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Sunrise and Flat Water
I don’t often get up before sunrise, but I have to take advantage of those moments when the wind isn’t blowing if I stand any chance of finding the pod of tailing redfish that I’m seeking. There was a 4 hour window on Saturday and I was able to launch the kayak a half hour…
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A Troutbum on the Texas Coast
I didn’t plan on coming to Texas at all. A year ago I was wrapping up a stretch of work and planned on spending Summer in Montana… it was glorious for the most part. But by the middle of October I had to make a decision on where to go next, and since it was…
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Getting Closer
The weather here on the Gulf Coast of Texas is still dark and wet, with thunderstorms the last two mornings and visibility of perhaps a mile. Watching the ten day forecast on WeatherUnderground , there are two partly sunny days out of a chain of cloudy, stormy, gray predictions ahead. Last Sunday, the sun did…
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A Bad Day of Fly Fishing is Better Than…
I spent Tuesday afternoon on the Firehole river in Yellowstone National Park. It was reputed to be “on fire” (yuk yuk) by the West Yellowstone fly shops, and I’ve long wanted to fish the stretch where geysers are steaming away stream-side. I walked and waded for about five hours, but the afternoon started with me…
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Back on the Madison River
Nearly three months of Montana and it is beginning to feel like the end is near. I’m back on the water I started at, The 50 Mile Riffle. If I were to do it over from the start I would have been up here at the beginning of June at the latest. It seems like…
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Chasing Bugs on the Madison
When I started my fly fishing adventure in 2015, I did not have any particular goals or targets in mind, beyond spending time on some iconic waters of the West. In total that year I fished 57 distinct bodies of water, including the visit to Florida at the end. I’ve stumbled across seasonal highlights without…
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Seven Hours at Last Chance
Seven hours walking along the banks of the Henry’s Fork, standing in the current, looking at bugs and birds. Almost nothing was going on in the water, until a explosion of action for 15 minutes or so nearing sunset. Huge drakes popping off the water and fish gulping them down all around me, while rain…
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Starting the Fourth Year on the Road
It was April in 2015 that I left my job and headed out on the road towards unknown destinations. As I am getting ready to take off again for new unknowns, I thought I’d take a look back at those first weeks on the road. It took longer than I had anticipated to prepare my…
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Favorite Places
Out of all of the places that I have visited on this journey so far, there is one spot that want to return to again and again. I spent most of August and September of 2015 driving around the Tetons, looking for the ideal boondocking spot. It took me a while, but here it is: …
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Cheesman Olives
In June of 2016, I hiked down into Cheesman Canyon to fish that stretch of the South Platte River in Colorado. Cheesman is known as a tricky body of water with “well educated” fish, fish that have seen every fly flung by many of the best anglers in the business. I do not typically enjoy…