by Mike Gaddis | Aug 7, 2023
In the 60s it was hip to be bass, and anglers everywhere welcomed a whole new breed of American hero. By 1965, the bassing revolution was at full throttle and re-born bass fishing was rapidly becoming galaxial. It was hip to be bass. Popularity encouraged fraternity...
by Mike Gaddis | Jul 20, 2023
Perhaps there truly are angels among us. The journey to the mailbox should have been exciting. There was a flawless, expectant stillness to the air, as if the world held its breath in waiting. Dense, leaden clouds layered the bottom of an ashen sky, leaving the fields...
by Mike Gaddis | Jun 8, 2023
In the 89th year of his being, Ben Willow had died where most completely he had lived, upon the hills of home, with a dog and a gun. A little less than midway through this book, iron-willed old Missouri-West Virginian Ben Willow throws himself mercilessly once more...
by Mike Gaddis | Jan 3, 2022
Islands in the stream…eras in the flow of a man’s lifetime. Days lapse January meager now, and this one is dying. In the twilight of its wake, snow is born. Death to one, life to another. Waylaid at my threshold by the magic, rescued from the zephyr of...
by Mike Gaddis | Nov 1, 2021
A fella posed a question the other day that caused me pause… He asked, “When’s the last time you did something for the first time?” Not when’s the last time you did something again for the first time in a long time. But the last time you did something for...
by Mike Gaddis | Dec 1, 2020
The spaniel had lived beyond her time. But strangely – to the last – she had acted almost as a puppy. He had felt the turn of the tide three years before. Felt it more than in the 73 years before them. It pulled against him now, receding rather than rushing in. He...
by Mike Gaddis | Oct 15, 2020
Our quest: the old workhorse of the Parker stable, the gun that, more than any other, validated the company catchphrase, “The Old Reliable.” For it was that of a young man, and I am old, and I have seen first-hand the burnishment of many golden years upon a dream that...
by Mike Gaddis | Oct 5, 2020
He confided the happy little story that closed the 50 years between us as gently as nightfall closes day, that filled my eyes and made me smile. I’ve an idea it might foster a similar reminiscence for you. Little, whimsical outdoor gladdenings come along now and then...
by Mike Gaddis | Jul 23, 2020
“In every journey the road will bend. Who can know how the story will wend? To every beginning, there must come an end.” Cliché? Maybe, but profoundly, as inescapable truths that bracket the birth-to-death limits of our being. In the between time, there is...
by Mike Gaddis | Jul 21, 2020
“Wouldn’t it be great?” Kjos said again, his blood up, completely dismissing the ducks, “To have a permanent puppy, to have first love over and over again?” The sun slept in that years-ago Utah morning over the Salt Lake marshes. Where Kjos and I were guests in an...
