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...

Wash Me

Here's a bonus image from last week's attempted escape from the heat. Thanks to The Professor, who took this shot of the back of his truck as it sat at the trailhead.

The message says it all.

Escaping the Heat

It seems like it was only yesterday that I stood in these waters, chilled to the bone, shivering in my waders despite the heavy fleece liners and long underwear that I wore underneath. Yesterday, in the same spots, I was perfectly comfortable bare-legged, wading in only boots and shorts. And while it felt absolutely delightful to stand in this beautiful waterway without my teeth chattering, it just wasn’t right. Mountain streams are not supposed to be this warm.

A Leisurely Morning Float

Last evening, as Mary and I lazily floated on the neighborhood pond, watching the sun go down while comfortably suspended in twenty feet of water astride our colorful plastic foam noodles, I contemplated where I should fish the following morning. My go-to Haw was running high and muddy after heavy spring rains in the upper watershed, again, and I suspected other local waterways to be similarly challenged. I could try to squeeze in a quick trout trip, maybe the Smith, maybe Stone Mountain, but the thought of a day of driving just didn’t have much appeal. What to do?

So I floated, and I thought, floated and thought, floated and thought... until Mary finally stated the obvious. Fish here.

Spring Picture Sampler

You'd Better Look UP Too

I'm afraid that there’s not been much fishing going on around here the past couple of weeks. Entertaining visiting family, keeping up with an oddly busy social calendar, and playing in a Masters soccer tournament (Masters is a sports euphemism for old men who should know better) have kept me plenty busy the past several days, but have also trashed my fishing time.

And today, after four games in ninety-plus-degree heat over a thirty-hour stretch this weekend, my body is trashed too. All I have in me is the energy to sit here at the desk.

The good news is that it gives me a chance to go through the pictures that have accumulated on my cameras over the past several weeks and that’s always fun. So, in lieu of fishing adventures, I thought I’d share a handful of these images.

Down East Bluewater

I suspect it’s easier, and maybe downright fun, to be a saltwater fishing guide when you have bluebird skies, a gentle sea, and fish popping everywhere you look. Your clients, no matter how inept, are catching fish, hootin’ and hollarin’, slapping you on the back, and calling you the best damn fish finder on the eastern seaboard. But it’s on those other days that you have to work for a living.

Captain George Beckwith, of Down East Guide Service, had one of those other days on Tuesday.