— This is the companion chapter to The Shallows Above, published a few days ago. ... I’ve done this nighttime thunderstorm thing before. Two summers ago, on a dark night in July, I was surprised by another thunderstorm. And once again, it was one of the most memorable...
The thunderstorm came from nowhere. I’m not much for weather reports, and I hadn’t checked. I’d simply walked out of my garage and looked at some clouds in the sky at dusk. No moon, either. So it would be a dark night with only patches of starlight between the clouds:...
The other day, my friend, Austin, mentioned something about me being a calculated fisherman. I guess I come off that way. The truth is, my planning and plotting and theory building mostly happens while I’m not fishing. When I'm on the water, a lot of that...
That pivotal moment when everything changes. The event that makes the trip. The defining instance that separates all the memories that come before from the ones that come after. It’s what I wait for — what I look for every time I’m out there — and it’s why I keep fishing . . .
I think I’ve night fished often enough now to make some conclusions -- not many, but a few basic determinations that allow me to have confidence in laying out a few principles. Here’s one: night fishing around here is hard. It takes dogged persistence over many...
Burke and I floated today. It's almost late enough in the season to call it a winter run, but not quite. Need snow for that, and I'd say real winter hasn't started yet. Action was about what we expected for this river at this time of the year, which is to say, it was...
I've read a lot of fishing blogs, and I can't recall any accounts of a complete shut out.  I've seen lots of hero poses with gorgeous slabs of wild trout spilling over wet, dripping hands with the flash of a fly rod reflecting in the sun. My RSS feed is filled with...
My home-water is not full of big fish.  Burke likes to call it fishing for midgets.  Is that politically incorrect? OK then; it's usually a matter of fishing for little fish.  However, this evening we caught a larger one -- easily my fish of the year on this water....
Friday night I wrapped up my gig at the Phyrst with my buddy Noah, then made the transformation from musician to fisherman again. I've done this a bunch of times now, and the thorough contrast in venues is remarkable: from the noise and chaos of the State College bar...
Took Aiden fishing today.  No, it's really not too cold if you dress for it.  For my youngest son, that means three pair of socks, three pants, two heavy shirts, winter coat, hat, and waterproof mittens. Sure, it takes about fifteen minutes to get dressed, but then I...
I decided to fish close to home and in a section that rolls through a small neighborhood.  No, it's more like a series of cabins.  It was an odd choice.  A great choice during the day, but at night I always try to stay away from light sources because I've learned that...