Sunday, December 24, 2000 I scared some fish pretty badly today. None died of heart attacks, so I didn’t catch any. For the first time in days it was a decent weather. Not good, but decent. It wasn’t blowing a full gale and there were the odd moments of sunlight between the driven clouds. I [...]
Posts under ‘Old Scratch’
The Keys Chronicles (Pt. 7): Tarpon
It’s hot. There’s the smell of stale sweat mingled with the windborne scent of mangroves as the flats to the northward dry out and a zillion myriad invertebrates bake in the sun, and I bake right along with them. We’re west of Key West and south of most everything dry within sight, though I can [...]
The Keys Chronicles (Pt. 6): Tarpon
“Massively miraculous, a very powerful force, extraordinary; so extraordinary as to create immediate unreality in the process upon contact with the fish.” ~ Richard Brautigan, 1973. The Keys Chronicles June, 2009. This season we’re staying at Nate “Dubya’s” Mullet Camp, like always. But this year the flavor is distinctly different, in a bare-bones, fish-camp kind [...]
Strange Weather: Adventures in DIY Fly Fishing (Part III)
Eleuthera, Bahamas May 2004 POSTSCRIPT Our final day: we bid farewell to Aaron (who had an early flight to catch) and went fishing. In keeping with the cosmic laws that govern such things, this day dawned with perfect weather — just as the angler who needed it most was flying out. Winds were light and [...]
Strange Weather: Adventures in DIY Fly Fishing (Part II)
Eleuthera, Bahamas May 2004 Someone once said, always put in the weather. Good advice. Our first exploratory drive to some nearby flats ended in a rain out. Clouds were piling up to the northeast and the forecast looked grim. We found this flat by the simple expedient of stopping to ask the first local we [...]
Strange Weather: Adventures in DIY* Fly Fishing (Part I)
Eleuthera, Bahamas May 2004 I once read that it cannot be coincidence that no language on earth has produced the phrase, ‘as pretty as an airport’. Indeed, and Miami International has achieved a level of ugliness that a writer like Douglas Adams, to pick a name at random, would say could only be the result [...]
Introducing Fly Fishing
May 22, 2002 There was a man with a stick… and water. I think. No, first there was the water and then a man… with a stick. Yes, with a stick. The man waved the stick at the water for a while and then gently touched the water with the tip. The water parted… After [...]
