Trout Unlimited Can Find a Lawyer—but Not a Spine on Amendment 83
Somebody ought to manufacture fishing waders specifically for sitting on the fence. Reinforced seat. Extra padding. Absolutely no traction. Send the first pair to Trout Unlimited, which seems to need considerably more preparation to defend the right to fish than most...
People Like Us Never Grow Up
This piece is being written in a bug-ridden swamp on the banks of the sluggish yellow Tana River, in northeastern Kenya, where the big elephants bugle and the baboons swear at the hunting leopards, and the lean Northern Frontier lions rumble asthmatically just outside...
‘Ol Settler of Deep Hole
No fish had ever exerted a greater influence on the thoughts, the imagination, the manners or the moral character of his pursuers. Uncle Eb was a born lover of fun. But he had a solemn way of fishing that was no credit to a cheerful man. It was the same when he played...
A Pair of Jacks
When I looked out the kitchen window one September morning and saw the first tinges of yellow on the big maple’s leaves, I knew it was time. Hurriedly, I scarfed down a light breakfast and put Katherine’s kettle on the woodstove, knowing full-well that she would...
When I Was a Boy
Things were different when he was a lad—back when nothing was artificial or contrived, and the days and seasons were filled with high adventure. It’s a popular pastime among adults, when the hair begins to gray and the aches of middle age grow stronger, to look back...
Zane Grey – High Seas Prophet
So what can we say of Zane Grey, this dentist turned novelist turned outdoor writer? He was a dentist and photographer and a storyteller. He was one hell of a baseball player. He was husband and father and perpetual wanderer and a hunter and fisherman who once held...
Bones In the Heat
At first light, Core Hart climbed the outside spiral stair onto his flat roof. He sat down at the rooftop picnic table and, using a spotting scope, scanned the turtle grass flat that was his front yard. A half mile out, at the edge of the flat, he marked a pod of...
Papa’s Cuba: Hemingway’s Home Away from Home
Cuba offers a party atmosphere: sunshine, sparkling seas and miles of white sand. It also offers some of the best cocktails and cigars on Earth. But as anyone knows who visits here, when it comes to attractions, its people are its greatest stock in trade. Cubans are...
AI in the hands of fishermen? What could go wrong?
"All fishermen are liars; it's an occupational disease with them like housemaid's knee or editor's ulcers." - Beatrice Gray Cook in her 1949 book Till Fish Us Do Part: The Confessions of a Fisherman’s Wife. Artificial intelligence. The breast implants of the digital...
Of Men, Mentors and Muskellunge
Two men wandered into the Ontario Central Airways (OCA) office one afternoon while I was manning the front desk. How strange it was that I could instantly tell that they were used to being in charge. They wore short brown leather jackets and the standard issue khaki...