EP 99. The Best Fly Fishing Is Everywhere: Storytelling & Conservation with Jesse Lance Robbins

In this episode, I sit down with angler, writer, and conservationist Jesse Lance Robbins, author of The Best Fly Fishing Is Everywhere: Stories in Celebration of Why We Fish, to unpack how storytelling shapes fly fishing education and river advocacy. Jesse takes us through his winding path in the fly fishing industry — working in a fly shop, guiding, fundraising for Trout Unlimited, and published book author — and how each vantage point reshaped his relationship to the water. We talk about his undergraduate thesis valuing a recreational fishery before and after a dam removal, and how that research foreshadowed a full-circle moment: dam removals on Washington’s rivers and on the Kennebec in his home state of Maine. We also get into a few misadventures from his new book — trout bumming in New Zealand, steelheading in the Pacific Northwest, and chasing tarpon in Florida — and how those stories, mentors, and near-failures fueled his transition from industry pro to nonprofit fisheries conservation work. In this episode:

• Storytelling as a tool for conservation advocacy
• How place-based relationships deepen motivation to protect rivers
• Jesse’s path from guide to writer and nonprofit conservation leader
• Dam removal in Washington and the Kennebec River in Maine — a full-circle story
• Why fly fishing works better as a practice than a sport
• Environmental economics, thesis research, and valuing rivers before and after dam removal
• Misadventures from New Zealand, the Pacific Northwest, and Florida

Sponsors: This episode is brought you by: A New Earth Project, the sustainability initiative of Atlantic Packaging, Emerger Strategies, and Ecolytics (don’t forget to mention The Sustainable Angler for a discount off your first year’s subscription!)