I wrote an article about the pleasure of solitude and the distances we'll go to get there. It's titled "The further you walk the more you leave behind," and it's available at this Hatch Magazine link. Here are a few excerpts: ... This should be early enough, but you...
There’s an army of people out there working together to save and restore trout streams. They stand against pollution and impairment, and they improve the quality of water. They stop bank erosion from cutting away acres of property, and that helps keep private lands open to the public.
There are more people taking care of our rivers than I ever imagined. Until recently, I thought only about the fishing. I want healthy wild trout in the water. Same as you.
I think it’s our turn to start giving back. Here’s how . . .
I was either born or raised with an abundance of fishing optimism.
. . . No matter the situation, I have an ability to regroup and believe in big possibilities again. Within a few hours of making it home and saying to my sons, “It was kinda slow,” I’m ready for more. After a bowl of cereal and a few talks with friends, after a couple flies tied with something just a little different than last time, I always find a reason to believe the next trip will be better . . .
But on the next cast, instant karma sent my leader and flies into the sycamores. And so began the twenty minutes of foolishness that followed . . .
The best thing about a float is seeing miles of water as if in one frame. It’s like a filmstrip that you can take out and hold in your mind for a while. If you’ve done this long enough, then every rock around every bend carries a memory. The best island channels hold a group of those stories and offer them up as you float by. It’s a photo album: the river is a flowing film of your best and worst times on the water — moment by moment passing by. And if you’re lucky, you might create a new highlight for the reel . . .
These fishing environments, and the goals and obsessions that come with trout fishing, are good for me. And I think they are good for my boys too. . . . So, while I’m becoming an expert in patching bicycle tires and skinned knees, the boys are learning how to catch wild brown trout. It’s all possible now. This is the summer I’ve been waiting for . . .
Other fisherman often make the comment that I'm lucky to live where I do. Luck has nothing to do with it. It's a choice. I started college here, moved away for a bit, finished school somewhere else, met my wife, and then moved back here, in large part, because the...
Hundreds of times Aiden has snagged the bottom, pulled the rod back, and either asked me if that was a fish or has told me flatly, “I think that was a fish.” This time, he finally experienced the certainty that a couple of good head shakes from a trout will give you . . .
The fishing brings us together. If our annual spring trip to the mountain wasn't planned, what chance is there that my dad, my uncle, my two sons and I would all end up in the woods together for four days? None. These trips provide us the reason to make time for one...
Every spring, after the relative solitude that I enjoy on the water for most of the winter, it takes me a couple trips before I adjust to the presence of other human beings in the same woods and water again.
I guess I re-calibrated yesterday . . .
Pat and I wanted to float, but after the recent rains all of our local options were too high and/or muddy. I'm not complaining about it. Fish like water, and I'd rather see a creek bank-full than find the streambed half sun-dried. At high levels, the ideal conditions...