark at night with beer and cigarettes solving life’s problems, it felt so strangely like home.

Thanks to the African Waters team for having me; I’m looking forward to he next adventures! In the meantime, stay tuned here and on Instagram for updates as these Lesotho stories and images hit the streets.

David ties on new flies while fly fishing for Yellowfish on the Bokong in Lesotho, Africa, with African Waters at Makhangoa Community Camp.

Field Ethos Journal: Tasmania’s a Devil

March 23, 2022 By Jess McGlothlin

Really chuffed to see this piece in the premiere volume of The Field Ethos Journal. I’ve been writing short, online pieces for the FE team and jumped at the chance to pen something longer for their first print issue. And what better to write about than surfing brown trout, snakes alongside awesome trout streams, and some of the coolest fishing-industry folks I’ve come across? Tasmania seems tailor-made for storytelling, and I’m keen to get back one of these days and keep exploring.

Thanks to the FE team for this ten-page feature, including a few gorgeous spreads.

Men’s Journal Van Tours: The $900 Pan-American GMC Safari

April 2, 2020 By Jess McGlothlin

Had no idea this Chile shoot in February with Zach Lazzari and Skylar Lamont would be the last travel for a while. Most of these assets are on hold for another client, but really excited to see this “Van Tours” feature run on Men’s Journal, talking about Zach and Shale’s epic adventure through the Americas, fishing along the way.

Zach and Shale are two of the coolest travelers I’ve had the pleasure to meet, and it was such a pleasure to be able to head down to Chile and join them for one of the final weeks of their epic trip. This pair accomplished a hell of a trip over the past couple years… give the article a read for the full story.

Here’s a quick excerpt:

With each road bump, dust puffs up to coat the van’s driver, Zach Lazzari, and his co-pilot, Shale. The 11-year-old dog serves as traveling companion, nighttime guard, curious conversationalist, and convenient icebreaker: She’s an impossibly fluffy red mutt whom Lazzari found a decade ago in a Montana animal shelter. There, in a building full of dogs needing homes, Shale was the only one who ignored Lazzari. He knew it was meant to be.

The pair have been living in Lazzari’s tattered GMC Safari van since September 2018, when his marketing automation job at a Missoula, Mont., tech company began to feel more soul-sucking, and less like a job he could tolerate. He decided it was time to revisit an old dream: take the long drive down to visit the rivers he’d grown to love since his last season working as a fly-fishing guide in Chilean Patagonia in 2016, with Shale as his traveling companion. Along the way, he’d explore new water and fish corners of the world far, far removed from most fly anglers’ purview.

Lazzari quit his job and bought the 1994 Safari, abandoned in a Missoula alley, for a grand total of $900. It took merely a month for a quick build-out of basic living quarters…

I very remember coming back to Santiago after a week pretty well removed from the world and standing, filthy and in need of a shower, in the airport and watching the news. It was the first week of March, and in the space of a few weeks the world had started a dramatic change. Now it’s the first week of April and this trip feels like a lifetime ago. I still have faith that sometime this year we’ll be traveling again, and I’m already looking forward to the next adventure with Zach, Shale, and Skylar.

Thanks for reading, folks.

Talking Tasmanian Trout in Men’s Journal

February 6, 2020 By Jess McGlothlin

“Tasmania houses 8.5 million sheep and a mere 500,000 residents. Few know, however, that the “Island of Inspiration” is also home to one of the world’s most pristine brown trout fisheries. With barely 300 international fishing licenses sold each year (nearly a third of those to Americans), Tasmania teems with passionate fly-fishermen who are carefully sustaining and growing the precious fish populations.”

Talking trout, snakes, and some truly awesome people on Men’s Journal today. I’ve rarely spent time in locations quite as wild, surprising, and vastly big as Tasmania, that also feel oddly familiar and home-like.

Take a look at this Men’s Journal photo essay, and then start planning your own Tasmanian escapades.

Sidetracked Profile: Per Jobs

February 25, 2019 By Jess McGlothlin

“At first glance Per Jobs is almost too intense. Intense in the way of an old-time Hollywood star or an artist immersed in practising his craft – radiating that singular energy of a man on a mission, keen eyes set in a sharp face, intelligent in their focus. It’s only when I learn of his former – rather significant – career as a composer that something clicks and the intensity makes sense. Even now, sitting in the grass playing with a mischievous 13-week-old puppy bred to hunt moose, there’s nothing lackadaisical about the businessman and entrepreneur.”

I had the great pleasure to fish with Per Jobs, founder of Fish Your Dream last summer while working with Swedish Lapland. He proved to be one of the most interesting people I’ve encountered in a while, and I was reminded once again that there’s no better way to get to know someone than by spending time on the water in a remote destination.

Read the story the UK’s Sidetracked Magazine here.

Fully Unplugged: Swedish Lapland for the U.K.’s Fieldsports Magazine

February 19, 2019 By Jess McGlothlin

Jess McGlothlin Media for Fieldsports Magazine "Fully Unplugged" article and images about fly fishing for grayling and pike in Swedish Lapland. Last summer I was lucky enough to go spend some time running around Swedish Lapland with a few newfound friends. While the team from Swedish Lapland Tourism was making a short film about my photography and writing work, I was running around with cameras and an underwater housing, trying to capture the incredible light, rivers, fish and people of far northern Sweden. Whenever you are above the Arctic Circle, magic tends to happen, and this was no exception.

Underwater image on man fly fishing with grayling caught in net in Swedish Lapland.

I really enjoyed penning a feature for the U.K.’s Fieldsports Magazine about the trip, especially mine time off the grid at Geunja and Tjuonajokk, now two my favorite “reset and remember what’s important” locations. Thanks to the Swedish Lapland team, the awesome crew at Fish Your Dream and the various editors around the world who have supported this project. It’s rare on international shoots that everything goes smoothly and is even kind of relaxed, but this shoot was one of them (despite the lack of sleep—why rest when the midnight sun is the best light for making images?). And, somehow, despite the lack of sleep I’ve rarely felt better.

Must be something in the water.

Grayling fish in golden sunlight being held in the water in Swedish Lapland.

Swedish Lapland: Woman fly fishing under Arctic midnight sun with a fish on the line on river.

Into the Old West for Sidetracked Magazine

February 17, 2019 By Jess McGlothlin

Last September, I had a chance to go back to my roots while on assignment with Visit California and the U.K.’s Sidetracked Magazine at the historic Hunewill Ranch in California. Sidetracked sent me out for several days in the saddle with the Hunewill clan, gathering up cattle from summer pasture high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, bringing them back down to the main ranch in preparation for the cattle drive to winter pastures in Nevada. Photographs of ranch life in California at the historic Hunewill Ranch, in Sidetracked Magazine.

It was truly one of my favorite assignments to date; while
juggling camera gear on the back of a horse in the midst of riding mountains and moving cattle is more challenging than many past assignments, it was incredibly rewarding and, quite simply, just nice to be back in the saddle again.

The story has just come to life in a campaign on the Sidetracked website—titled “Into the Old West.” Give it a read and let me know what you think!