My annual Feathercraft flyfishing/flytying catalog arrived in the mail yesterday and was the one piece in my stack that brought a smile to my face (more so than the tax notice). Coffee was made and other pressing things were set aside to make way for priorities. Inside, a rainbow whirlwind (and you just […]
Read more "Method and Madness"When I was 14, my family moved from the wilds of western Maine to the very metropolitan Cortland, New York. If you’re an outdoorsman or fisherman, you might think that this was a big step in the wrong direction (in some ways it was) but I didn’t see it that way. Maine had offered just […]
Read more "Fish All the Places"I sat at the Ihop yesterday wondering whether my blueberry pancake portion would be as large as advertised and scratching new mosquito bites. At 10:30 AM, I’d squeezed in between the breakfast and lunch crowd and found plenty of seats available among the modest brunch crowd of senior citizens with their wide, roving bespectacled eyes. […]
Read more "Nothing Complicated"Too often we think of adventure as waiting for us somewhere across the continent and miss out on the opportunity for adventure that waits all around us every day. Yesterday evening a get-together with my dad didn’t work out so I rapidly concocted a back-up plan. Water conditions, I thought, would be […]
Read more "Little Adventures"I took my snow boot liners out for washing and the boots themselves went in the shower. The sled’s about to be locked away in the basement. This week the tip-ups and jig lines will be worked over in preparation for next season. All in all, I’m just saying that the ice fishing season has […]
Read more "Reflections on Ice"Well, here’s a topic I could write on and on about indefinitely. I’ll try to keep it short. I’ve never understood the term “rough fish” nor do I like it. We’ve been refining a pretty good system of fish nomenclature over the last couple of hundred years in the western world and this […]
Read more "Fishing’s Rough and Resilient Future"I stumbled downhill through the persistent snow that still blanketed the forest floor here on the lake’s south slope. It wasn’t really easy to get the big sled down here without a trail but that’s what keeps this spot mine alone all winter long. I had little light left and I would reach […]
Read more "Serenity Now"