Sadly, in the process of living we come to believe that who we are today is who we have always been. The river of time carries us so far downstream that it is hard to remember the headwaters of our lives. Those high mountain streams of virgin thought, experience, and purity. It is not time’s …
Humility
The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life. - Proverbs 22:4 If I could spend a day fishing with my younger self, there would be so much I’d have to say about life, about perspective, about priorities, about faith, and about fishing. But to get to the brass …
Full Circle
Tennessee Wild Rainbow When I started this blog five years ago, my desire for fly fishing far outweighed my ability to catch trout on a fly rod. Anyone who fished with me knew this, and some who fish with me today still agree with those sentiments. This early spring in the southern Appalachians found me …
Where the trout are….
Johnson County, Wyoming The trout are where you find them. A simple truth to remedy the most confounding question: where are the trout? If I stop and think about it, I spend much of my free time pondering this question. I buy and read old fly fishing books from the 80’s written by men who …
The Way
A man’s heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps. - Proverbs 16:9 Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time thinking over the paths we take in life. Or those we do not take. I think that if we were honest, these conversations we have within ourselves regarding how we should …
Doug
Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed my nature to bear. The same thing happens to another, and either because he does not see that they have happened, or because he would show great spirit, he is firm and remains unharmed.” - Meditations, Book V.14 Marcus Aurelius wrote extensively about living in …
Diamonds
Sitting on a tree along the side of a small mountain stream, I watched my daughter delicately cast my three weight up current. It was her 21st birthday. She had a diamond on her left hand now…given just the day before from whom I now refer to as my second son. She doesn’t fish often, …
Poor Valley to Paradise Canyon
Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations, wrote to do everything with a purpose, to always ask “is this necessary,” and to always remember that death comes to us all - and it comes quickly. I spend a lot of time thinking about this lately - about what consumes my time, what consumes my thoughts, and how …
Times of High Water
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 …
Appalachian Mountain Brookies 