Lessons From The Wilderness
And now, he realized, he also knew something about these woods and waters his father had hunted and fished — something deeply personal. The boy was the youngest and smallest of the cousins, so at the family's gatherings, his cousins would reluctantly let him join the...
Wayne McLoughlin – Eternally Fleeting Dreams
My life outdoors began as an escape, a way to get away from people, yet now I'm involved in the outdoors because of people — the people I've met there. Over the years, the most common question I've been asked about my painting is "How did your art evolve into such...
New Zealand – A Sporting Country is Born
There was once a land with no people, no mammals, just forested mountains and clear rushing rivers since the rocks were laid down. No deer or antelope, no wolf or bear had ever left a footprint there. That place lay brooding for millions of years, a thing unto itself....
Iceland Brown Trout – A Place Out Of Time
The situation in Iceleand reminded me of an existentialist stage play, like Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Being lost in the fog, with its sensory and sound-deadening effects...was akin to having wandered into the off-stage of life. Iceland it...
Salmon Fishing in the Aleutians
If Hell was cold, wet and windy, it would probably look a great deal like Volcano Bay in Alaska's Aleutians. But in one of those lovely little touches of irony at which God is so devilishly good, if Heaven was made just for fishermen with a sense of adventure, the...
Thoughts on Fly Fishing – Subimago Blues
57 years ago, on January 14th, 1965, Bob Dylan recorded his hit single "Subterranean Homesick Blues" Here are some thoughts on fly fishing set to this classic tune. Down in the basement, Thinnin' out the head cement, Thumbin' through a catalog, Last...
Tales to Tell in Winter
When I was seventeen, it was a very good year. It was a very good year for small- town girls and soft summer nights. We'd hide from the lights on the village green When I was seventeen. - Ervin Drake I was not yet 17 when I first heard The Kingston Trio sing Ervin...
The Cold Burn Cognition of Living
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 melancholy...
Dispatch From the Caribbean 4
At the intertidal zone on the north shore of St. Croix, located on the west edge of Annaly Bay, rests a tidal pool. Access to this rock formation where saltwater deposits pool together, separate from the sea, is not easy, though rather simple: You either hike the 2.7...
Dispatch From the Caribbean 3
The people along the sand All turn and look one way. They turn their back on the land. They look at the sea all day. As long as it takes to pass A ship keeps raising its hull; The wetter ground like glass Reflects a standing gull The land may vary more; But wherever...