Jam a fly box and a spool of tippet down your waders, wade out far enough so’s you can execute a double haul without slopping creek water over what freeboard remains, if you’re careless you’re wet – and the fish care not. Primitive is a good thing – you soak it up for those “technical” outings [...]

The first fellow was towing a lure that looked like a plucked Olive chicken carcass – minus saran wrap and foam plate. I says, “what’s your buddy throwing – a pizza?” He laughs, “there’s a lot of Bass in here but they ain’t biting today.” He ears back to fling that seaweed colored rooster, and [...]

The excited catcalls and snarling gears suggested I’d better hurry if I wanted to watch the kid get stuck. Rubber is pretty ineffectual when the “Bones of the Old Girl” are exposed – ocher clay, equal parts mud and Vaseline, with a veneer of gravel that lures the aggressive into complacency. Offroad tires and wading boots are [...]

“Furlough Friday” had me on the prowl on the west side of the valley, I’d had the foresight to grab Sweetpea, got her grain-fed and rubbed down and while she gathered her possibles, I’d snuck a rod, vest, and waders into the cab while she wasn’t looking. It’s the old “winery” gambit, “I think there’s [...]

My New Year’s resolution was to learn how to Spey cast. Sure, I’m carrying too many pounds of flab, and drink far too much, but this resolution has a better’n average chance of me following through. I thought it might be fun to return to those hideous days of clueless “Noob” – experiencing a mixture [...]

Two days of balmy idyllic fishing weather was forecast and I was able to deliver the “I’d rather stay home and scrub the place spotless” speech without a hint of guile. I figured the first day would warm the water to a nice tepid temperature and the following day would unleash famished fish – that’d [...]

There are always warning signs that we choose to ignore, in part due to boundless enthusiasm, in part raw courage. Non fisher types cannot understand our premonitions, as it’s counter to everything they’ve experienced. We wake up to a traditional western dawn and appreciate the riot of colors and hue, but it starts that unsettling little [...]

If the fishing is marginal, adapt to your surroundings and take part in Nature’s bounty. California almonds surrounded me this weekend, and the fish were disinterested so I helped myself to a couple sacks of nuts. Some may consider me the same as the fruit for being there in the first place, but a practised brownliner is able to adapt, evolve, and overcome. Besides, laying a sack of these on the kitchen counter scores a lot more points than dead fish.

I tried all the bubble pack wet flies of yesteryear on hungry desperate fish, and wound up hungry and desperate myself. Sure the flies were too large and gaudy, but this is the same assortment purchased by thousands of aspiring fly fishermen before they know better. Has Big 5 – assisted by the McGinty, Yellow Sally, and White Miller, killed off all those anglers before they knew better?

My mistake was volunteering to help out a fellow fisherman, looking at me with them big puppy eyes, the stare you only see at the pet store window, capable of inflicting guilt and shame without hint of malice. So I took the pager, figuring it was going to be an easy shift, and as I [...]