The Great Midwest
Susan and I just completed our Fall tour of the upper Midwest and I’m sharing here a couple of posts resulting from this expedition, posted recently on woodrisebooks.com, my new outdoors blog.
Read more "The Great Midwest"fish
Embrace The Wild – Keep the Change
Ownership of some of the land we’d just passed through had changed since we’d last visited and we were now barred from entry. This favorite stretch, first described by me in my book The Dying Fish, was now part of someone’s private preserve and we aren’t allowed in.
Read more "Embrace The Wild – Keep the Change"Columbine Creek
Our companion shook his head with some certainty. “No, I haven’t seen any. People found out about the trout and came down and kept them all. It just got fished out.”
Read more "Columbine Creek"Muskies Eleven
The muskellunge resembles the more common pike (no minnow itself) but greatly outclasses it in size and sometimes simply eats pike for breakfast.
Read more "Muskies Eleven"Call of the Frontier
The river that lay out on the western horizon was still an unknown to me – a long, mysterious meandering flow. The slow, deep, turbid waters of this flow seemed meant to irrigate croplands here in Crawford County, not to accommodate extraordinarily large spawning trout. But I was here to expand my horizons, to do radical new things and probe mysterious waters, here to challenge another frontier.
Read more "Call of the Frontier"Of Flowages and Fire
The ground was soggy as we sloshed back in on this early January day. We parked at a place that I’ll never reveal to walk in to a stream I’ll never name.
Read more "Of Flowages and Fire"In Pursuit of Fish and Simplicity
Hopefully, this simplistic explanation of the art to angling will enhance someone’s 2023, maybe just encouraging that someone to open the back door, pole in hand, and make for the crik down the hill. You may be amazed at what’s waiting for you.
Read more "In Pursuit of Fish and Simplicity"Tubular Bliss
For me, the joy of fishing arises from its variety. First, there is great variety in the species of fish themselves, especially here in Pennsylvania. Our fishes largely adhere to our major watersheds, the Ohio and Susquehanna but then also the minor watersheds: Lake Erie, the Genesee River, Delaware River and Potomac River, […]
Read more "Tubular Bliss"No Need to Starve
At the store there’s no 2% milk or the hotdog bun section is bare or our favorite breakfast cereal has all been consumed by the locust swarm – the shoppers who got here a little earlier than we did. Immediately, the mind turns toward survival snaring, the digging of choice tubers or the use of […]
Read more "No Need to Starve"Fish Feature: Gizzard Shad
This year I’m going to feature a variety of Pennsylvania fishes on my site, fishes that I have at least a little experience with, fishes that I know really swim here. I think there’s a lot more fish diversity out there than we sometimes give our state credit for as we reel in bluegills, bass […]
Read more "Fish Feature: Gizzard Shad"
the dying fish 