I recently read my friend, Doug Deats’ book, Smoke on the Wind: Short Stories and Essays, on a cold, Saturday in February. With the hunting season over and the fishing season not quite in full swing in Idaho, this book was a great way to spend a day and to feel that special connection to my beloved outdoors. For those of you…
Tag: Fly Fishing
REVIEW OF WILLIAM G. TAPPLY’S, SPORTSMAN’S LEGACY
Approximately, eight years ago, I first stumbled across William G. Tapply’s, Sportsmen’s Legacy, at my local library. From the cover, I could tell it was a memoire of a father and a son who spent time together in the outdoors. At the time, this seemed like the kind of book I’d be interested in as…
BIG LOST BOUNTIES
Author’s Note: This post originally was published on Upland Equations on May 19, 2013. This year, the fishing season started off slow for me. Beginning in February, I fished numerous times without success. On various occasions, I fished the Snake River not far from home, the South Fork, and the Henry’s Fork and did not move so…
A DAY TO REMEMBER
Author’s Note: This post first appeared on Upland Equations on May 28, 2013. This past Memorial Day Weekend, I had the opportunity to go camping with my family and some really good friends at one of my all-time favorite places, Birch Creek. Birch Creek is one of Idaho’s three sink streams that flow between majestic mountain ranges…
TO KNOW A RIVER
Author’s Note: This post first appeared on my blog, Upland Equations on June 27, 2013. As an angler, can you ever really know a river? Over the years, there have been many that I have become very familiar with and loved dearly. But I have come to understand that every river withholds some of its deepest secrets. This is one…
WILD SOUTH BY PETER RYAN
WILD SOUTH BY PETER RYAN One of my favorite outdoor writers of all times is Charley Waterman. He was one of the last “Jack of All Trades” outdoorsmen who did and loved it all and wrote about it: Big game, upland game, waterfowl, fishing, camping, etc. The great thing about Charley was that he admittedly…
PLAYING FOR KEEPS
Early this morning, I fished my favorite spot, the Mini-Madison and did not even wet my net. However, I learned that there’s a much better fisherman than me at the Mini-Madison. I’ve been fishing the Mini-Madison for almost ten years now. In my book, Heaven on Earth, I wrote about this special fishing hole: The Mini-Madison truly is a wonderful place…
THE PILGRIMAGE
A “Pilgrimage” is defined by Webster’s as a journey made by a person to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion. Some may not believe that a fishing destination meets such a description, but over the years, for reasons I describe in detail in my first book, Heaven on Earth: Stories of Fly…
ANOTHER GOOD SAMARITAN
Saturday morning, my wife, Kristin, and I hiked with some of our family up to Bloomington Lake, a place that is very special to me. Twenty-one years ago, I traveled up to this lake to camp overnight with some good friends. This happened to be right around the time that I found my faith in God and changed…
BAD LEROY BROWN
In my book, Heaven on Earth: Stories of Fly Fishing, Fun & Faith, I wrote about one of my favorite secret fishing spots in Idaho, “The Mini-Madison.” I named it this when I first fished there because it reminded me of my favorite river, the Mighty Madison in Montana, except instead of being a 50 mile riffle, it is only 100 yards…
WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS, SHUT UP AND FISH!
You ever had one of those fishing trips where everything seems to go wrong? I had one of those days yesterday. To begin with, it was hotter than Hades and all I wanted to do was escape to the mountains in my car while cranking the AC. So at 2:00 p.m., I grabbed my fly rod and loaded…
FROM DAWN TO DUSK
This past weekend, I was blessed with the opportunity to fish two days with my brother, Shawn, on the Arkansas River in Colorado. In fact, my good brother gave me the airplane ticket as an early birthday present. It just so happened that our trip fell right on the Summer Solstice, the longest day of…
Upland Ways 