Louis L’Amour, prolific writer of cheap Westerns, described them as, “ …women to ride the ridges with – the kind of gal that walks beside her Man instead of behind him …” This being a fly fishing blog, I don’t expect my readership knows a truly good woman nor a true Angel from Heaven was [...]

I once prided myself on my understanding of Science, but this new stuff is a slow learn. I’m tempted to look at your exam and copy your answers, as I can’t seem to grasp some of these longwinded connections … The Greatest Estuary the world has ever known is dying, with the Delta Smelt simply [...]

It was a Northern California ritual, get a whiff of the dairy outside Redding, then slam on the brakes for the obligatory “The Fly Shop” pilgrimage. The excuse being to replace aging tippet which quickly morphed into fondling most of the upstairs plumage. While I was never able to exit the premises without blowing that extra hundred [...]

It was painful watching the Republican debates the other night, what with each candidate insisting they’d remove any regulations that slowed job growth. It appears our rivers and estuaries will be drilled like a root canal, most migratory species extincted, and a steady runoff of industrial waste and toxins into whatever you fish most … … [...]

Healthy living is browsing a web page that mentions, “eating whole foods” – and as I finish ingesting a whole box of donuts, I can snicker, “I do that.” Unfortunately the United States ongoing love affair with processed white flour, fast food, and the Internet has overcome the miracles of science, and for the first [...]

I’m calling it the first in what I hope to be a long stream of tasty tidbits, given CalTrout has announced in their Streamkeeper’s Log that both Hat Creek and Fall River will be the recipients of some overdue ecosystem love … Given that I lived, fished, and guided the area for a couple of [...]

Tackle Trade World has a small article outlining the rapidity by which European salons adopted hair extensions and the demise of Europe’s stock of Grizzly hackle (PG 46) – due to the hair extension craze. The only real news is the article documents that which I’ve feared most, they’ve moved from saddles to necks … [...]

Given the volume of invasive species and how quickly they’re encroaching by both land and sea, at some point you throw up your hands and cease keeping score … The Little Stinking just started its third dunking in raw herbicide for some 250 known outbreaks of intrusive grass. Its banks still covered with faux bamboo [...]

It’s the real reason the fly fishing age demographic is 51-55, we’re well read – men of science and letters, and have limited our excesses to Viagra and Internet porn. Man Finds Brick Of Unknown Substance, Snorts It, Dies Thomas Swindal, 53, was offshore on Marathon when he and his brother Kenneth discovered a brick [...]

I remember Pop would hustle home from work, reach for that big 12 foot surf rod and Penn Senator whose level wind required an educated thumb, and ignoring me and older bro’s entreaties, as we weren’t old enough to come, he’d vanish in the Jeep to return carrying two huge fish that represented a week’s fine dining. [...]