It was the same story he used when in Italy, “… imagine my surprise when I rummaged in my pocket and found a single Little Stinking Olive!” I told him not to run it through the ponds at the Vatican, and doubly don’t dare hand twitch it through the green water at the Roman baths, [...]

Girls prefer some well coifed, clean-smelling fellow to sweep them off their feet. Guys would prefer romance include some stunning female who’s statuesque, fulsome, and completely chaste, unless it’s them she’s disrobing … as that’s entirely proper. Nine web sites and nine supersaturated pictures of the dots on a trout’s tail, and I wonder how [...]

The myth has it patrolled ruthlessly by a grizzled fellow in overalls whose well oiled Blunderbuss is flanked by aimlessly scratching hounds – who are wary of his large plug of chaw – which is spat indiscriminately at dogs, feet, and anything else that ain’t nailed down. Last week while surveying the fishless Little Stinking, Travelwriter let [...]

You can’t fault them as it’s worked well for the environmentally conscious types. Stop the creek with a well placed cork, extinct everything but ATV hellions and gravity donations from the housing dispossessed – and when no one’s looking – slap up new signs to keep out the dog walkers and environmentalists. Are they worried [...]

Friend Roughfisher is adding his expertise to the USCARPPRO ezine, with a monthly column on flies for our favorite Cyprinid. It’s a great fit and a monstrous ezine, 150 pages of technology and insight into all forms of carp fishing – most of which we never knew existed. Fly fishermen have more than our fair [...]

This was the weekend where my newly placid and emerald alma mater was to be violated cruelly by my large feet. Flows were perfect, the sun was out – and a balmy 67° predicted. Friday night was the prenup. Rods inspected, reels freshly oiled, boots sterile from chemical bathes and three months of enforced idle, [...]

It’s only a blip on my radar, and  few are losing sleep over a dirty little dustbowl lined with “Quad” tracks. This morning commences the Cache Creek Aggregate Producers Breakfast, where they’ll be attired in top hats and too-tight vests, an abundance of hearty backslaps and thick cheroots, and some environmental pipsqueak trying to be [...]

Little wonder that your typical Brownliner can get a little overbearing and evangelical, our beloved fish are tortured without mercy – just because they can be … … and while you smack your lips in anticipation of the still beating heart – spleen or other choice viand, what you don’t know is our fish fight [...]

Seeing a muskrat sends shivers down my spine.  It’s “freshwater Taliban” whose yen for burrows and tunneling are the source of hyperextended knees, unstable footing, and cursing fishermen. I’d seen a couple last week and made every effort to move slow near the waters edge – and even slower in the water, but the little [...]

I’m on unfamiliar turf, unsure whether to be melancholy, maudlin, or go with chest thumping bravado. Guys are always conflicted that way as we aren’t allowed to “tear up” when Old Yeller gets lead out behind the barn, nor are we supposed to get melancholy when we see our home water laying there with bones [...]