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 …
Tag: West Virginia
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 …
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. …
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 …
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 …
Fatherhood and Brook Trout
… the visions that we leave The fog clung tight to the water, as the run poured over moss-covered rock. The hemlock and birch along the banks crowded over us, making it hard for the sunlight to stream through. To look up or downstream you found yourself leaning forward, head up, eyes squinting, straining… trying …
The Seamless Drift
“I’ve seen good drifts; I’ve seen not so good drifts; and I’ve seen great drifts.” - my good friend John S. on the art of presentation. Seamless - smooth and continuous, with no apparent gaps or spaces between one part and the next. Ask a great fly fisherman what makes the difference between catching some …
Red-Letter Days…
Moments of perfection The practice of designating days, words, or letters of great significance as red-letter days goes back to early 500’s AD. I never really looked into this before, thought about it, or even noticed it - even though it was always there... my red-letter Bible with the words of Jesus in red, a …
Ends of the Earth
“...Oh, theres a river that winds on forever; I’m gonna see where it leads...” the opening lyrics to Lord Huron’s Ends of the Earth. This river is the Crooked River, Oregon. I have a problem. Admittedly, it is a problem. I say this as I rest my feet after walking nearly five miles out of …
Ageless, Lonely, and Beautiful
In Appalachia, sometimes lines on a map are nothing more than that, and the personality of the region spills-over.
Confounded Waters
West Virginia...the heart of Appalachia, with its people, culture, history, and contradiction; tied together by ridge-top and stream.
Moments
Wild Trout Stream, West Virginia There is a scene in Peaky Blinders when Thomas says “There is nothing wrong with me...this is just me having a conversation about myself with myself.” A wonderful verbalization of the inability to get out of one’s own head. To turn the noise of the world off; To not think. …
Rainbows in Winter
Wild West Virginia Rainbow The Rainbow - the symbol renewal; The promise of change and hope. In the grey depths of winter, in the shadows of worry and fear, through the heavy burden of difficulty; what could be more fitting? And so from the chill we emerge, and we return to wild places, to unspoiled …
…beside the still waters
Sometimes it is only when we look back that we fully understand. It is only the perspective of “the rest of the story...” that allows us to fully appreciate the Hand of God in our lives. And so it was for me this summer. I spent the better part of June and half of July …
Always look up…
Grant County, WV Always look up, or you will have nothing but snags. Trout in the morning sunlight Slow down and be willing to wait for clarity, or you will have wasted effort. North Mountain, Pendleton County, WV Every part of the stream is different, yet connected, so be willing to adapt, but never abandon …
Transitions
As I reflect over the last ten days, the common theme is the transitions that life requires us to make as we travel along our path. 2020 has been a bizarre year, but history is full of years and periods of years much more tumultuous than ours. The key is how we navigate these waters. …
“Why do you like to fish so much?”
Stillness During a week where I failed to land a trout on two different outings, my sister’s question regarding why I am infatuated with fishing caused me a moment of pause and reflection. Her entire life she has known me as her brother who loves to hunt, so why this devotion to fly fishing as …
40 Mile Trout
Here I was on a trout stream no one had told me about, that wasn’t a special regulation stream, that wasn’t stocked... looking at a native trout taken on a dry fly I had tied that wasn’t likely to catch a fish...
An evening on Cheat
I never dreamed I would make it fishing on a Sunday evening after fishing all day on Saturday, but like the weather, sometimes and rarely things come together. So my son Sam and I made the 45 minute drive up Cheat Mountain to see what we could do. It had been a hot May afternoon, …
Appalachian Mountain Brookies 