Once upon a time I didn’t need a reason to go fishing. It was compelling, exciting, mysterious and what I’d learned from my dad to do with free time. I just wanted to see the bobber dive and feel a heavy pulse on the line. There was joy in catching bluegills and trout and […]
Read more "Why We Fish"I titled this piece “Exploratory Fishing” but I probably could have just called it “Fishing.” Almost all of my fishing is exploratory because the very joy of the sport is the search for new places to wet a line and determination of who hides just below the reflective surface. Yesterday morning began with a rushed […]
Read more "Exploratory Fishing"Fish are always on the move. Fish move to optimize feeding, to spawn and to evade predators. Too often, fishermen don’t move, going back to favorite fishin’ holes time after time. What’s primary here is to learn to think like nature or like an animal, appreciating seasonal cycles and the import of erratic weather changes. […]
Read more "A Fishing Tip"The Dying Fish is a book about a long walk through the entire eastern U.S. range of the native brook trout. A reader will likely learn all he ever wanted to (and more) about the species as he plods through the 530 page account of the prolonged stream survey and intervening adventures. I’ve written much […]
Read more "In Pursuit of Simplicity and Brookies"I’ve been fishing the creek that flows within sight of my back window nearly every morning lately. It just puts me in a good frame of mind to carry with me through the rest of the day, a way of thinking that keeps my focus on the natural and elemental. And I wonder sometimes about […]
Read more "A Good Winter on the Creek"I’ve often preached here and elsewhere that those of us who appreciate natural things should all be sure to get out and explore our immediate surrounding thoroughly before rushing off to the Outer Banks, the Rocky Mountains, or Europe. We should learn to value all the habitat that surrounds us and not just dream of […]
Read more "A Return to the Simple Things"In 2009, I hiked across Pennsylvania as a part of the Eastern Brook Trout Solo Adventure, a tale that became “The Dying Fish,” my book on the resurgent eastern forest and all the fish who swim there. My findings in Pennsylvania, as with almost everywhere else, were findings of organic renewal on a grand scale; […]
Read more "The Breadth of the Wild Woods"