Mark D. Williams: Fishing Expert
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Mark D. Williams has fished all over the world and is the author of the popular fishing/travel book, So Many Fish, So Little Time: 1001 of the World’s Greatest Backcountry Honeyholes, Trout Rivers, Blue Ribbon Waters, Bass Lakes, and Saltwater Hot Spots from Harper Collins.
Williams is an award-winning writer who has written five other fishing books: Freshwater Flyfishing Tips from the Pros, Fireside/Simon & Schuster; Trout Fishing Sourcebook, Menasha Ridge Press; The Backpacking Angler, Menasha Ridge Press; Flyfishing Southwestern Colorado, Wayfinder Press; and Knots for Flyfishers, Menasha Ridge Press.
Williams has written articles for numerous national magazines and newspapers including Dallas Morning News, SPORT magazine, ESPNoutdoors.com, Texas Sporting Journal, Baseball Digest, Texas Rangers' Program, Cowboys and Indians, Southwest Fly Fishing, Texas Sportsman, Texas Outdoors, Texas Fish and Game, Backpacker, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Flyfishing and Flytying Journal, Bass Pro Shop, Orvis News, Rocky Mountain Game and Fish to name a few.
He lives in Amarillo, Texas but spends way too much time traipsing the mountains and streams of the Southwest in search of trout with his wife, family, and friends.
Williams is an award-winning writer who has written five other fishing books: Freshwater Flyfishing Tips from the Pros, Fireside/Simon & Schuster; Trout Fishing Sourcebook, Menasha Ridge Press; The Backpacking Angler, Menasha Ridge Press; Flyfishing Southwestern Colorado, Wayfinder Press; and Knots for Flyfishers, Menasha Ridge Press.
Williams has written articles for numerous national magazines and newspapers including Dallas Morning News, SPORT magazine, ESPNoutdoors.com, Texas Sporting Journal, Baseball Digest, Texas Rangers' Program, Cowboys and Indians, Southwest Fly Fishing, Texas Sportsman, Texas Outdoors, Texas Fish and Game, Backpacker, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Flyfishing and Flytying Journal, Bass Pro Shop, Orvis News, Rocky Mountain Game and Fish to name a few.
He lives in Amarillo, Texas but spends way too much time traipsing the mountains and streams of the Southwest in search of trout with his wife, family, and friends.
REVIEWS
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If you own more than one rod, you need a rod rack for your vehicle and a rod rack for your house. If you don't own more than one rod, read my article on this site about the best rods. You need to buy yourself some more rods. If you don't carry your rods properly or store them smartly, you'll end up with tangled lines and broken rods. If you own more than one rod, start shopping for a rod rack and organizer. Here are superb organizers for the car and house to get you going.Read More » -
Every angler knows that catching fish requires more than good weather, adequate rod and reel, and luck. You also need all the requisite gee-gaws, tools, accessories, and gadgets that “aid” you in catching more fish, in catching bigger fish, right?Read More »
What's amazing is that for all the accessories you'll find in an angler's boat or in his or her vest, there are often key tools missing. Here is a list of the essential accessories for any and all anglers. -
These are bags which anglers will find useful. Anglers need bags because they have so many rods, reels, pliers, forceps, lure and fly boxes, nippers and gee-gaws. Because the acquisition of these goodies is never-ending, (nor should it be), anglers either need more or bigger bags. The bags in this list range from tackle bags to luggage to carry-alls to travel organizers to lure bags to boat bags to rod bags. We anglers like our bags.Read More »
There's nothing worse than having a fishing bag of whatever function tear or get wet or go bad on you. So I put durability as the number one quality of any fishing bag. Function is second because all anglers have mistakenly bought bags that had useless pockets, misplaced sleeves, and too-small dividers. Rest assured, any bag on this list will last and will be utilitarian. -
I've tried it all: discount sporting goods store vest, fanny pack, one-fly-box-in-the-shirt-pocket, chest pack, high-dollar fancy space-age yoke vest, and everything-on-my-neck-lanyard. All have their advantages and disadvantages.Read More »
Anglers today have a revolutionary mix of choices on how to carry their fly and lure boxes, hemostats, floatant, nippers, retractors, splitshot, folded-up rainjacket, water bottle, beef jerky, and tissue paper. Traditional vests are now water-repellant or water-resistant, lightweight and often made of breathable fabric. Chest packs offer less storage capacity but have amazing organization systems and are obviously less-restricting than a vest and certainly lighter. And then came the hybrids, part vest, part chest-pack, lightweight, versatile, organizational, functional.
What's best for you and your needs? Read up and decide. -
Fishing, chess, and baseball books fill up the sports category bookshelves at your local chain bookstore. For each sport (for these purposes, let's not quibble about whether chess is a sport or if LeBron could dunk on Bobby Fischer), there is balance, tension, and each creates a symmetrical reflection of our own humanity. I had to leave out so many books, it probably deserves to be a top 100 list. How did I leave off “Flyfishing Through a Midlife Crisis”, “The Compleat Angler”, or anything by Zane Grey? I had to omit an unknown gem like “Guiding Elliott” by Robert Lee.Read More »
As this list shows, quality fishing books are as much about life and its duality as they are about fishing. -
I often wonder if anglers don’t angle as much for the gadgets and gee-gaws, colorful lures and flies, space-age rods and reels, as for the fish that they catch. For years, anglers had few electronics to choose from, radios and fishfinders mostly. Today, the choices are limitless.Read More »
From fixed mount and handheld radios to emergency radios to GPS devices to electronic fishing bite indicators, fisherfolks can employ electronic devices to catch more fish, avoid getting lost, stay in touch with others and generally enhance their days on the water. Here is my top ten list of those electronic gadgets for anglers and you should know that this was one hard list to whittle down. -
How-to books are usually boring, often dry and humorless, missing key components like diagrams that actually show you what to do. For the purposes of this list, I will assume you don’t fish much or you wouldn’t need a how-to book. For this list, I selected a cross-section of the best conventional how-to books for fresh or salt, bass, or trout and these books are thorough, interesting, and surprisingly, often humorous.Read More » -
I believe that the most important piece of equipment for any angler is a pair of polarized sunglasses. Yeah, you can catch fish without them but you won’t catch as many. You can buy those cheap plastic sunglasses from the big discount stores but you’ll end up scratching them, losing them and replacing them many times over. The quality of those cheapies is underrated too - you won’t be able to see as many fish under the water, won’t be able to distinguish colors as well, won’t be able to contrast objects and colors, and you won’t be able to avoid distortion when you take vista-style views.Read More »
The most important reason to have a solid pair of polarized sunglasses, beyond performance and durability, is to protect your eyes from hooks, harmful sunshine, and UV rays. A good pair of polarized specs can reduce eye fatigue, remove glare, and allow you to see what’s going on down underwater.
With higher quality sunglasses, those anglers with corrective vision needs can usually order prescription lenses. Just remember that prescription lenses make what were lightweight glasses into not-so-lightweight glasses.
You’ll be glad you paid more for a pair of polarized glasses that have glass instead of polycarbonate and acrylic but all three are acceptable relative to your budget. Then you’ll want to match your lens tint to the type of water you’ll be fishing: Lens tints range from brown, blue, green, copper, amber, mirror, and others; each has their particular strengths and weaknesses. -
Reels don’t just hold your flyline. They balance your fly rod. They control the lunker at the end of your line. They aid in your casts. They can be aesthetically pleasing. And if you fish enough, you’ll expect your fly reel to be durable. Reels should be something to be proud of, something to be happy to control your fish. You can get by with a lousy reel if you’re fishing a small stream and never have to put a fish on your reel but if you have a salmon or bass, tarpon or tuna hooked, you’ll need your reel to perform or you’ll be fishless and mad.Read More »
With those elements in mind, here is my list of the top ten fly reels on the market today. I recommend buying all the reel you can afford. Reels really do make a difference. -
For my Best of the Best trout fly rod list, I chose to use a 9 foot 5 weight as the comparative standard. It is not the perfect rod length or weight. There is no such thing. But the nine-five is a compromise, fits lots of situations and gives us a comparable model, apples to apples. I chose a 9 foot 5 weight because it’s a tweener – you can fish small, you can fish big. I left off bamboo entirely to save that sweet list for another time.Read More »
Fly rods are like one’s favorite pair of shoes or jeans – it’s an intensely personal choice, sometimes based on comfort or feel or touch or aesthetic or nostalgia but all these rods will fit you well. I’ve selected rods that combine looks with performance, rods every angler would want in their collection. These are trout rods that you don’t need to own, but you’ll want to own. What I looked for, past the beauty and action and distance and power and finesse, is fishability. Enjoy.
