It’s a given that your coworkers think you’re nuts. While you’re pantomiming heroic deeds at the watercooler – punctuated by scratching Poison Oak, massaging hook holes and the scraped shins of your post-Opening Day Monday, their inquiries as to your success or failure fall on deaf ears, what’s most important and what they cannot understand – is [...]

As soon as I mentioned the waves of famished fish eagerly casting themselves in the path of anything Olive, I knew I’d overstepped the boundaries of both physics or logic and brought unwanted voodoo magic into the mix. Fishing being a simple exercise in Chaos theory most days, but if you promise anyone anything about [...]

My mysterious benefactor appears to be the apron work on the bridge upstream. The source of thousands of fish my little creek is suddenly burdened with – as well as why it’s still flowing in October when it should’ve dried up in July. It’s a sudden embarrassment of riches, hundreds of fish in every pool, [...]

There’s a point where swear words are completely ineffectual and only  snagging can express your true feelings for a balky adversary. With small fish it’s the thrown rock that creeps unbidden into your psyche – but with the big brute measured in kilos, only a large treble can restore lost honor. While most of you [...]

I thought of it as answering one of many questions I’ve always had about watersheds and how soon they recovered from obvious trauma. Travelwriter had spied some rising fish in a stretch of the river that was normally bone dry this time of year. Adding 170% more water to the stream means the farming community [...]

After two weeks of cold and dreary, damp and foggy, I’m reminded of all those English classics with Sherlock Holmes and Hounds of Baskervilles, debtor’s prison and moored Hulks. Victorian spinsters attempting to land Mr. Darcy … who fly fished and therefore had the good sense to pledge troth to some crone that owned the Tay, the [...]

It won’t hurt to admit it. While them kids was bee-lining it to your place because you handed out Snickers last year, and as the train of ghosts, fairies and skeletons climbed the long flight of stairs to your darkened doorway, and while their darling little eyes looked expectantly at the door after knocking … [...]

“We’ll be back around seven, and we brought Sweetums’s Frisbee for you to throw. Try not to tire Precious too much, knowing his delicate sensibilities and fragile constitution.” Right. I had dog watching duties this weekend, and while tossing slobber-Frisbee is a rarified treat, peeling the layers of domestication off a well mannered beast is [...]

I’m sure myself or my brown water brethren would have attempted to cool their ardor some. As much as we like standing on the bank giggling while you discover that it’s not Rock Snot – and really is toilet paper, we’re still obligated to get you home safely … … mostly, a limb missing or [...]

August colds lack the trappings of their wintertime cousins, luring a fellow out of bed prematurely so he can wheeze and wilt under summer’s heat. Two weeks without wheels and I was desperate enough to risk the mile and a half to the body shop to claim my chariot. Nearly expiring in the process, another [...]