A Confession

Can you keep a secret? You have to promise not to tell anyone what I’m about to reveal. It would ruin me. Your lips are sealed, right? Okay…

I’m a terrible fisherman.

Just a Fish

No long essay. No deep thoughts. No obtuse metaphysical gobbledygook. Today, it's just a nice bass that I caught last week in one of my usual places.

Sometimes it can be just about the fish.

Edges

It’s been fun, stepping outside of my normal fishing realms and exploring the deep blue waters, but my recent saltwater expeditions have reinforced the strong feeling that my place is on the smaller streams of my world. Don’t get me wrong; the sea is a fascinating environment and venturing far from the view of land helps a man gain some perspective on his place on our planet. My problem is, where the hell do you find the fish in the limitless, featureless blue that surrounds you?

Give me a small stream, with my feet planted, no matter how unsteadily, on the rocky bottom, and I am at home.

Missing Moments of Chaos

Captain Lee warned us that the day would be “hours of boredom with moments of chaos”. The good captain was half right.

Eight o’clock AM found Pipes, Terry, Fin, Fin Jr, and me 60 miles offshore, having motored out of Wrightsville Beach three hours earlier aboard the forty-eight foot custom sportfishing yacht, Fishin’ Days. The plan was ambitious – sailfish on fly tackle – with a little mahi action on the side

Double, Double Toil and Trouble

Don't ask me why, but these tiger swallowtails brought immediately to my mind the three witches from Shakespeare's Macbeth. I found the trio on the sandy beach of the pond, proboscises buried deep into the sand, quivering ecstatically, so enraptured that they didn't mind me getting within inches for this picture. They seemed to hum with an electricity as if tapped into the center of all natural energy itself, like three witches in mid-spell.

As I'm no great reader of classic Elizabethan-era English literature, the manifestation of the Shakespearean imagery is as puzzling to me as it probably is to you. John Gierach and Thomas McGuane, maybe even Dr. Suess, are more my speed. But, to follow the Macbeth theme through, from Act IV, Scene I...