The day should have been a perfect spring trout fishing day. It started as a drizzly morning, but by noon had transitioned to puffy white clouds peppering an otherwise blue and sunny sky. The air was warm. Just enough of a breeze to keep the hatches down. The water was not cloudy but had enough …
Time at the Bench
Often in life, the important things are not what we accomplish, but rather what we become in the process. All those experiences add together in ways we do not understand, until someday we look back and see how they were a path shaping us and making us into who we are today. My Uncle sent …
Two-a-Days in August
Every old athlete remembers August Two-A-Days… those first couple grueling weeks of fall practice in the ninety-degree heat where you pound your body back into physical shape. At the same time, the team is sorting itself out between the individuals and the teammates, the naturally gifted and the physically challenged, and the experienced veterans and …
Like a good story…
Brook trout in the Big Horns If we are lucky, we have those rare moments where life is like a good story….when all else fades to quiet gray and we become lost in the moment; engulfed in absolute emotion. “I can’t quit smiling” I heard him say, as my daughter’s boyfriend looked around at the …
Big Rocks
Over the years, I often used the headline of “Big Rocks” on my To-Do List to highlight the top things I needed to accomplish that day or week. It was a system that kept me focused on the highest priorities. Somewhere along my career it seems I crossed a threshold where one is never caught …
Finding Old Dominion
Five generations ago, my great-grandfather, Wilford Clark Emery, moved from Culpeper County, Virginia to West Virginia where he fought in the Civil War. My branch of the Emery’s have been there pretty much ever since. Leaving West Virginia nine months ago was like a divorce, like a biblical violation requiring atonement. Even though you hold …
Slow and low…
I haven’t written in months…both because I have not fished and because I haven’t felt I have had words worth reading. Not that life has not been full. There has been some hunting, but nothing memorable. There have been no flies in the vice, no wet waders, no stories to tell. There has just been …
The colors of Autumn
Last October I sat many hours in a tree stand wishing a deer would walk by…so I made a promise that from now on I would fish in October instead. I must say: wild trout on a two-weight while being surrounded by the colors of Autumn is pretty tough to surpass.
After September
In the silence of 11,000 feet,thunder rumbles a mountain away.The wind talks softly through the spruce.The aspens, now green with yellow highlights, flutter gently.Cold downdrafts pull down the mountain.The smell of rain mixes with scents of autumn.Far down below, clear waters roll over rocks and cascade their way to the valley floor.In the midst of …
Bookends..
Transitions are predictable if you listen. You can sense them. You can feel them. You can pray for them to come, or for them to delay; but they come at their own pace and in their own way. Look around… life is subtle but it is also predictable for those who pay attention. And so …
Just knowing we were there..
Trout Lilly (Erythronium americanum) Two weeks ago, as John and I took the long walk back up the mountain out of the run, lamenting the three miles to one fish ratio of the day, John said something that struck me as profound: “I just like knowing they are here.” For John, that day he had …
Chasing April
What a 35 degree Colorado stream looks like… I am an inept fly fisherman. Let’s get that out of the way as a preface to anything I may ever say or elude to in the future. I make no elusions as to my ability, but rather only to my efforts. As much sarcasm and blame …
Right dress, wrong dance
As I walked along a West Virginia stream, this one known as a “Run” - I suppose meaning something smaller than a creek - I had a humorous thought occur to me….I was like a high school kid who showed up at Prom dressed for the Halloween Dance - or maybe the other way around. …
Blind Spots
Blind spots both surround us and help define us - wether we realize this or not - it is a simple truth. This thought occurred to me today as I walked along a local stream with Laurel, my retriever. I kept looking around for her as I worked my way upstream, and every time I …
Something Profound in a Trout Stream
…as winter gives way to spring, so the seasons of life transition from one to another. “Can you remember the first time you cried?” She asked me. We were talking about many things as we drove across the front range, which lay hidden behind a blanket of clouds and snow. “Not really” I said. My …
February Top 10
February…I am officially convinced it is the worst month of the year. At best…It is a tease, with its scattering of sunshine and warm days. But mostly it is just a torment of perpetual gloom punctuated by nasty storms. We get lost in the long dark of winter, only to be lured yonder by one …
New Paths…
“The heart of man determines his path, but the Lord establishes his steps.” - Proverbs 16:9 Now that 2021 has closed, and we look forward to all that 2022 will bring, may we consider our choice of paths, who we journey with, and where we journey to. May it be a year filled with wander …
The Traditional Thread that Binds
The Traditional Way… It’s been a long off-season, but it has not been a season off. I stopped trout fishing back when the temps were in the 90’s and the rain had ceased falling, so I guess that was around the Dog Days of Summer. Fishing conditions were restored by early October, but I was …
Buoy Ten
There is an imaginary demarkation where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean, marked by a floating red buoy known by locals as Buoy Ten. On a hot day in late August, to the west side of this you will find calm, peaceful water. To the east…. chaos. The ocean-side of Buoy #10 is a …
Between the Moments….
We live between the moments. They surround us. Each day we are presented with the simple, yet emphatic question: what will I do today? The day passes slowly; The years pass quickly. One day we awake… and we are older. What did we do with the moments that we had? ….yet you do not know …