• The Steelhead With A Thousand Faces

    Maybe if I take five more steps, throw one more mend, skate one more fly, a hero will appear, armored in chrome, and dance to the music of my singing reel.

  • The Birth of A Fishing Town

    Calf deep now in the cold river, Trent’s completed his prelude of silky false casts and is ready to start the show in earnest.

  • In The End, Style Might Be All We Have

    Over the course of 6 trips, in and out, and nearly 40 miles, I question whether or not it’s worth it.

  • Banded

    Folding neatly the greenhead splashed soundly onto the water. The old lady made quick work of the retrieve.

Upon discovering my hunting pack, loaded and stashed for the morning, my 3 year old ignored the knife, the saw, the lighter, the rope, the Snickers, the Fritos, the laser range finder, the flagging tape, the camelback, the .30-06 cartridges and other tempting tools of mess and mayhem. He went instead, straight for the, Read More

  I didn’t see it coming, until it hit me like a freight train. The Yeti is to sportsmen what the Rolex is to suburban businessmen. In what seems like overnight, Yeti Coolers have become the new status symbol for hunters and anglers. Yeti managed to make coolers cool. I’ll admit, I fell for it too., Read More

Sips are great, those matter-of-fact top water takes – no wasted motion, no unnecessary airtime. They’re discreet, business-like and well-mannered. You can almost imagine a trout dabbing his lips with a napkin after a sip. Slurps are fun too, partly because they seem so mischievous, like opening a trapdoor under a pizza. The bug, Read More

Getting my hands on a new rod is always a treat. I have a couple of favorites for sure, but I really enjoy trying something new. Matt on the other hand pretty much fishes one rod. Once he asked to borrow a rod, for a trip to the Keys, but that was stretching it for him., Read More

Steven’s been running. As his friend, this worries me. It’s out of character. And arriving as it does hot on the heels of his move to Bozeman, I can’t help but wonder what other lifestyle shifts I’ve missed. Does he do hot yoga now too? Has he retained a veterinary herbalist for the dogs?, Read More

I started running. You would think I became a vegetarian by the looks on my friends faces when I told them the news. Exercise in the form of running, going to the gym, or other organized workouts has never been my cup of tea. Time in the mountains, on the water, and the occasional, Read More

I can no more explain why I hunt than I can explain why I read. I have reasons – because others must die for me to live, and I’m resolved to do my own killing; because it’s the most sensually vibrant and emotionally complex way I know of to experience the natural world; because, Read More

Laying down a cast, I heard my buddy straining to hold his three year old daughter over the gunwale. She had to pee. Bad. Most of the urine made it to the water. Some splashed on cold beers that had been placed nearby. My friend had had enough time to remove the beers from the cooler,, Read More

The best teams all have one, the guy who finds a different gear on game day. Sure, he goes hard in practice too, but when things get real, he’s just a different animal. We’re not talking about ‘apples and oranges’. You might as well compare pineapples and hand-grenades. He’s a gamer. It’s fundamental, not, Read More

I’ve got a garage full of gear. Enough to outfit a small army for anything from mountaineering to horsepacking, canoeing to big wall climbing, not to mention hunting and fishing. Despite the raw volume of stuff, that at times is overwhelming and probably warrants a garage sale, there are a few pieces of gear, Read More