Field guide
29 published stories
Fishing
Fishing stories and practical lessons about rivers, tackle, technique, fish handling, and the hard-earned judgment that develops on the water.
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Fishing
The River That Mocked My Four Hundred Dollar Waders
The Purchase I spent four hundred dollars on waders before I had ever stood in moving water with a fly rod in my hand.…
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Fishing
I Kept a Fishing Rod in My Truck for Three Years and Let It Bake into Uselessness
I kept a fishing rod in my truck for three years. Not a cheap one.…
Fishing
I Bought a Baitcaster to Prove I Was a Real Fisherman and Spent Two Years Proving the Line Was Smarter Than Me
I bought my first baitcaster because I was tired of being looked at sideways. Every…
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Fishing
I Fished Blue Catfish Like Channel Cats for Twenty Years and Called Them a Myth
For twenty years I told anybody who would listen that a blue catfish was just a channel cat that ate…
Fishing
I Killed Two Trout I Couldn’t Keep, and Nobody Told Me Catch and Release Was a Skill
Two dead rainbow trout on a stringer I wasn’t even supposed to have. That’s how my Tuesday after work ended,…
Fishing
I Pinched Every Barb on Every Lure I Own, and I’m a Better Fisherman for It
# I Pinched Every Barb on Every Lure I Own, and I’m a Better Fisherman for It For about twenty…
Fishing
I Lost the Biggest Bass of My Life to a Knot I Was Too Stubborn to Check
The biggest bass of my life ate a worm at about seven in the morning, and I was already mostly…
Fishing
I Set the Hook Too Early Every Day for Thirty Years
I have been setting the hook too early for thirty years and nobody ever bothered to tell me to my…
Fishing
The Wall Fish That Flipped Off My Wet Hands and Back Down the Hole
It was the biggest fish I had ever seen come out of a hole in the ice, and I had…
Fishing
The Man Who Sat on One Dead Hole All Day While the Fish Were Forty Yards Away
Fourteen Inches of Ice and a Grudge I drove an hour and a half in the dark to get on…
Fishing
The Night a Six-Pound Catfish Almost Drowned Me Over a Trotline
I almost drowned over a channel cat that weighed maybe six pounds. That is the kind of sentence that sounds…
Fishing
Four Years of Fishing Walleye the Way the Books Said, Then a Cousin Pulled One Out of Three Feet of Water.
I spent four years believing walleye were a religion with one commandment: fish the bottom. Deep. Slow. A bottom bouncer…