A New Season’s Topography

I’m just dying to get on the river, but the weather and prospects for local fishing in the winter is pretty low. In anticipation of the new season, I bring you something a little different: me reading the post to you.

Cutthroat Stalker Ezine

The ezine version of Cutthroat Stalker is hitting the virtual stands today. Get your free copy and give me feedback (please).

Winter River Walks

The temperature inversions in our valley have one positive affect: some incredible hoar frost (radiation frost) builds up. As I wait for ice and joints to thaw, and fish to move, I walk the valley. Exchanging fly rod and flies for tripod and camera, I stay as close to water as I can.

Stalking scenes of [...]

The Convergence of Canals and Fish

Logan, in northern Utah, was not much different than most early Mormon settlements. White settlers first arrived in 1859 and located near the Logan River. They planted crops, diverted the North Branch of the Logan River for irrigation, and the settlement grew. Canals and ditches were expanded and added to meet the city’s growing needs. Mills sprouted along the canals. Still more people arrived and with them came changes: adobe walls replaced logs, clapboard replaced adobe and brick replaced clapboard. However, one constant through the changes were the canals. Mills along the canals came and went, but the canals remained.

Sumi-e and the Art of Fly Fishing

Sumi-e is the Japanese art of ink painting stemming from Zen thought. There is much to learn from thoughtful sumi-e artists that can be applied to many things, including an approach to fly fishing.

“Things Men Have Made”

The wood rod was deep amber with burgundy wraps. A three piece rod, its ferrules mottled with a metallic rime that flaked away beneath my fingernail. The deep forest-green backing was like a heavy cotton thread.

2009 Fly Fishing Slideshow

Check out Cutthroat Stalker’s 2009 Fly Fishing year in review slideshow.

The End of Fishing

Although in my neck of the woods fishing is open 365 days a year, this is pretty much the end of the season for me.

Maybe It’s Time?

I’ve been on a break. And I’m back. Maybe. I reveal all in this post. Or at least some. Maybe.

Under the Press of Time

As we drive the dark road east, I look up where stars dot a narrow path through the morning. I feel the press of hundreds of feet of sheer canyon walls more than see them. Ahead of us the dawn unwinds its hours, slowly unveiling the skyline—a jagged, ancient silhouette stretching for miles.

Autumn Turns Against the Current

It is said that the autumn of our life is a slow and steady slip into winter, synonymous with the time when animals hibernate and plants die. Some might think of it as more of a homesickness, not a geographical homesickness, but a chronological one—a time for reflection, for looking back at what was. Autumn is a matter of perspective—of seeing our current time as just that, current.

Monochromatic Interlude

This brief interlude from summer’s end to autumn’s beginning is brought to you by the monochrome stillness of the storm shrouding the mountains in clouds, momentarily hiding colors. What light there is suffuses my thoughts which are as dispersed as the autumnal seeds blown about. Seeds that when sown will bring next year’s blossoms.

Summer’s End

The end of summer seems to sneak up with startling abruptness in the mountains. Sagey greys and dusky rabbitbrush topped with yellow sprigs of late summer flowers, surrounded by grasses browned in the summer heat. Fine dust matting leaves. A tired respiration seems to heave up from the canyons in hot blasts—last gasps. Bellowing itself for the soon-to-be colors plashed about its flanks like so many embers of red, braided fingers of yellow and orange. A few summer holdouts paint the hillsides early.

Hoppertunity Lost – Friends Gained

Testing out Robert’s hopper patterns on the Logan River doesn’t turn out quite the way we anticipated, but ends up a good way to make new friends.

A Stalker’s Senses

In the long shadows of early light I hike toward the ridge at eight thousand feet, shotgun over the right shoulder. An eleven month hiatus slows my senses—and I forget to look, really look. I’m merely hiking with a weapon, not stalking. My nerves are deadened from the nearly year-long break, spent mostly stalking cutthroat, which is nothing like this sort of stalking.