The clock reads 4:15am. The alarm is set for 4:45am. A few minutes pass and I decide attempting to sleep any more is futile. Like a kid on Christmas, I still have trouble sleeping when I’m heading out early to hunt or fish. I toss and turn and often am up before the alarm goes, Read More
I’m not sure which was more embarrassing, tethering some red string to a hook and calling it “fly tying” or resorting to the worm and calling it “angling”.
Blonde hair juts out like straw from underneath a truckers hat. The hat is pulled down tight and underneath a pair of eyes peer intently at the water from behind a pair of dark rimmed glasses. “Hit it” comes a voice from the rower’s seat, as the rod simultaneously thrust towards the sky coming tight, Read More
“Once there was a dinosaur and he had zero fish… tra LAAAAAA” sang my four year old quietly to himself, making up the words and melody on the fly. It would have been adorable had he not arrived at musical improv by way of desperate boredom. Hours confined to a small boat with vanishingly, Read More
I heard Steven set the hook from thirty yards downstream. “Fish on?” I asked over my shoulder, unwilling to abandon my own drift just yet. “Uh, you could say that,” grunted Steven in reply. It was the year’s first post-work outing. With the equinox behind us and daylight savings time tacking an extra hour, Read More
We’ve known each other for years. In the days when I spent more time with a belay device in my hand than a fly rod, we climbed together often. But geography and time pulled us apart. So I was thrilled when Toby called and said he wanted to come visit. It was an opportunity, Read More
She is dog-ugly, but I’ve dreamed of getting into her bed for months now. Who am I to judge if she lies right next to the highway, downstream of town and in the middle of an oilfield? So her banks are intermittently lined with junk cars and half-submerged industrial debris… let he who hath, Read More
“How are the fish doing?” a small voice piped up from the back seat. “Huh?” I replied. “You know…how are their homes doing?” “Oh…you mean where we helped on that project last summer?” “Uh huh” Seven months had passed, but it is remarkable what sticks in a five year old’s mind. My daughter and, Read More
“Boys, wait your turn!” says Ayden with the authority of a 5 year old vice-principal. “Pet that rainbow,” grunts Grady, disregarding his big sister, throwing a territorial elbow and leaning precariously over the gunwale. “Dada, Dada… I wanna… I wanna,” whines Everett, scrambling frantically over the oars and lunging into the fray. I doubt, Read More
My eyes were already open when the alarm hit 2:30am. By 3:00am I was hitching up the boat. I put the dog in the cab. Scraping the windshield quickly, I worried she might eat the breakfast burritos that my partner in crime had toiled over the night before. After sipping on a thermos of, Read More