The John D. Voelker Foundation and the American Museum of Fly Fishing (AMFF) are pleased to announce the winner of the 2025 Robert Traver Fly-Fishing Writing Award: “Oncorhynchus” by Joseph Jackson. This is a touching story of man on a quest to catch a king salmon and choose a name for his soon-to-be born daughter while contemplating his future as a father.
The winning entry will receive a $2,500 prize and is available to read on the American Museum of Fly Fishing’s website at www.amff.org/traver-winners-2025 and the Voelker Foundation website at www.voelkerfoundation.com. “Oncorhynchus” will be published in the Winter 2026 issue of the American Fly Fisher, the journal of the American Museum of Fly Fishing. It will also be published in an upcoming anthology of Traver Award stories since 2008, which will be available from Stackpole Books.
Joseph Jackson is a social studies teacher and outdoor writer in Alaska. He is the author of two books of outdoor essays, It’s Only Fishing (2023) and Chasing the Dark (2024), and his writing and photography have appeared in numerous magazines. When he’s not getting up early to chase rainbow trout or king salmon or hunt ptarmigan with his wife, Emmie, he’s learning how to be a father to the world’s next greatest fly fisherwoman. Mr. Jackson won Honorable Mention in the 2024 Traver Award contest with his story “How to Say Gila.”
Mr. Jackson commented, “I endeavour to find words for everything, but here they fail me. I am deeply, deeply honoured to join the echelon of Traver Award winners. It was a Robert Traver story, actually—“The Intruder”—that got me hooked on fly fishing writing in the first place, so this whole thing feels like a wonderful circuit has been completed. My heart is very full.”
The Traver Award judges also bestowed Honourable Mention recognition on three other entries:
“Upstream from Forgetting” by Michelle Oxford of Kentwood, Michigan
“The Midnight Fly-Fishing Society” by Cynthia Jones of Santa Cruz, California
“Well, I Never” by Henry Hughes of Monmouth, Oregon
The three honourable mention stories are available on the American Museum of Fly Fishing and Voelker Foundation websites, and their writers will each receive a $250 prize.
The 2025 competition drew a field of 118 stories and essays. Entries were judged anonymously, resulting in seven finalists. The other three finalists were:
“The Fish Counter’s Daughter” by Lucas Cunningham of Chicago, Illinois
“The First Day of the Year” by Julie Zapoli of Maple City, Michigan
“Conflagration” by Jon Tobey of Duvall, Washington
The Traver Award is named after Robert Traver, pen name of the late John D. Voelker, author of Trout Madness, Trout Magic, Anatomy of a Fisherman, the 1958 best seller Anatomy of a Murder, and the fine historical novel Laughing Whitefish. Judge Voelker also served on the Michigan Supreme Court as its 74th justice from 1956 to 1960. A collection of Voelker’s finest “yarns” and observations about fishing was published posthumously by Nick Lyons in 2001 under the title Traver on Fishing.
The Traver Award was created in 1994 to encourage and recognise “distinguished original stories or essays that embody the implicit love of fly fishing, respect for the sport, and the natural world in which it takes place.” The winning story or essay must demonstrate high literary values in one or more of these three categories:
The joy of fly fishing: personal and philosophic experience
Ecology: knowledge and protection of the natural world
Humour: piscatorial friendships and fun on the water
Twenty-seven Traver Awards have been conferred since 1994. Two anthologies of the Traver Award winners and finalists have been published: In Hemingway’s Meadow (2009) and Love Story of the Trout (2010). A new anthology of Traver Award stories since 2008, titled Trout Do Not Lie, will be published by Stackpole Books.
The Voelker Foundation and the American Museum of Fly Fishing joined forces in 2018 to administer the Traver Award and publish the winner in the AMFF journal. For more information, see www.voelkerfoundation.com and www.amff.org.
American Museum of Fly Fishing, 4070 Main Street Manchester, VT 05254, USA
