Drift boats are all the rage, and with good reason. Oar-rigged rafts also enjoy a well-earned popularity. And what fisherman doesn’t, in his heart of hearts, covet a flats skiff? Among the adventure minded, the attraction of watercraft seems to be a genetic predisposition, the expression of which begins in preadolescence and expands through, Read More
Tenkara has been around and reliably catching fish, more or less unchanged, for centuries.
It’s a ghost town; a scene from the twilight zone. The riffles babble and splash, pools flood the bends, soft water lurks behind rocks and foam spins in the eddies, but the river is abandoned. No signs of life. Nobody home. It must be an illusion, maybe a misunderstanding. Has to be. The water, Read More
They are the gullible rubes of the trout family; the hayseeds, hicks, hillbillies, yokels, rustics, provincials, buffoons, bumpkins, country cousins and clodhoppers. Mountain cutthroat, convention holds, are so unsophisticated that even novice anglers had better brace for action. Why then were they giving four capable fishermen fits? “Riser. Four o’clock. About 10 feet further,”, Read More
“Whoa ho ho! Dada did you see that one?” asked my four year old, going rigid for an instant with surprise and excitement. “We just missed him!” I replied. “Yeah cause that was a nibble and I felt the nibble and he wanted our bug real bad.” He was right about the desire, but, Read More
Coastal fisheries are ruled by the tides. High in the northern Rockies though, the productivity of an outing can be made or broken by timing the snowline. Unlike the tides, no reliable lunar cycle can forecast the elevation and condition of the snowpack. Rather you have to cobble together your own charts from investigatory day, Read More
A picture of a young man hangs in my workspace. Four young men actually, but there’s one in particular looking directly into the camera and, as the frame’s orientation would have it, over my shoulder while I write. I knew this man to be, among many other things, a natural storyteller, so it’s a, Read More
“Uh… Dada? The fishing river is too fast!” It’s been said (way too often in my opinion) that God doesn’t close a door without also opening a window. I’m not much for religious platitudes as a general rule, but like most clichés, this one is overused largely on the strength of its applicability. It’s, Read More
It can show it’s face any time of year, but in the summer it is ever present. To call it a living thing would be inaccurate. To say it’s an organizational system would be overly generous. Items are added and deleted, while others are always in the mix. A mound in the back corner of the, Read More
“Interesting,” said Steven. “Rock worm below the Ray Charles?” “Yeah. Why?” I replied “Just not how I’d have rigged it, that’s all… Do you usually tie your trailer so close to your lead?” “Never. But it was expedient. And it worked last night.” “Interesting.” We were huddled behind my truck in a cool pre-dawn, Read More