When You Think Your Hot Stuff...

Well hell, didnt I think I was hot shit

Circa 2006 on a freezing day on the Grande Ronde.   There was icebergs rolling down the river and I was convinced that we weren't going to find anything that day

You'd make a cast and think your bugs were in the zone, only to find them sitting on a a chunk of frozen water.   It was a hell of a day.

Towards the end of the day, we sat on an island dejected.   Finally I looked up and noticed how the ice would pile up, giving you a brief moment to cast and sink the bugs.

I have to tell you, it's interesting to fight a big hatchery fish as it slices through the iceburgs

Extra points for the moose knuckle I'm sporting

We all have our past.  It's best to just look back and laugh.

Bucket List Article...

I've read the Drake for a dozen or so years now, and I've always thought...

One day, one day....I'm going to be in that magazine.

A bucket list item of sorts, we all have to have our goals that drive our craft.  Weight lifters  and runners have their PRs,  steelhead fisherman who  search for that 40 inch buck, so on and so forth.

In the process of writing this piece on the Spokane River, what I really learned is that it's the community that you surround yourself with that will drive or hinder your development.  Like the 10 year old playing basketball with the junior high kids, I was fortunate to have the council of other great writers  and advisors that I look up to as this article took on it's final incarnation. 

The emails to fellow writers who suggested some great edits

The collaborators and photographers like Michael Visintainer who bring the words to life with his images

My friends and fellow Spokane River enthusiasts who gave me great quotes and insight to really bring the pieces together.

And most importantly, the editor who gave me a shot.

Writing the article was the easy part.  Assembling the right people in my life has taken years and that  what I am most proud of.

About Dam Time...

Another reminder that Cathy McMorris Rodger's House Resolution 3144 is bad, bad, bad, bad bad for the Snake River System.

It's bad for the fish

It's ecosystem

It's economic development

You know what it's good for?

A handful of special interests that have the Congresswoman's ear.

If you're interested in spending another 15 billion over 20 years in Salmon and Steelhead mitigation costs, with no real recovery in sight?  It's the bill for you!

If you're interested in kicking the can down the road for the next 5 or so years with no attention go increased in reservoir temps, poorer juvenile salmonid health while in river, reduced springtime spill, and continued downward trends in wild stocks, it's the bill for you!

If you're down with subverting a NEPA public comment process, basically saying that the 400,000 public comments are worthless?  Sign yourself up to this legislation.

If you're happy with re-instituting a Columbia River Biological Opinion that's been federally invalidated 5 times by more than one judge.  Boom, get you some of this action.

I, on the other hand believe that this bill is really bad.  Check it out, as I think you'll have a mind to agree

It's time to #FREETHESNAKE

A Day With Dad...

Lets spout the cliches....

It was good to just be out there.

A bad day fishing is better than any day working

They're a fish of a thousand casts.

That's why they call it fishing, not catching.

We should have been there yesterday

and so on and so on.

Spending the day fishing 3 great steelhead rivers in that day made for a great day.  We didnt catch anything except for OMR's brief hookup and extra long distance release.   I think I had a grab but who knows, maybe it was a rock.

We ate bad gas station hotcase food.  We made fun of each other.  We discussed life and kids.

We second guessed our choices of runs, rivers and flies.

We snuck in a few beers and maybe a pull of whiskey. 

We started the day and ended the day in the dark

It was a hell of a day with dad.

From Field to Vice...

The wingbeat of the flush gave away it's location.

Extreme tight quarters prevented anything other than a quick dispatch from the limb it sat upon.  This was no egalitarian wing shooting adventure, no this was get the job done for dinner

Aside of fantastic dinner that public lands had provided,  the feathers make the fly tying junkie in me do a couple of backflips.  You just cant find these feathers in a fly shop or a catelog....they're hard earned additions to a collection that I take extra pride in.

When the big buck steelhead comes to hand with a fly that contains a breast feather from this bird, I know that my smile will be impossibly big.

The loop completed, from field to vice to fish.

A Karma Fish...

The run's first grab came about 15 minutes in, delivering that jolt of electricity that we all search for.   I worked that fish for 10 minutes, changing flies three times, getting two more half hearted plucks but no real connection

I didnt care, I was repeating cast after cast lost in the rhythm of the afternoon on the water.

Spending the day before and that day at the 3rd Annual Free The Snake Flotilla,  fishing was more of an afterthought for this trip.  We showed up in great numbers to protest the continued insanity of propping up the lower 4 Snake River dams.   It filled my heart to the brim with hundreds of boats all rowing 3 miles on the Snake in solidarity and show of force that a new way of thinking was and is taking over.  It was a glorious sight to say the least

Lost in the moment, the fish grabbed solid and took off, only to immediately reverse direction and come right at me.  Reeling furiously, I wasnt sure what type of steelhead had chosen to reward me.

Big or little it really doesnt matter.  In a year where good news has been tough to come by in any sense of the word, any fish was a blessing.  A kiss of karma from forces beyond me.

The fight was a close range battle, no haymaker long runs but a series of in close body blows.

Finally, wild perfection came to hand.  A quick thank you shot and she shot away like a rocket.

And for that brief moment, all was right with the world

Stare At These...

The West is on fire.  Smoke is everywhere.  The tyrant in chief wants to deport 800,000 dreamers.  It's hot AF.   Houston is still soggy.  2 more hurricanes are on a path towards South Florida disaster.

So many other things to be pissed off about...so.....

Stare deeply at these muddlers, fresh off the vice.  Let your mind wander to a greasy tailout on your favorite run of your favorite steelhead river.   Imagine a great cast, the perfect mend and the bug pushing a trail through the bucket.  Wait for it...

Stay there.  Just stay there.