Zane Grey – High Seas Prophet

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 photography 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...

A Door in the Woods

A Door in the Woods

Though it was now past dusk and the forest was dark and still, I could see that, yes, it definitely was a door, alone, in the middle of the woods. “Good boy, Rex, easy now. Whoa on the bird!”   The gathering gloaming of the approaching evening made it rather difficult...

Fishing Premonitions

Fishing Premonitions

Though I continue to believe omens, signs or premonitions are total baloney, I did note some rather convincing portents while fishing the Wisconsin River one spring evening. Some people put a lot of faith in omens, signs, premonitions or whatever you choose to call...

Replacing Moonshine With Flyline

Replacing Moonshine With Flyline

Arriving at Headwaters on the Soque farm in northeast Georgia is like stepping back into a world that has quietly eluded the encroachment of progress. It’s an easy 80 miles from Metro Atlanta, but it might as well be a thousand. When you arrive at the farm in...

All Writers Are Liars

All Writers Are Liars

All writers are liars, whether reef-fishing miles offshore on the Atlantic or fishing through a hole in the north country ice. The smokestack of the hulk gloomed from the depths, barely visible when the July sun ricocheted off the surface of the sea. Halfway to the...

Nervous Water

Nervous Water

A father and son are finally reunited, on a secluded lake high in the Colorado Rockies. On a clear June morning, I took my father bass fishing into the Colorado Rocky Mountains. I had not seen or spoken to him in ten years. We ate an early breakfast at a truck stop on...

Tomorrow’s the Day

Tomorrow’s the Day

Tomorrow is the moment he’s been waiting for. Tomorrow the fisherman will emerge from his annual six-months’ hibernation, which began with the close of last year’s trout season, and head once more for that favorite pool he has brooded about all winter. Tomorrow – nor...