Easter – town walkabout – photography

Practice tone mapping with post-processing photo techniques.

Art – A conversation With Rattus in Silvam

OK, maybe “conversation” is a bad choice, since there is no guarantee that Mark will read, let alone respond. Mark, feel free to chime in if you read this, I’d love to carry on the dialog you started. If you are interested in photography and thoughtful writing, head over to Mark’s Forest Rat website. He [...]

Your Summer River Fix All Season Long

Dry Fly Media has an interesting DVD series (Rivers In Motion) they introduced a couple of months ago. They have a nice offer to bloggers that we could receive a free copy if we would review it for them. Being a sucker for free stuff, I had them send me a copy of “The Gallatin.” [...]

Anglers and Authors—Deceivers and Manipulators

Anglers make good authors because they are natural storytellers, especially catch and release anglers—when they walk away from the river, the only thing they take away is a story. But there is an even stronger link between the two: anglers and authors are both natural deceivers and manipulators.

Familial Obligations Sans Fishing

Sometimes we have obligations greater than ourselves. I know, I know, it’s hard to imagine that anything comes between us and our fishing, but, on occasion, this is so. To keep oneself from ending up in the Doghouse [you must watch this!], one must please the powers that be (for those of you a little [...]

Braggarts R Us?

This post was prompted by my reading the book, The Next Valley Over: An Angler’s Progress, by Charles Gaines (a complete review of that book is here, which isn’t flattering to the author because he frequently comes across to me as bragging). As I contemplated Gaines’ motives for writing that book, it caused me to [...]

Hunting Blue Grouse and Horn Coral

Yesterday was the opening day of the blue grouse hunt. There were eleven of us gas-filled happy grouse seekers: two non-hunting children (Wyatt and Cole), three hunting children (my son Ben, Trevor and Brooks) and six adults who often act as children (John, Richard, Scott, Danny, Justin and Brady). This is an annual trek that [...]

Not Wild, Not Hogs

They aren’t "Hogs"—they are referred to as "metric cruisers" [new window]. They are sometimes referred to as "Hardly Davidsons" or "Wannabees" by the Harley owners. Whatever you want to call them, we call them fun! The bike riding was wild, but we were tame. And everyone was relieved we didn’t have to stop every 70 [...]

Vacation Time from Vacationing

Well, we survived the interesting world called California. What a trip, all 2250 miles of it. I’ve lived a total of 13 years in California (nine in southern California), and every time I go back, I’m so glad I don’t live in the city. I really don’t like southern California because it is so over-populated [...]

Family Vacation Means “No Fishing”

It was an agreement we came to long ago. One of the first times we went camping in Yellowstone as a family, I tried to get my fly rod out of the truck. My wife waved her finger at me (no, not that finger, just her index finger) in that "No, no bad dog," manner, [...]

Science Proves: Fish More – Work Less

Most excellent news! You now have a medical excuse to take more days off work and go fishing instead. New research shows that psychosocial stress at work increases the chance for Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Increasing the intake of oily fish decreases the risk of RA. This is a triple whammy folks: there is now a [...]

The Fishing/Science Connection

I haven’t done a fishing and science connection since the post about lying, so I thought I’d do several rolled into one. Beer This doesn’t apply to me, but I know it’s important to a lot of fishermen, so I thought I’d throw this in first as an attention grabber. (But I do have a [...]

Of Balls and Bulls – part 2

No bovine or bovine parts were harmed in the making of this blog entry. (This disclaimer is in keeping with all SPCA, PETA and BFD requirements.)

Of Balls and Bulls – part 1

“Reach behind the seat—there’s a cubbyhole in the door. Grab the bag out of there.”

We were cruising along the rural roads of southern Idaho at a good clip in Dan’s truck. I held a bag. Inside the bag were a bunch of marbles. And a slingshot.

I can’t remember now if it was exactly like that, but something along those lines. And that’s how it started that a couple of nearly middle-aged men reestablished their boyish hearts.

My New Camera

I haven’t focused too much on fishing things this past week, I’ve been taking about 700 practice pictures instead. I had my camera stolen in Jackson Hole about a month ago. It was a point-n-shoot Canon PowerShot. Nice camera. But it seemed like a good excuse to upgrade to a dSLR. I looked at the [...]