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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.
Call ‘em caddis, sedges, dancers, grannoms, shadflies, peters, makers, millers, micros, travelers or whatever your local dialect has adopted. Just don’t overlook them.
Given enough time it happens to all of them. Dogs get sprayed by skunks, bird dogs a bit more often. Skunks live in nearly every part of the country and in all sorts of environments. Dogs have a way of seeking them out like laser guided missiles. It’s not a matter of if, but when, your dog will be sprayed.
Nymphing is, at heart ,an exercise in groping around in the dark. Sounds familiar….
I guess you need to know that I’m a beer snob. Well, not a snob really, it’s just self-deprecating shorthand to describe what I really am, a bona fide, card carrying beer judge, a connoisseur of beer style and the application of that style at the appropriate time and place. Because it enhances my, Read More
At what point does that instant become too pricey? How many vacant hours, miles, snags, tangles, blisters, bug-bites and burns are too many?
Home late from the river I grabbed a bottle of Ranch dressing and almost poured it over ice cream, thinking it was chocolate sauce. Either was a poor substitute for dinner.
It’s a nice counterpoint, the way water chooses to travel. No clock, no speedometer, just the path of least resistance back home to the ocean.
He hung in there for six hours. Fueled by gummy worms, twizzlers, and blue gatorade, he flogged the water with a thrift store rod and an indicator.
The bugs pelt the water in sheets, like winged sleet on every fresh breeze, prompting a feed that feels lewd to me, somehow indecent.
With a deftness that defies his five years of age, my son thrust the net forward at precisely the right moment and corralled our quarry. We knelt in water still frigid and stained with sediment from winter snowmelt. Grinning from ear to ear we were mystified at what we were witnessing.