Two years ago I decided to visit some of the local trout streams near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where I was introduced to The Way of a Trout with a Fly (thank you G. E. M. Skues). Despite the advance of civilization, the drive was a refreshing tour past Amish farms and rural countryside that, it…
An old TV show-which name I can’t recall- had the main character make a very profound statement on life which was “Find out what you don’t do well and then DON”T DO IT’. I have watched a lot of You Tube and Vimeo videos lately and have notice that a lot of the fly fishers…
To paraphrase W. C. Fields, “ I never drink water, I know what fish do in it.” I have been warned by my editor not to pick on bass or carp fishermen so I will assume that every fly angler has a favorite beverage they drink to keep snakes away and that THE favorite drink…
Spey rods and Switch rods are new to me. In Europe I saw salmon fishermen with extra long rods and figured, “OK big fish, big rivers you need a BIG rod”, sort of like boat rods for salt water. Fast forward to today. Steelhead fishermen on the West Coast have been using Spey rods for…
I ran across the display above while talking about smallmouth fishing with my old friend Bob Nicholson. Bob and I have spent many years fishing for trout on the Muskegon River in Michigan. In the summer when trout fishing slows down, the Muskegon becomes a really great smallmouth fishery. Enquiring about the chart, of course,…
Since I retired I have spent up to a month each year fishing on the Muskegon River in Michigan. While many fishermen think that fishing every day is absolute ecstasy, fishing day after day can start to become work after a while and It is like running guide trips without getting paid. Early June on…
The sign by the road read “BAIT WADERS FLIES GUIDE SERVICE.” Simple enough, it stood in front of a ramshackle cinderblock building that was painted a shade of green that failed to blend into the brushy surroundings. I almost passed it by but a sign in the window read “OPEN” so, feeling curious, I pulled…
If you jump out of a perfectly good airplane, mountain climb, are in law enforcement or the military you expect that you might get injured, possibly fatally. In fact for major sports participants the general statistics show that there are 9.5 injuries per 100 participants. Football has the highest injury rate with hockey next. I…
In my younger days, I used to take my corporate mandated vacations in a block and made every effort to go someplace and do something “new”. In 1974, in the spirit of exploration, I ended up in Portland, Oregon with a young lady who, among other things, was willing to try fly fishing. We visited…
It had been a long productive day chasing brown trout for my friend Bob and I. We were sitting in his office-library-fly tying room soothing our sore arms and reminiscing over past adventures. I had prescribed a dose of twelve year old, single malt as pain medication. Time passed and as we talked, I noticed…