In the spring of 2012, the Troutbitten guys were scouring the local craft stores for a child’s toy made of rubber. Joanne Fabrics and Michael's Crafts carried a leggy pink thing that could fit in the palm of your hand, but the toy was hard to find. And for reasons...
On Tuesday, I finished my guide season with a productive day on home waters. It was a good fall. And dealing with low water since July hasn’t been all that tough. Drought conditions forced us to wade behind the trout, but that’s where the best dead drifts happen in...
Tap, tap, ta-tap, tap, tap-a-tap. The rain is steady. And thick limbs on the hemlock above me are soaked. Even the bark on what was the dry side of the tree trunk is dark and wet now. But the hanging boughs collect raindrops and provide a canopied shelter for me....
My best friends are all fishermen. Looking back over four decades, I see the trend, and it’s those souls who’ve shared the woods and water who are closest to my heart. Our time on the water bonds. It sews meaningful friendships. Shared exploration brings us together...
I stood next to him on the bank, and I watched my uncle kneel in the cold riffle. Water nearly crested the tops of his hip waders while he adjusted and settled next to the flat sandstone rock that lay between us. He pulled out the Case pocket knife again, as he’d done every other time that I’d watched this fascinating process as a young boy.
“Hand me the biggest one,” my uncle said, with his arm outstretched and his palm up.
So I looked deep into my thick canvas creel for the first trout I’d caught that morning. Five trout lay in the damp creel. I’d rapped each of them on the skull after beaching them on the bank, right between the eyes, just as I’d been taught — putting a clean end to a trout’s life. I handed the rainbow trout to my uncle and smiled with enthusiasm . . .
I was driving a small Nissan pickup, halfway down a steep and rocky logging road, somewhere in the Pennsylvania backcountry. The truck crept down a small boulder field of mixed slate and sandstone. And the frame held solid while the suspension complained against larger obstacles. . . . That perfect, hour-long slow climb down a tram road and into the Fields Run valley was the beginning of a wonderful, memorable adventure . . .
These places change, but they are more constant than shifting, more lasting than fading. The stream that I fished as a boy every April still holds the same trout, and I follow those familiar bends upstream around rocky mountains. Fallen trees have diverted the channels enough to move the main flow twenty yards east or west, but permanence is more powerful. Here, change is minimal. And that’s comforting . . .
. . . He feels it too. And so he’s drawn to the woods, to these places larger than his small life that often seems too big. I’ve been doing the same for forty-three years . . .
. . . But what else does he need?
The whole thing started with four fishermen and a long email chain. That quickly became unwieldy, so Sloop and I set up a private message board for our small group of Pennsylvania anglers and titled it, Troutbitten. Each of us invited close friends — trusted fishermen — the kind of guys who could keep a secret, even after a few beers. And for a short while, a small, core group of guys called Troutbitten fished hard and shared their discoveries with one another . . .
Today marks the completion of a significant Troutbitten project. After a full year in development, the Troutbitten Shop has launched. For sure, this is the conclusion of one phase and the beginning of another, as I’ll continue to add designs and products for the shop in the coming seasons.
The Troutbitten Shop starts with tees, hoodies, hats, stickers and canvas prints. These items feature logos and original designs, artfully printed on high end materials. I took no shortcuts.
Troutbitten has grown from the seeds of your support. Troutbitten readers have made all of this possible, and I’m thankful to be part of a community of anglers who live a life on the water.
I invite you to look around the shop a bit. I’m proud of what is here, and I’m excited for the future.
Here’s a quick rundown of the shop parts . . .
In my early twenties I drove a delivery van for a printing company while finishing the last few semesters of my English degree. Life was pretty easy back then, and I spent much of my leisure time playing guitar and fishing small backcountry streams for wild trout. It was a tight-quarters casting game. And making the transition from the five-foot spinning rod of my youth to a much longer fly rod gave me some trouble. Until, that is, I received one of the simplest and most transformative pieces of fly fishing advice . . .