I'm Only 34!

The now fell and fell some more. In order to get my car to safety I had to shovel it out and move it over one street. That way, the tow trucks would not come along and take it. $225, or so to get it back. So I shoveled, and I shoveled.

Snow

The snow came. White everywhere. Frost-bit fingers.

This Guitar is Haunting Me!

Here's a link to hear what this thing sounds like. It is beautiful.

I'm just putting it out into the universe that if by chance you wanna be my Santa Claus this year, please feel free...I'll take you to some pretty cool creeks in exchange with lunch and a pretty good bottle of Cote du Rhone.

This Is A Must Watch!

Is Santa Coming to Town? Martin Custom 00 Please!

This is what happens when I can't go trout fishing. I've got more fly rods than I need. I bought some of them unwisely when I was younger and have paid more for them than they are now worth. They are three generations removed and beat to hell. The downside of fly rods (with the exception of bamboo) is their value decreases over time. Guitars on the other hand go up. Well, first they dip, then they increase. An ancient, pre-WWII Martin D-28 with obscenely decorative Brazillian rosewood sides and back will go for over $30,000--even the examples that are "players" or guitars that get played. Then there are the collectors' grade instruments that look immaculate but do not really get played--they demand even more money. This is a shame since these are what I consider to be living breathing things that must make music.

A Martin guitar is the American Stradivarius. The early examples have a certain mojo that can't be replicated.

So my dilemma is that I want another Martin. I have one already, a hugely bassy HD-35. A great strummer, decent flat-picker, and a mediocre finger-picker. I had been listening to the early live recordings of Townes Van Zandt when I bought the guitar; he played a huge sounding D-35 (mine has scalloped bracings under the spruce top to make it sound even bigger and has a herringbone trim for beauty's sake). So that was the sound I was after. For doing the solo, singer/songwriter thing it's tough to beat--as Townes did. Johnny Cash also played a big toned all-black D-35 too. I dug his sound too. There is not much mid-range in the guitar but it has a ton of ba-donk-a-dunk and wonderful, sparkly treble. The advantage is that it allows the naturally mid-heavy human voice to cut through the middle. However, I've been listening to the likes of Justin Townes Earle son of Steve Earle (protege of Van Zandt) and he does the Lightnin' Hopkins, Travis picking style. So, I picked that up too. I dig it because I can now get the baseline, percussion and melody on one instrument. The problem is it sounds like shit on my sledgehammer of a guitar.

A 15 or 17 style, all mahogany Martin in a 00 size range is what I am after--about $1200 bucks.

So here I am. It's dark outside. At 5:30pm. No fishing. I get to thinking, I get to wanting. I have no money. Santa? I can believe if necessary.

Justin Townes Earle

and




These are two mini documentaries where the filmmaker follows JTE around the East Village of NYC. The troubling part of the first one is that JTE is discussing drinking bourbon. He just got out of rehab for the umpteenth time. Hopefully, he's OK. But, I know that using is something that never goes away.

Anyway, the music here is amazing. Enjoy.

Dawes at First Avenue

This show was just plain unreal. And, here is a clip of it. Their record, North Hills, is mellow, CSN&Y goodness. Their live show is more acid trip-era Joe Cocker backed up by The Band. Note the near perfect timing of the beer bottle being dropped at about 2:40.

They really packed them into the main room last Thursday. Well worth the mere $15.

Life at 34

Snow fell today. Yesterday was my 34th birthday. It rained in the evening as my gorgeous girlfriend Katie and I drove home from Bar La Grassa in the warehouse district of Minneapolis. We are at that time of year that when snow falls it is not instantly recognizable. After a summer of rain and prodigious production of fauna of all types many things were flying around in the near constant storm fronts. Cotton (0f the cottonwood tree) was big in June. There were many mayflies in the spring and early summer on my trout waters. Caddisflies and midges abounded. Sunlight fell in what appeared limited quantities. In September there was the Perseid meteor shower, as I understand lasting for days and weeks when the earth in its rotation around the sun intercepts clouds of galactic dust. It doesn't sound like much, but matter the size of a pea can make for quite display as it burns through the earth's atmosphere. These are frequently misinterpreted by people as UFOs or by a paranoid (and Republican) neighbor of my parents who during the eighties while viewing a large meteor ribboning across the sky claimed that Gorbachev had launched an ICBM against Reagan and the U.S. of A. My dad told me that growing up in the lily white suburbs of the Reagan era was much the same as growing up in the lily white suburbs of the Eisenhower era. Both of our youthful memories consist mostly of adults coming home from work and then sitting on the porch or in the back yard in lawn chairs and getting shnockered on cocktails. It's true. What I remember is the overly loud, ginned talking of housewives and the whiskey laughter of men. I vividly recall men bending down to rub my golden head and speak softly with bourbon breath.

My dad was a huge astronomy nut. He still digs it, but he doesn't host "star parties" like he did at one time. My mom recalls stories of pocket protectors and tortoise shell glasses (back when they were not cool) and men who had trouble talking to women. I recall twenty five telescopes of myriad power and price pointed heavenward and many "gee-wizzes" uttered over glimpses at the Crab Nebula. I only recall seeing bits of fuzzy light through pin-hole sized eyepieces which I had considerable trouble viewing because the one eye I could shut is my good eye. It was another episode of pre-adolescent difficulty and I still had my adolescence to go. Hubble images sent from space have made star parties irrelevant. I think those same men now sit ever more alone and philosophize over pixelated grandeur gazed on the interwebs. When I see deep space images of a gazillion galaxies sent to us from Hubble, I think of cinnamon roles.

The first time I saw serious "stars" was at night in the wilds of Yellowstone, later near the Boundary Waters. The first time we traveled the Yellowstone I caught my first cutthroat trout. It was 17 inches long and taken in that broad tailout immediately above the LeHardy rapids on the Yellowstone river. I haven't been back to Yellowstone since 2001 and I wonder with the lake trout situation being what it is if anyone fished that stretch of the Yellowstone any longer. There is a theory floating around that lake trout were introduced into Yellowstone Lake by helicopters that loaded their tremendous buckets in Lewis Lake during the fires of 1988 (which contains purposefully introduced lake trout from Lake Michigan) and were, for one reason or another, dumped into Yellowstone Lake. I suspect some angry bastard dumped them in there via a bucket. There were rumors circulating about an angry ex-park employee. I dunno.

On that first trip to Yellowstone, while fishing the aforementioned stretch of river, a sudden lightning storm blew in from the west and I was struck by lightning. I don't remember much. I remember drooling a lot immediately afterward, having the sensation in my face of having received a ton of dental work. Before being struck I noticed blue sparks on the end of my fly rod dancing as if tiny galaxies fleeing the Big Bang. The bang came. Then all was black. I came to running. I had thrown my rod into the river and ran to the bank. I was told this by my dad who was furious that I had just tossed a Sage 590 RPL into the river. There was a nasty, blistered burn on my casting hand. A similar burn was on my foot.

I am at Bar La Grassa, I am staring at that same foot. Embarrassed. My mother is showing my girlfriend pictures of me naked in a bath tub with my grandmother's dog. It's still my 34th birthday and I thought about all night that when my dad was 34 I could remember him being 34. I was eight at the time. I was in the third grade. I had a teacher who was 34. I was shocked when I found that out. He seemed so much younger than my own dad. He was way into the Boundary Waters and the Voyageurs and fur trading and canoes and in the spring of that year he took the entire 3rd grade class of the Southview Elementary to the North West Company Trading Post were two guys calling themselves Renee and Jacques spoke to us in terrible French accents and smoked constantly from 18th century style porcelain pipes. We all ran around like headless hunchbacks for one single night, slept in tents with our school buddies, pushed each other around, said things like: "whataya gonna do?" ... "whata ya gonna give me?". We kicked, poked and pulled the hair of girls we liked, and since this was May in central Minnesota we were preyed upon by thousands of wood ticks and descended upon by trillions of mosquitoes. Some kids were so bit-up their faces swelled. It was a tremendous experience in working-class Minnesota education. One parent of a particularly whiny boy brought and lavishly bragged about his shiny new Beta video camera. It must have weighed 25 pounds. The entire episode of third grade merriment was recorded, edited, transferred to VHS and then shown to us post-trip one hapless Friday afternoon before the year ended using the school's only VCR. They were $700 or $800 at the time. On numerous occasions I viewed myself on tape. I could not have been more uncomfortable, and wished I had avoided the father as he crouched down to my level and directed his lens in my direction.

Discomfort like that comes when the snow flies. Traffic paranoia sets in. People have this constant fear that every car within a half-mile of roadway will suddenly devolve into a complete self-destruct and that will result in a 1500 car pile-up which will kill all of the women and children and lead to a life of complete paralysis within an iron lung for the men. By February everyone is traveling bumper to bumper at 85mph while engulfed in an Alberta Clipper of Ice Age proportions. But, when snow first fell it was not so recognizable and whenI saw it for the first time last night I immediately thought "mayflies." I longed for the tiny little brook trout creek that occupies my reality in the winter and my life in summer. From November to late March of every year my thinking resembles chain-smoking, black-clad French cafe denizen who obsesses over Sarte, Beckett, and the films of Cocteau. My mantra on a cold Wednesday night becomes: "everything is a dark shithole of despair!". It's as if I am on a cold street corner waiting for some guy who will never show. Everything is meaningless. I look around: from the great pile of mid-twentieth cinder blocks that is the High School I teach within to the sidewalks of my neighborhood decorated with cryptic to absolutely obtuse poetry, It's just a city. It's the sort of place where if you don't check your email after significant snow falls they will take your car and charge you $225 to get it back. They also make you get up at 7:45 to move it 15 feet. But, the plows must get through.

During this time of year I yearn for a meadow blooming with the rich smell of cow shit--something entirely fresh and terrestrial.

You Won't Remember This

This has been a great year, except for the heat. I don't do well with heat. My ancestors come from a place where they raise reindeer and wear curly-toed shoes. Well, at least they did until they were introduced to Minnesota-made Sorrel boots and Polaris snowmobiles. I'm not talking about elves--they're still rocking the curly boots--I mean the Sami. A group of people who live way the hell north of the arctic circle in Norway and Sweden. This summer's tropical-like dewpoint made everything that much more miserable. The two times I did get north I felt relief, then I had to venture back to the twin cities of Congoapolis and Thai Paul. Sadly, other than some sort of primitive, heat-repellent genetic memory, I can't recall what it was like for my family to be of the Sami culture. That history was lost due probably due to anti-immigrant, anti-ethnic feelings at the time.

But, regardless, the streams were flush with water; however, if you saw the Rush recently you know that picnic tables stuck twelve feet up into trees is a sign of too much water. You'll remember that. I'll remember that. Ten years from now I won't remember the heat. The years to come, they say, are just gonna get hotter. But, I will remember a few of the nice browns, smallies, and brookies that I caught. All is right with my life if I can manage a few of the above each season. Hell, if I get out it's good. It gets harder when you get older.

About ten years ago when I got out of grad school (for the first time) and landed a pretty good job and had few bills and cheap (though dumpy) rent I had cash to burn. The idea of saving had not yet occurred to me. I didn't think about the future, save for the big browns I might catch. Anyway, I bought three Sage XP fly rods and three Ross reels. They were the "bomb" back then, so was that expression. I still fish those rods. When I lived on the North Shore I beat the hell out of the 7wt on the upper shore rivers and the Brule fishing for steelhead. There are scars on that rod for which I can recall their origins clearly. The grip has teeth marks from when an ice jam broke loose on the Baptism River and I had to scramble up the steep gorge to avoid being swept to Sault Saint Marie. I squashed a guide on my 5wt after I tripped over my own feet in the dark on the Rush a few weeks ago. That memory will probably fade. I am happy to let that one go.

I teach a lot of Shakespeare, unfashionable as it is. I've taught Hamlet many times and the poignancy of "adieu, adieu...remember me" when the ghost of the king leaves Hamlet in the forest is, well, haunting. The old king has this fear that, other than not being revenged, he will be forgotten. Shakespeare argues that we live on through memory and that perhaps the "undiscovered country from which no traveler returns" can not be relied upon to provide adequate immortality of sorts. But, the real tragedy, to me, is not to be found in that play. King Lear is the real monster.

There are a few lines that for me bring about feelings of sympathy, fear, anger, and sadness. There is nothing good in Lear. But these lines, the words of King Lear himself, read as such:

Pray, do not mock me:
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;
For, as I am a man,...

My grandfather is currently in stage five Alzheimer's. He doesn't know that I am his grandson. He doesn't really know his children. You can remind him, it will click momentarily, but then it will be lost again. But, what he does understand is that his mind is failing him. He is extremely self-conscious about it. Like Lear he knows that he is losing his memories and he does know what he has lost. They are gone. There is the darkness of a lost past and he knows just how dark it is. I fear that I am not in my perfect mind. Therein lies the tragedy. Is this the promised end?/...or some vision of that horror?

There are the memories of my now lengthening relationship, those of big browns, of holidays, dead relatives. There are the broad memories of vast Montana valleys where the valley floor grasses and sage run right up to the spruce and lodgepole blackened foot hills that leap into collections of peaks with names like the Absarokas, Beartooths, and Gallatins. Broad rivers cut their middle. And, there will come a time when all of that is swept away by the darkening currents of living emptiness.

Gather (release) ye brown trouts while ye may.

Big-Ugly: Could It Be A Brook Trout?

This guy nailed the #2 brown/yellow bugger right at sunset. I didn't catch a fish after that. There were a few follows, and I gave it up at midnight.

The moon is pretty close to full and I've noticed over the years that I run into fewer frogs, mice, and other prey species and notice that raccoons, skunks, mink, fishers, fox, and coyotes are more active. Coyotes were howlin' tonight.

It seems to be a pattern that when the moon is "new" that I hook a really big fish--the woods are also alive with mice, voles, etc.


Anyway, this is a personal best this year for a brookie. They seem to be increasing on this particular river and getting bigger as well--perhaps that monster I'm searching for with be a brook trout?

Flies for Big-Ugly

The first fly is the Moorish Mouse. This is based on a pattern I found at the MN Fly Angler and they use a pretty stiff elk hair which is very durable and floats well. The problem with that material is that it makes it harder to tie a larger fly. I use plain old deer hair and spin it on the hook like a bass bug. The top is good ole fly foam: a dense, closed cell material that floats well and won't water log. The tail is a brown rabbit strip sliced thin with an Exacto. Do not use the rabbit strip as it comes out of the package. It is too wide and it will water log and unbalance the fly. Strip all of the hair from the hide save for the very end of the strip. I highly recommend using kevlar thread for this fly especially if you are using the tougher elk hair. I use a #4 tiemco nymph hook. Fish this fly with a slow steady strip. Pause and repeat. Listen.

The second fly is the cone-headed crystal bugger. They twist is I also use translucent, black metal flake rubber legs. The cone is tungsten. Tie this in #2s or bigger.

The third fly is my go-to smallmouth fly. Another cone-head bugger. This one I use canary yellow marabou with a medium brown marabou (not dark). I use copper crystal flash in the tail and medium (size) brown chenille and a grizzly saddle. For durability I wind the saddle with copper wire simultaneously and that way I don't trap hackles underneath the wire. I tie this mostly in 4s and 2s. Lastly, I expoxy (5 minute) the cone-heads for durability. The third fly is responsible for the fish next to it.

When it comes to fishing the streamers, fish fast: two three casts tops at each likely spot. If a fish is present and in the mood he will likely grab it on the first or second cast. A downstream retrieve is better than the classic down-across-swing. Also, in spots where I know a big fish is present I will change flies--usually to the black--to see if I can trigger the fish. I use the mouse at night. Moon phases are important. There seems to be a lot of prey activity during the new moon. Consequently, I get the most action on new moon. Yes, it's really dark. Just get out there and deal. Also, it helps the scout a spot first. It also helps to know that a big fish is present before venturing out with the mouse.

The Search For Big-Ugly

Time is very limited. I have to go back to teaching on the 7th and that will basically be that, aside from the odd Saturday--though not likely. Teaching can be depressing. Yes, there is summer, but then there is 10 months of papers, planning, red tape, NCLB, parents, administrators, professional development (to give administrators a reason to exist), gangs, guns, jackasses, knives, drugs, fights, murders, and a twenty minute lunch break. There are the moments of learning--the break-throughs. Those moments are magical.

But, the fishing. The past three nights have been spent on the two very un-secret Wisconsin rivers close to the Twin Cities. I took tonight off because I've been wet wading for three days and I wanna let my feet dry--sometimes the toenails get a little waterlogged and loose. There have been successes. Some pretty big successes. I haven't measured any of the fish caught but they were respectable, 18'' or 19''--maybe a little larger. I dunno. I'm a poor guess. But, they were brown trout and that means something.

My first really nice fish came from the Yellowstone river below the lake in the park. It was a cutthroat of 20'' which is rare because these fish live mostly on bugs and they seem to top out at 18''. I caught the fish on a size 16 Adams. I was fifteen years old. I was ecstatic. In the photo I am wearing old (probably Hodgeman) waders and white leather tennis shoes for wading boots. I didn't have the money at the time for both. The first big rainbow I caught was a steelhead from the Brule in Wisconsin that measured 25''. I caught a 28'' the next day. Both fish came on a orange glo-bug drifted using the old mono and fly rod method. The first big brown came from the Rush River. It was an even 20''. That was a big day. I knew how hard it was to hook and land such a fish. I was a senior in high school. Oddly enough, I caught it on a size twenty hares ear nymph--my induction to the 20/20 club. In those days, the Rush was warmer, and it was hard to walk the stream bed near El Paso and not scrunch tons of crayfish. There were sculpins and dace and chubs everywhere. There weren't many trout then. Most fish were stocked and there seemed to be really big fish, often plainly visible. The Rush still has big fish. Though falling stream temps have resulted in wild fish and more fish. My largest brown ever came on a chartreuse Clouser minnow swung through a shady yet shallow riffle mid-afternoon. It measured 27 inches.

Out west the rivers and the mountains seem to overshadow the fish, or the rumors of big fish. Maybe it is because if you put your time in on the Yellowstone between Livingston and Big Timber you will catch a huge fish. Big fish are an inevitability there. But, if you walk into the Yellowstone Angler in Livingston and look through their streamer collection you will see why: they have and fish huge flies--2, 1x, 2x. The sort of stuff some guys throw for pike and musky around here. There are some people who say that fly fishing and fly fisherman won't catch big fish. That is pure bullshit. It's tough to beat a big fly for big brown trout. I think per acre there are just as many huge fish in the Rush as there are in the Yellowstone, Madison, or Missouri. However, I think the difference is that in Montana a cadre of fly fishermen have developed that know how to fish them. They also have the luxury of fishing many miles of water by drift boat. Ones odds rise considerably when one can put their fly in front of many fish. The other thing is those methods are marketed readily to visiting anglers. Just look how long it took us to get around to fly fishing for Lake Superior steelhead. Many anglers said it just wasn't effective. "Gotta use mono or throw hardware." They were wrong.

Around here there is a mythology surrounding big brown trout. Since most people throw small flies they catch mostly smaller fish (though if you put any fly where a big brown lives appropriately he may eat it). In northern Wisconsin, rivers like the Brule, Namakagon, and White hold some truly enormous fish. I've been lucky to take a few from the Nam, and while I've experienced some success on the upper Brule and the Bibbon Marsh of the White I've never experienced the massive trout that are known to live there. On, both rivers, however, I've heard the toilet flushing-like sounds of big trout slurping Hex spinners in the dark. Some other time, perhaps. Be forewarned, the mosquitoes are horrible in both places.

The appeal in hunting large browns around here (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan) is mostly the tradition: the image of someone like Dr. Albert Schweitzer (who fished northern Wisconsin) swinging a big Hornberg and catching eight pound browns (which he did) all in a late-evening scene that rivals any romantic, Albion inspired scene painted by Frederic Turner. But, also it is the secretive nature of the hunt. Rumor leads many demented anglers into the brush. However, electro-shocking surveys have made it a little easier. I know of a 29 inch brute living in a brush pile that I have been hunting for years--I'm gonna wait for the new moon and hurl a mouse pattern in there and see what happens. Rumor and secrets fit the landscape; our streams are small, brushy, claustrophobic. The some of the best seem to flow through dense coniferous forest in the north. Around here, a return to prairie grass seems to help narrow and increase flows while decreasing temperatures--not necessarily the best for growing big browns, but brook trout populations are exploding and they are the natives. Big brook trout hunting is even more secretive--the mythology of the lost beaver pond is another story.

So, I have two weeks then I'm back into the classroom with all of its glories and disasters. At least in the off-season there is First Avenue, 2-fer-1s at Lyle's, and a very understanding girlfriend.

What Big Browns Like: Obnoxious Flies

Again, headed for the creek at about 4:30pm and got there a little after 5pm. Just the six weight rod (really a 5wt, but loaded with a 6wt line) and the box of big flies (nothing else to tempt me away from chucking--like smaller, rising fish) and hiked and hiked pitching the fly at any woody debris, deep riffle-run, or preferably one of those deep green bend pools. This one came out of the bend pool on a brown bugger with a cone head and yellow rubber legs.

Note the kype. All of the larger fish have been big males and it may be that they are getting near the spawn and are feeling a little more fiesty.

This was another fish taken in low light, but not in the dark. I've been having trouble find fish in the dark. Part of the problem is that the rivers have changed so much and I haven't been scouting out the new spots before hand.

If You're Gonna Throw A Woolly Bugger, Throw A Big One

That is my advice tonight. Went out for the evening on the local river, six weight in hand and a box full of the #4 and #2 streamers, and just started chucking. This fish, of goodly length and girth hammered a big, black cone-headed bugger while hopping it back downstream through a really deep pool.

That was it.

I got a few follows, a slash or two, but nothing else, even after dark. It's too bad. It was a really perfect evening for huge brown trout. Cloudy, cool, flood waters receding.

I dunno.

The weirdest thing was on the last hole I kept getting buzzed by an owl. I took it as a sign and called it quits. I can deal with the bats, but a 12lb bird with talons that can crush my head? forget it.

Things That Go Bump In The Night...

Went out late tonight and fished the brookie creeks. Then I headed over to one of the big rivers and started chucking the same, tungsten cone-headed brown and yellow bugger I throw for smallmouth. The bigger browns like it too, especially in the dark. I suspect they are getting a little more territorial than usual with the oncoming fall. A good night.

Something Elegaic on the Country Churchyard

During my summers I drive many rural roads in Wisconsin, sometimes in Minnesota. But, I like Wisconsin. I like the 1930s farming practices, the diversifying of cropland, the hay ground, the contour tillage. I like the old "balloon" style houses. Houses that began as a box, cold as hell in the winter and then as the family grew, because the winters were cold and extra hands are good for farming, the house "ballooned" into extra sections. They are typically white or a pale yellow and have a porch and sometimes some modest woodworking in the corners under the eves, but not too much. Most of these houses were but by Swedish, Norwegian and German Lutherans. Some were built by German, Irish, and Bohemian Catholics too. Their houses tend to be a little bigger and a little more extravagant. Some of these houses are in good use and repair, some are not. Some stand utterly abandoned next to a prefabricated house or a double-wide. There are others that stand far from the road, wading in corn, without windows, monuments to what no one can remember.

Churches abound in the rural landscape. They are all over the city too, and the suburbs. But, the latter is a new sort of church. They more closely resemble stadiums or massive cineplexes and I get the feeling that one goes to these places for a show. Many of these churches, and I have been to a few, measure your faith in dollars donated. When I was younger, I attended a tiny Catholic church in Rosemount, Minnesota. I recall the music, the ostentation of the surroundings, and the priest asking only for a prayerful heart and offering only solace in Christ. I didn't really believe in it, but I understood it. I should state now that I don't believe in the Resurrection, but it does make more sense to me than today's Republican Party. As with the now demolished St. Joseph's Catholic Church of my youth, the rural church is generally the main-line church--Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran. I suspect that most are poorly attended since populations in these areas are more often than not dwindling. But, on Sunday mornings when people are heading to church and I am heading to the trout stream (we all have our church and the Apostles were fisherman weren't they?) I see the old people mostly and some younger folks and very young folks walking through the churchyard (graveyard to us city people) to access the entrance to the church. I find this very interesting.

I've been thinking about this for sometime. My grandmother died back in June. When we buried her it was not immediately outside the gorgeously aging Catholic church in Saint Paul, it was in some sprawling suburban "cemetery" (we don't like to say "graveyard" anymore because that implies death) that seemed to have more in common with a high fee, early tee-time golf course. It was immaculate. It was almost too pretty to mar by digging a hole and plopping a body into it. I don't think anyone visits here aside from a handful of the tragically lonely. As Frost says, "What is it men are shrinking from?" Yes, this is a massive misinterpretation but it works in this context. And, I think Frost's sharp farmer's mind would get my meaning. Anyway, we seem to be minimizing things: just as we put the old people in the old folk's home we put the dead people in the "cemetery" away from everything else, including the church. I think we have gotten to the point that when it comes to faith we don't want to be reminded of our mortality. Well, we are reaching for Heaven, aren't we?

I admit, I have a thing for Rick Steves' Europe Through The Backdoor. All the episodes are loaded up on Hulu and I sometimes watch the versions set in England and Ireland, and the Mediterranean episodes for obvious reasons in the winter. Last December, just before Christmas I watched the "Christmas Special" and was quite taken by the English children bouncing through the really, really ancient churchyard and all it's mossifying gravestones as though it were perfectly natural. Well, it should be. American children would likely be freaked out by the macabre scene, the church would be sued by "concerned" parents, so that years of therapy could be financed to help these poor deathless youths get the very visions of death and decay out of their drooling little brains. Did I mention that I am a teacher? Regardless, we have taken to heart, whether we know it or not, the materialistic city poet Frank O'Hara's line to it's most extreme, "No more dying." Such thinking, after all, has given us Joan Rivers.

I think this is one more thing that is dying (I'm using this word in all seriousness). The churchyard. That connection to our past, loved ones, and for those that believe, our faith. It's a trinity of sorts and the connection is that we will all be united again (hopefully) when we do rise from the grave on Judgement Day (that's the way it supposedly happens, check Revelations, we don't die and go immediately up or down like some like to believe. We Rest In Peace first.) and meet our maker, to use a horribly cliched phrase. Forgive me.

Alas, to bed. There is fishing in the morning. I know no matter how big the brookies I catch are it is as Thomas Gray writes, "The paths of glory lead but to the grave."

Clear Water?

This is the sort of creek that is clear. You gotta go way up to the tiny tribs to find some fishable water in Western Wisconsin. Today the Rush was a mess, as was the Trimbelle. I saw a fisherman on the Kinni above river falls and the water level looked good (I was going about 60mph when I looked) and I can't vouch for clarity.

I caught fish--though appropriately sized for this size of a creek.

No More Toursim, Just Brook Trout

I'm becoming that guy. You know the one. The one that takes photos of fish just to get his left hand and perhaps a little wrist in the picture.

Well, anyway, after the puzzling experience of no trout fishing while on the freaking North Shore (though I did venture north with my lovely girlfriend so it was worth it) I awoke with the urge to get it done over in Western Wisconsin. The downside? It rained six goddamned inches two nights before and then another three inches on Thursday night.

Western Wisconsin was swallowed by the Mississippi Monster.

Seriously.

Portions of the Rush were closed. The Kinni actually drowned and was found floating face down near La Crosse.

But, I had a hunch that one of the teeny weeny brook trout streams with a short drainage would be clear and I could do my trout fishing desires justice. I had two streams in mind. One I know is absolutely impervious to flooding, but it gets completely eaten by prairie grass around the middle of July and doesn't get burped back up until October when the season is over anyway. The other floods but clears within hours. I chose the floodable creek in hopes that a slight stain wouldn't result in the usual pinball-like freak-out of 9000 brook trout ricocheting around the hole every time my whisper quiet 3wt line kisses the surface of the creek. Or, maybe I shouldn't fish at high noon when it's 98 degrees in August? Yes, I'm sometimes that guy too.

Well, I arrived at the creek. There was a stain. A lovely, chai-tea latte stain. I slipped on a little strike indicator since they weren't gonna go for the stimulator/dropper scenario and tied on a size 14 orange scud.

I caught more twelve inch brook trout than I have ever thought existed. Including a couple that were a bit bigger that a foot. The only downside was a few of these German brown trout got in the way of my greeting the natives. Funny thing. This creek is supposed to be exclusively brookie, but there is a theory that when the nearby Rush blows out like it has done several times this year browns get washed out into Lake Pepin and then wander up this creek which is not too far away. I've also had a pike follow my brook trout out from under a lunker structure. That's less distressing. Pike and brookies coexist naturally, natively.

It's funny. When I was in my late teens, early twenties I only wanted huge browns. I found them in the Rush using huge flies and fishing well into the night. I also found a skunk--that's another story. But, since then I've become more interested in brookies. I don't mind their small size--though bigger ones make it interesting.

The Naked Shore...

I'm not much of a tourist guy, but I did it all on Wednesday. I have to admit this is the first time in my life I have been on the Shore and not had a fly rod ready to go at all times. I'm 33 years old. Never happened before. I feel dirty.

Early Morning, Pig Farm Stretch of the Rush River

I found these on my computer. They were taken last year by a pretty good amateur photographer. I thought I would post them for view.

What We Should Be Listening To...Dawes

This is the last one of these for a while, I promise. Here is L.A. band Dawes at the Troubadour covering the Beatles-via-Joe Cocker, 'With a Little Help From My Friends."

I suspect their 'friends' off to side are members of Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes. You gotta dig the Woodstocky, split screen shots of the stage. Enjoy.



Please excuse the kick drum on this one, blame the soundboard man, but here is some of their own material."Peace in the Valley" the final cut from their debut North Hills

What We Should Be Listening To...Justin Townes Earle

Yes, he is the son of Steve Earle and yes he is legit. I'm not going to write a whole lot about this guy. It's better to just let him sing. Here is 'Mama Said' from what I suppose will be on his forthcoming Harlem River Blues.



Here is the title track and video from 2009's Midnight at the Movies:




Lastly, here is JTE with a cover of Gram Parson's 'Song for You.'



I don't know about you but it is nice to see some music that is sincere and not ironic and snarky like much of everything produced by the hipster bands as of late.

What We Should Be Listening To...Jeffrey Foucault

Wisconsin, as of late has been producing some pretty nice trout, when it is not raining, which may come as a surprise to troutier parts of the country, like Montana or Pennsylvania. Surprisingly, it has also been producing a slew of country/folk singer-song writers. There are Peter Mulvey and Hayward Williams, but Jeffrey Foucault, originally of Whitewater, seems to me to be a couple levels above either of these talented gentlemen.

He put out his first album Miles From the Lightning in 2001. He has since put out two more solo records, Stripping Cane and Ghost Repeater. The former contains a song called 'Mayfly' which makes me wonder about Foucault's possible fly fishing pastime. But, it is the song 'Northbound 35' which caught my attention. Here it is (I think his resemblance to Brett Favre would have at one time brought him great fanfare in WI. Maybe that is why he now lives in Austin, Texas?)




Here is Foucault in his home venue in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin:



Every time I listen to Foucault and then hear him speak, I wonder where that singing voice comes from. He has also done an album of John Prine covers called Shoot the Moon and an album of murder ballads with Mark Erelli called Seven Curses. Here is Foucault covering John Prine's 'Billy The Bum'

Rain, Rain Go Away...

According to the graygoatflyfishing.com, last night Western Wisconsin got six inches of rain. Some of the roads were washed out. Streams are chocolate and largely unfishable. On top of that it is 95 degrees today in Saint Paul and the dew point is 70 degrees.

I feel like getting Thai for dinner.

When is gets like this I go over to the corner coffee shop, take in THEIR air conditioning (so I don't run up expenses burning out my own window unit--I live on the top floor of a three story walk up and it's equally hot in the winter when everyone has their radiator wide open.

I've been re-reading the complete catalog of novels and novellas by Jim Harrison, at least the writings that contain copious amounts of trout fishing. Here's the list:

The English Major
True North
Returning to Earth
The Woman Lit By Fireflies
Julip
The Beast God Forgot to Invent
The Summer He Didn't Die
The Farmer's Daughter

If you are also a fan of food and drinking and carousing with women then he is a good author to read. He's filthy and funny. Though his settings and material seem to point to Hemingway, Harrison seems to have more in common with Faulkner, Welty, and Flannery O'Connor. Sense of place is important as it is with those Southern authors, but unlike Hemingway whose characters seem to have deeply hidden scars, the damage in the characters of Harrison's work is plainly evident and in fact the crux of his writing seems to be more about the effects of the scars on those close to key characters rather than the scars themselves. A good comparison would be to read Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Harrison's True North, and O'Connor's Wise Blood. All the books deal with characters damaged by WWI and WWII. But, the way those scars manifest themselves is quite different. Plus, two of the three texts deal beautifully with the healing powerss of fly fishing for trout.

There you have it. Go to the library and read. Then when the sun gets low go fishing!

Here is Jim Harrison as profiled by the PBS News Hour Last Year.

Or watch it here:

Fat Bronze Is Still To Be Found

Check out the large arachnid on the bottom right. I'm not sure if it's a wolf spider or a fishing spider--I think it is the latter. I nearly walked right into it.

I love this river but it has been running really high, and since I am on foot, it's been tough to reach the really good holding water at times and even cross back and forth to fish an entire stretch effectively. No, brutes thus far this year. Just some solid fish.

Where I've Been...

It's been a closterphobic summer. My 6'6'' fly rod has been getting most of the work. The years of focusing mostly on smallmouth have spoiled me and I don't like fishing with other anglers present, and when it comes to trout fishing near the cities it's hard to find a creek without a well worn trail along it--even on those so called quiet little streams.

Heat , Small Bugs, and Sight Fishing

I've been fishing mostly teeny tiny brookie creeks and getting small brook trout with the odd twelve incher near dark. Though, every once in a while one of these things (look left) turns up. I'm a snob. I much prefer the natives. But, a guy like this does put a bend in my short 3 weight.

That's what there is to report. That is what this summer has been like--beyond a series of family related disasters.

Though the rivers north of the cities that I fish for smallmouth have either been running perilously high and skeeter infested, or low and the big fish have dropped back to larger systems, and a few have been fished out. I mean this literally. The economy in the middle of Minnesota resembles the 1930's and people are hungry. People have turned to fishing and shining deer to get by. One creek that runs crystal clear and holds, held some enormous smallmouth now has well-worn trails along its banks and nightcrawler cartons and beer cans strewn along its length. The pools where smallies were clearly visible are largely vacant. It seems that fifty years of economic prosperity (and easy credit) had brought about big boats, trolling motors, and fish finders. And, if that didn't work the seafood section at the supermarket. These rivers were largely untouched, except by a few weirdos like me.

Trout streams with their fussy browns and high densities seem to survive. That and it has been so damn hot that people don't seem to want to don their breathable Sims waders and sweat it out on the stream. Seems, nay is... The Driftless is a planty, itchy place and the heat can be miserable.

The Anonymity of the Net

On the Minnesota Trout Unlimited forum there has been quite a bit of a kerfuffle. There was tensions over Bait/Flies/Regs/HI etc.

Often when I go to the Star Tribune or Pioneer Press websites I read the articles and then glance at the comments and it is a war between Liberal/Conservative talking points. People call each other names, question patriotism, etc. Sometimes it devolves into homophobia, xenophobia, racism, elitism, classicism, "I hate your goddamn dog...."

There seems to be a certain level of comfort with saying stuff to someone you've never met, never seen.

I fly fish. I occasionally throw jigs for skittish smallies in low water. But, mostly I fly fish.

Contacting employers in an attempt to settle scores over bait/flies debates is silly. Getting into these stupid arguments is even sillier.

We may as well scream at each other over abortion, gay marriage, gun rights or whatever. No one is going to change there mind.

I dunno. Seems like we can't get anywhere with each other.

On Memory and the New Season

I come from a family of demented fly-fishermen. Not persons, men. The women (who think the activity is ridiculous) in the family look on at the obsession in an If You Ignore It, It Won't Matter sort of way. My mom has never been interested in it, and probably was disgusted by it when she say my dad tying his own flies from various dead birds and mamals--their wings, hides, and tails spread out on the kitchen table on a Friday before fishing, the bits of loose fur and feathers finding their way into the corners of the house...the smell of tanning fluid.

We have all seen A River Runs Through It a million times. We read Hemingway, The River Why, Jim Harrison... Every relative has a giant stack of old fly shop catalogs somewhere in the house, a library of old copies of Fly Fisherman, Fly Rod and Reel, American Angler, Fly Fishing, and Trout. We head out for SE MN when the winter seasons opens on January 1st--provided it's warmer than ten below. One year it was twenty below and my dad and I went anyway. We got to the South Branch of the Whitewater River, put on our gear, caught one fish after about five minutes, got back in the car, and drove the two hours home along the river on Highway 61--the highway, to me, of classic vinyl and trout streams.

But our traditional beats are the Kinnikinnic River and the Rush River in Wisconsin. They are closer and better--plus a few nameless brook trout streams that only get fished by herons and us. There have been many trips to the West. Yellowstone in particular, miles of wilderness and remote streams. But, we don't go there anymore. Strange fish diseases and the prolonged drought have made the area not what it used to be. Besides Montana has about 1200 miles of trout water. Wisconsin has like over 13,000 miles.

Some of the best trout water in the world is around here and few people know about it. The one native stream trout is not a trout but a char (lake trout, too), the brook trout. They are very colorful and stupid and are caught very easily. They require very clean, cold water and when settlers plowed the soil and logged the hills their habitat suffered and they disapeared from most of their range. The brown trout is the only true trout in the midwest. The varieties we have here are natives of Scotland and Germany. They are difficult to catch and tolerate warmer, more polluted water. Rainbow trout are native to the west coast, are a species of Pacific salmon and don't do well in our streams. The migratory variety, steelhead, were introduced into Lake Superior and do fairly well there. Fishing for them on the Brule River in norther Wisconsin in the fall is absolutely magical. The Brule is classic, boulder-strewn northwoods river surrounded by old growth forest. Though the farther away streams are the less likely I am to go there anymore. I like being able to get up, work out, get a coffee, scan the paper, and then leave for the stream--no more of the fall out of bed at 3am and get back at midnight from a distant northern river.

So here we are...another year of angling.

There is a certain planty, veggie smell that the limestone spring creeks have during the high summer. Coming into contact with what makes that planty smell makes me itch. There is the memory of leaping into the 48 degree spring water in mid-July to wash off that feeling. There is the smell of worms being impaled on hooks. There is the smell of impaled worms and little brook trout on my hands after a full day of spring fishing on some nameless stream. The fly line makes a certain sound when cast correctly--there's a memory for that too. Fireflies take on strange forms in the fog. I remember being freaked out by that. I remember catching a bat on my back cast. I remember an osprey stealing my fish on a high like in Colorado. I remember a loon trying to do the same thing on a little lake near Grand Marais.

There was one time while fishing a remote beaver pond in northern Minnesota I heard a crash in the alders. I turned and was face to face with a very confused moose cow. Moose are large, unpredictable and not particularly bright. This animal likely strolled into this pond to feed on lillies every evening and I broke the routine. Swampiness and muck prevented me from going anywhere and the moose found herself in an unsolvable situation so we stood face to face for over an hour before it occured to the animal the back up and try another route.

There was another time I lay awake in my tent along the Little Isabella river as two enormous bull moose argued (not fought, argued) just a few feet away over a beaver pond filled with water lilies. The only other sound were the millions of mosquitoes dying to get into my tent and suck the life from me. This took place in an area known as the Kawishiwi (Ka-Wiss-A-Way), the Ojibway's Land of the Dead, an area where millions of fireflies take on the shapes of the almost human in the low-lying fog.

I think of this because when everything is in prime condition the lilacs are in bloom and to pass them at night reminds me of every funeral I have attended. A little over ten years ago my Uncle Bob died--the best fly fisherman among us. The guy that taught me everything. Uncle Bob was a career Army man. Fishing with him meant getting up at four to head into the mountains of Colorado, his beat, by sunrise. He taught me how to cast, fishing dry and wet flies, and all that. But, I do not adhere to his early morning routine. I do well if I get on the river by noon, but usually later and fish the low light and the hatches, placing the fly along the opposite bank they way he would.