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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.
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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.
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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.
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Banded
Folding neatly the greenhead splashed soundly onto the water. The old lady made quick work of the retrieve.
Your heart is in your throat, but it can’t choke off the torrent of sounds and smells and tiny clues that have swallowed you whole.
My mind is still anchored in summer. The eighth inch of ice on the windshield should have tipped me off that the seasons have changed. I scrape ice and cradle a mug of coffee as I wait for the truck to warm up. Toes tingle from the cold as I step into waders. Carefully, Read More
How do you thank the animal that ignored your faults and saw in you, without exception, the person you wish you were?
Cooped up in the back of the pickup the dogs were restless. They had been let out a few times between stalks, but mostly it had been a long ride. Antelope were the top priority. The dogs and a chance to look for sage grouse were a distant second. By mid afternoon we were, Read More
Ping… Whack… THUNK. “Whoa, hey! No throwing rocks at the house!” I yelled to my four year old through the suddenly vulnerable window. “I’m NOT Dada!” he shot back with an eye-roll that would make a fourteen year old proud. WHAP. “Dude! What was that?” “I’m throwing rocks at the SPIDER!” he explained, exasperated, Read More
With light beginning to fade our only option was a last ditch effort to circle the bunch and get down wind. We forced our hand.
I didn’t waste time surveying the scene on the way in. Twilight was darkening to evening, the wind was picking up and the temperature was falling fast on the high divide. That the Miner’s Delight Inn offered shelter was all I needed to know before hurrying inside. But with damp layers hung by the, Read More
Blue green water, a little high, but lower than last week. It looked fishy. With a couple hours of light left it felt like we might have hit it perfectly. Walking back to the truck to gear up my buddy hollered. “Sounds like air is coming out of a tire.” Sure enough, there was, Read More
It’s been a good year. The cold damp soaking my thighs and the tang of wet sage are evidence. Water is life wherever you go, but the connection is hard to miss on the high desert prairie. The whole palette brightens and shifts toward green. In July, much of Wyoming looked like Ireland., Read More
Bad luck, lack of skill, karma, it’s hard to say. What seems certain is that I’ve far exceeded my quota of broken rods for the year. Maybe it’s because I went several years without breaking one. But five, and it is still September, that seems excessive. Other than the end result there doesn’t seem, Read More