Father’s Boats
He fished for panfish, bass, and maybe, just maybe, a muskie.
The Day Momma Killed Corky
It was an act of violence rougher than anything Hemingway ever wrote about – the blood-curdling screams made me sick to my stomach. But about that time I hooked a monster bluegill… A Southern Tall Tale Excuse me, gents. Jimmy Shakes here, nice to meet ya. I...
Hemingway’s Pilar – Chasing Billfish and German U-boats
Papa called her Pilar and she was a fishing machine, a 1934 Wheeler Playmate, custom built to his specifications in a Brooklyn boatyard. She was 38 feet at the waterline, with a low-cut transom rigged with a roller for sliding fish aboard. She held a ton of ice, had...
Fishing with Ordinary American Heroes
The old war wound nagged at him as he waded the stream.
A Healing Place
It was the day of his birth, the genesis of his sixty-third year, and it had been a good one. It could have been celebrated anywhere in the world, as so many times before it had. But not today. Not this time. Today, it had been spent on the small streams near home,...
Quick Brown Fox
A brown trout has no soul. Souls are reserved for the fisherman and his kind, along with the accountability that most assuredly accompanies a soul.
Memories of Grandpa Floyd
Memories of Grandpa and the solid tug of a big bluegill are all he needs.
Home on the Range
Enjoying the abundance of wildlife on the American prairie.
The Intruder
And then, one day, there he was — a guy was standing by MY lake, and what the…he had a fly rod in his hand! It wasn’t much as waters go — probably a couple acres at best. I’d passed by it many times always on the way to somewhere else. It lay a few hundred yards...
Of Catfish and a Smelly Old Codger
To a starry-eyed boy enchanted by anything connected with hunting or fishing, his knowledge of the river had a mysterious, almost magical quality about it.