Outdoors Articles Library

There is a lady I know that will sit in the boat with her husband for hours on end and read or suntan. He always buys the combo platter resident fishing license just in case you know what freezes over and she might want to fish...

Over to his library he plucked a book. With a shaky hand he autographed a fly-tying book to me. What he wrote shouldn’t be read by the faint of heart. I watched him write it. Then he handed it to me, I read it then, so many years ago. I read it again last night...

After sixty seven straight days of fishing you can get tired. I don’t get tired of fishing, just tired. You fish so much you wear the skin off your index finger unhooking walleyes. The boat is still rocking and you have been in bed for twenty minutes. Close your eyes and the bobber is still floating there...

You know the folks that jog; I’m not one of them. Or one of those people who mountain bike. I’m not into impact aerobics. Pounding feet or pounding down the hill and vale will take something out of me and it must for those folks as well. We all have our own way of getting it out, hopefully to getting it back...

Something about dropping the anchor in one hundred and fifty feet is exciting. It definitely takes a while. You don’t do it the second time without leather gloves. And i do it, because of all those possibilities...

For me there is a direct correlation between the flames of the campfire and  my sleeping bag. They both take the chill off eventually, but not completely. As  my front or backside reflects the fire it warms either my face or my posterior. My mummy bag encases almost all of me, to the exclusion of...

The flag is telling me the wind is out of the west. That’s good for fishing, but bad for me. I like the tougher conditions. If I come home without fish I have one less excuse. Wrong wind I’d say, it threw the bite off, and it’s a classic. I press my cap on tight...

This black ribbon rivulet is hard to get to. It is a tough place to fish. Overhung branches make casting impossible. There may be dry fly purists but this is a creek their not invited too. Vegetation so thick you cannot take a stride without tangling in something. Every step better be measured or you’ll be fitted for a primordial casket...

It’s difficult for me to pick on flowers or weeds. It’s just how you chose to see them. I get itchy around poison ivy so I’m no better to be sure. So to avoid the complaining on there part, I moved my part away from urban. I'm not anti social, I’m just pro dandelion...

There are a few ways I like to shut my brain off. One of my favorites is smoking fish. I run into a fair amount of herring and whitefish and it takes to smoke, like I take to cigars...

In the fishing world there is a company that produces stick baits. Internationally famous so I will skip mentioning their name and mine in the same sentence so as not to cast a dark shadow. They probably do not want my kudos as I killed one of their lures...

Half way from some where, and all the way to nowhere, Tony is lost. The shorelines materialize and just as fast disappear in the fog. Tony is the guy in the bow of my boat and has no idea were lost, but I’m going to have him aid me in my worrying pretty quick...

I gotta tell you about my daughter. I have three heroes in life and she’s one of mine. Were fishing for trout up on Hogback Lake. I'm hip dip in my chest waders fly fishing and my twelve year old angel is worm dunking. She yells for me so I waddle to shore and walk up the fishing platform. In her grasp is a twelve inch rainbow...

Sometime this summer I’m going to get myself a kid and teach worm picking. I want to give something back. Pass on some learning I acquired. Make sure this noble tradition is not forever lost. Just to keep things on the up and up...

Enter the bait shop owner. One of my personal favorites. They are my kind of candy store. To me these places are better smelling than some restaurants. I can shop in these bastions of bait. I don’t garage sale or go antiquing. But if I drive down your main street and spot, so and so’s bait bucket, I’m stopping...