Sam surprised me. “Let’s do it,” he blurted out when I answered the phone. “Let’s go fly fishing.” The way Sam spoke the sentence was already awkward, as though he was uncomfortable with the words themselves. He slowed down every time he put the word “fly” in front of...
It’s not called catching. It’s called fishing. And a lot of our time on the water is spent not catching fish — all of us. Going fishless can be frustrating, or you can readjust the goals, focus on fishing better, and find satisfaction in fishing well. Bite windows are...
I swear I fish best when I’m alone. I can’t prove it without a witness, but I guess I don’t care to verify it anyway . . . and that’s the point. In what seems like another lifetime ago, I fished the mountain streams alone and often. I miss it now. In daydreams, I sift...
There are two ways to tell the experience of an angler: how he holds a fish and how he keeps his secrets. The latter is probably more important. My secrets aren't your secrets. The places and dreams that I find sacred and worthy of protection are likely much different...
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 . . .
I approach from downstream, making daring casts into the brush pile, probing a dark network that's shaped by collected seasons of tangled roots and half trees. A heavy current crashes into the pile and is redirected outward, and I wade into the bottom part of that...
There are two kinds of secret places, I suppose: one’s that are truly tucked away somewhere unknown, and ones that lies right underneath a fisherman’s nose. This place harbors a little of both . . .