For as long as I can remember, books have have had a tremendous significance in my life. They've been the source of connection, inspiration and entertainment. 

From the moment you see one on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, right through the last page turned, and for the great ones, when you decide to pick them up again -- books are at the epicenter of a culture that values ideas and stories.

They represent the best parts of our nature. They invite patience, thought, silence, an open mind, a willingness to learn and an inquisitive approach. 

To look for and pick up a book is to invest yourself not just in fleeting pleasure for entertainment's sake, or for mindless distraction, but to search and seek stories, information, and inspiration. 

So many writers, from Dave Dibenedetto to John Gierach have enhanced my understanding of the sport with color and laughter to boot.

I'd always wanted to write a book, and tried on a number of occasions making one crucial mistake: THinking that I -- I had to do something worthy of a story, accomplish something, see something, find something that would captivate people.

IT took me a long time to realize that the most interesting element in our own lives, aside from God, are the people we get the chance to meet.

About a decade ago I started compiling and creating stories about some of the most interesting, altruistic, inspired and talented anglers that I have had the chance to meet, fish with or interview.

I've shared hundreds of stories through a blog and an online magazine.

But this summer I finally had the chance to choose from those stories and pick twenty-one for a print Book: INspiring Anglers, thanks to the incredibly kind and patient editors at McFarland.

Each Chapter tells the story of an angler who has truly had an impact on his or her community and culture -- through education, guiding, artwork, writing or entertainment.

John Thelen used a T.V. Program to connect and teach anglers, Monte Burke and Steve Ramirez are master storytellers, J.R. Cooper has done it all, from tournament fishing to getting anglers with disabilities on the water... Brian KRaft has battled to protect Alaskan Wilderness, Blair Erickson has blazed a path as a collegiate Angler, Roy Bilby has forgotten about more fish than most of us will ever catch, Alan Lang has literally chased meteorites and unearthed fossils, and "Chappy" Jeremiah Catlin served our country, survived insurmountable odds, and works with veterans every day, all in the name of Jesus Christ. 

Not to mention the artwork and writing of Mark Usyk, the incredible southern charm and shark stories of Tommy Scarborough, and a guy who splits time between bahamas Bonefish and buffalo steelhead, vince tobia.

Did we mention we have the chaplain of the B.A.s.S. tour talking about the time a professional angler lost his sight, or Lindsay Agness talking about bringing veterans and women courageously battling cancer together around the water?

Oh and just in case, like us, you're fascinated by the pursuit of enormous fish, we have profiled the world-record striper fisherman (Greg Myerson) and a guy who has landed more than 60, 50-inch muskie. 

These people, some of whom I've met, and all of whom have been enormously helpful and inspiring, are the kind of people you tell other people about... because you just have to.

I'm telling you -- Read Monte Burke's books, the characters are incredible, Follow Roy Bilby's youtube channel, check out the work Jeremiah Catlin because the guy is just... THE MAN.... Thank Brian Kraft for making sure there's a fight for Alaskan Wildnerness to remain that way, try to imagine fishing the way Mike Copppola does, full wetsuit on the rocks of montauk at night, Become a better angler by watching John Thelen teach, watch Joe higgins turn paper and ink into gorgeous art, hear about Lindsay Agness bringing hope and healing with a fly rod -- if the name Michael Tougias sounds familiar, you might be thinking of the finest hours, but his book on the power of positive fishing is heartwarming,

Jillian beattie and daniel lougheed each bring tons of experience with enormous pike and muskie to round out this group of incredible human beings.
​
Stories are, and always have been, at the very heart of our relationship with the sport, the beautiful planet we live on and the anglers we share it with, and these 21 were far too good to keep to myself.

the temptation in our modern culture is to follow trends and remain absorbed in an electronic device, and it's a habit that's tough to shake.

But no matter what you do next, I hope it involves others and brings you hope, and I'd be honored if the stories I've collected become part of your journey.

Gratefully
Rick

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for most of us, the species of fish we target fall into two distinct categories. There are the fish we might chase on any given day, before work, for an hour at the end of the night, or whenever life allows. but then there are those species that for us, define us as anglers, and our region from a fishing perspective. They are the fish we've come to know and love, chase and read about, build friendships around, and read books about. When people travel with out-of-state license plates to get to us, these are the fish they're chasing. In new york state there are certainly a handful, and it's a list that's fluid and varies for each angler. But you'd be hard-pressed to argue that brook trout in the adirondack park, giant muskie throughout the state, striped bass along long island and up the hudson, and salmon and steelhead in the great lakes tributaries are some of our definitive species. These are the fish we plan trips around, build friendships over, read books about and save vacation days for. I'm a striped bass fan and have been for years, and have become fascinated by brook trout in new york since moving back upstate. I had the chance to chase them in a truly remarkable location earlier this summer in the st. regis canoe area, which you can read about here.  i have tried the salmon fishing a few times, and the crowds were somewhat of a deterrent --  I usually enjoy some peace, quiet and space while fishing. but steelhead have remained on the fringes of my fishing experience. I'm fascinated by the species, and have been lucky to target them a few times with fellow anglers, but they're still not a fish I'd consider myself proficient at targeting. Honestly, I enjoy trout and smallmouth fishing in the local streams too much to motivate myself to drive hours to steelhead fish... but they are certainly an incredible species in so many respects. Stories about people are at the soul of the road to water, and we're looking forward to publishing a print book later this year, with more than 20 chapters, each about a truly remarkable angler, but we'll keep the stories coming on this blog in the interim.  This week we caught up with a passionate and dedicated angler named John Giovenco to learn more about what makes these lake-run rainbow trout so amazing, and what it takes to successfully target them.  to say john is obsessed with these fish would be a mild characterization. He has written books about chasing them, created t-shirts with their image, and we don't think he has a steelhead tattoo... but it wouldn't surprise us. For the angler looking to learn more about them or target them for the first time, we asked john for a steelhead primer. The following are excerpts from an interview. What Makes these fish so memorable? JG: Steelhead are a beautiful fish with a lot of power. During the fall, they're in their prime and are very explosive, they can jump, cartwheel, one minute they might be jumping and the next they're racing upstream. They can even spend more time in the air than in the water during a fight. targeting them, is there any day  that stands out in your memory? JG: A few days before Halloween in 2017 I had a tremendous day. I hooked more than 30 fish. The landscape was painted in autumn colors, the weather was sunny and cool, and i was the only fisherman in the area. Have you ever dreamt of chasing steelhead in other states? JG: I hope to one day fish the skeena river in british columbia or to fish alaska. It would be great to target sea-run steelhead and see the different scenery. What's the wildest thing you've ever had a single fish do? JG: In November of 2014, I had a steelhead that just kept jumping. It hit an Autumn Chrome fly and must have jumped ten times. This wound up being a wild fish of about 18 pounds, and it had perfect fins without any tears. The fact that it was likley a wild fish is probably what lead to such an amazing fight. Do you prefer fall or spring fishing for them? There are a lot more fish in the fall, so that's my favorite season for them. Dose anyone stand out in terms of inspiring anglers who've motivated you? JG: Two guys named John Dembeck and Lani Waller both taught me a great deal about the species. In terms of fly selection, and fighting and landing these fish, I learned from both of these anglers. What's one thing about these fish an angler who hasn't targeted them might not guess? JG: THey give such an explosive fight. Especially in the fall, they do not give up easily most of the time. It's like hooking onto a bolt of lightning in a way. They have a violent temper. Be prepared when targeting them, they'll test your gear and your fishing ability.  In terms of flies, what are you mimicking? JG: I use colors that steelhead like, such as blue, pink, chartreuse, or purple. Materials like marabou or peacock sword feather offer some movement that makes the fly look alive. These fish might be eating minnows, eggs or leaches, so those are popular patterns to imitate that forage. A few flies that have been particularly productive for me are Autumn Chrome, mykiss special, and fuse. egg flies like a glo bug in chartreuse or oregon cheese color can also be good. a black stonefly nymph with rubber legs and a blue wingcase can be deadly too.  What do you do differently when tying your flies? JG: I use certain materials and colors that make them unique. Every autumn i like to celebrate the new steelhead season with a collection of new fly creations i make for fall-run fish. I put a lot of time and thought into each pattern. "A steelhead fight is not over until the fish is in your net or in your hand..." - John Giovenco

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The St. regis Canoe area is an 18,900-acre portion of the Adirondack park in Upstate new york that is remarkable for a number of reasons. Imagine a region with more than 58 ponds and lakes, and peaks as high as 2,800 feet, where there are absolutely no motors.  That's right, you will not hear a motorboat or a vehicle engine in this park. the 275,000-acre High peaks wildnerness, just to the south of the St. Regis canoe area, is equally impressive.  It's the second largest wilderness area east of the mississippi (the first is the Everglades). What's absolutely incredible about these places is that you feel, when you're in them, like you're removed bodily from the speed, urgency and anxiety of the current generation we live in. There is no wi-fi, so you are not getting incessant updates about news stories or social media alerts on a device in your pocket. There is no cell reception so you are not getting text-message reminders and updates. If you bring out that device we've all become too addicted to from your pocket, you're likely using it in what has become a quaint capacity... as a camera. When you hear a loon call as the sun sets behind a mountain, casting into a lake shimmering with color from its reflection, you can't help but think that somehow this is more in line with how human beings were meant to survive than anything back in society. Our daily lives have become scrambles for efficiency, productivity,  and entertainment. We strive at work to pay the bill to watch the show to make the post that gets the like... etc, etc. We stare at small screens becoming increasingly anxious. Before the advent of the smartphone, if you showed someone a human being staring at a small black handheld device for hours on end, rotating it, tapping it, scanning items with it, and asked the average individual to rate that person's sanity or behavior, most of us would agree their priorities were out of whack. And one of the great things about parks like the Adirondacks is that, for however briefly, the addictive hold these devices have on our lives is broken, and not only that... we can look up and see how incredibly colorful and engaging the world we live in is. A lot of the language that is used around smartphone addiction is condescending and accusatory -- as if the person making these accusations is somehow superior. To that I'll say that, one, I'm as prone to addiction as anybody, and two -- this isn't a condemnation of our society, these things are made to be addicting! They are designed to get and hold our attention, and they're designed by companies with millions of dollars at their disposal, so it's not a surprise that their efforts have succeeded. luckily the only weapon we need is one we have, awareness, that the world in all its color and splendor is more miraculous than anything you'll ever see on a screen. whether it's loons, sunrises or sets, cloud formations, deer, forests, the smallest bugs, butterflies or hummingbirds, we live in a created world that in so many ways is endlessly fascinating. To see a hummingbird appear in front of you for a second in time is to realize how much life, in so many sizes is moving around us constantly. To see a loon gliding effortlessly before disappearing underwater for minutes at a time is be aware of how incredibly capable and adept so much of the planet's life is in a way we can't even hope to compete with. Oftentimes as human beings we struggle with our own ideologies, hopes, priorities, misgivings, shortcomings, we struggle inside our own minds. To be engaged in nature, whether you're hiking, fishing, canoeing, or photographing, is to see life that is always at work, in this sense. life, whether it's a chipmunk or a deer, that is resting, is resting to gain energy to move, feed, hunt or reproduce. Life is always in motion and for purpose, or conserving energy toward some end. Nature does not waste her time or her energy, she is nothing if not efficient. And in that constant purpose we find a type of efficient beauty, movement and change with reason. It is beautiful because it makes sense, it purpose aligns with the purpose of the world it works within. And that's where nature's most endearing quality comes from. It is nothing if not efficient. Its movement, and change, adaptation and energy, makes sense to our souls, and that reality resonates so deeply we find it satisfying. We want, after all, above anything else, a world that makes sense, and the perfection of nature's beauty is that is exactly what it does best.

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wThe farmers who owned the land next to the creek where I was fishing were out planting the fields, and it just made me smile. During my day job I work mostly with high-school aged kids, and so many of them are so inspiring. They have a genuine joy, a faith in the future, and many have a sincere desire to make a difference. My foremost concern for them and people in their generation is our growing addiction to these devices we carry everywhere and look at increasingly. Watching a field tilled and planted, the owner's son throwing you a wave from a tractor, felt like a type of sincerity that was fading from our everyday lives. Thinking that you were climbing into a creek, next to a field where food was grown, and where you might see on any given evening... deer, geese, rabbits, hawks, otters, beavers, or eagles felt like something to be savored. The places we see on our tiny screens are made to seem more desirable in any number of ways... maybe they have names we've read about or that se've seen mention of in books. maybe the lighting, the filter or the people in the photos make them seem more alluring or inviting. But that's really a matter of marketing and perspective. And we are all increasingly beholden to a reality that is created and portrayed on and through devices. Because, and I could certainly be mistaken, but I'd guess many of you have a creek, not far away, at least somewhat similar to this one. It's small, and might readily be described as 'unremarkable,' in the sense that it's just a veign of water flowing through cornfields. But once you climb in and spend any amount of time there, these places are fascinating in so many facets. the levels of life that exist from the smallest bugs, emblazoned with remarkable color considering their size, to the bucks that can jump four feet off the ground from a standing position are absolutely incredible. Let me reiterate -- it's not the case that children think these things are incredible and then as adults we realize that they are commonplace. It's the case that children realize that they're incredible and as adults we forget that somehow. after a couple averaged-sized smallmouth near the end of the evening I threw a cast into a particular corner that usually held promise. it was at the end of a mud wall where the current slowed just enough to create a small pool and where a fish looking for a veritable conveyor belt of menu items to flow by might choose to sit.  I didn't have much hope because i'd caught a fish there earlier, but why not check again?  a smallmouth inhaled the jig and took off downstream.  With an ultralight rod and a light line and leader, applying pressure to a bass with a current at its tail doesn't usually end enjoyably for the one holding the rod. so i followed the smallmouth downstream. it was nothing like the scene in a River run's through it where brad pitt's character fights an enormous trout through raging currents in montana's blackfoot river, but hey... it felt that way for a few minutes to me anyway.  when i caught up to the smallmouth i realized the net I'd had clipped around my waist with a wader belt was gone, so i had to carene it into slower water. holding it up i considered that while it was not a truly enormous smallmouth by objective measure, it might very well be my Largest smallmouth, and most everything in fishing and life is ultimately relative to your own experience.  i'd just, at the very end of the night, hooked and landed a fish that i'd remember all year. As I eased him back and forth in the current, he swam -- no doubt still recovering -- in the creek next to me, idling in the current. I was just crouching next to one of the best bass I'd ever landed, with nothing connecting us but space and time. it's increasingly easy for any of us today to stare at a device and admire, long for, dream of, or despair that we're not currently in one of the places we see in a 3-inch by 4-inch lcd screen. but if i had to guess I'd say that, in all likelihood, not far from where you're reading this, there's a creek flowing through a field with life above and below the waterline. you might not see it at first glance, but step in and spend some time. the color and the life will continuously surprise you, I promise. From the smallest bugs that land on your rod to the richest reds you've ever seen light up a horizon, nature's details rarely disappoint time and attention given them.

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From my vantage point behind register 7 at the Utica, New York Bass Pro Shops Outpost at 6:45 a.m., I could not see the end of the line of customers I was catering to. The line snaked around the beef jerky bin, past the coffee fixture, around the edge of the apparel section, and down one of two main drive aisles in the store. The line of customers had been moving at a steady clip since 5 a.m. when the store opened, and it hadn’t slowed or abated in the least. Families hid gifts from prying eyes right beside them in line. Husbands glanced over their shoulders for wives while they asked for gift receipts. Bull mastiffs, golden retrievers and French bulldogs waited patiently in-between toddlers, strollers and teenagers. I had cashed out dozens of customers, some with multiple carts, for thousands of dollars of merchandise and behind me, the sun hadn’t even come up yet.

Three hours earlier, I was exhaustedly trying to decide whether it was worth it to continue my frantic rush to get ready, to get out the door 7 minutes earlier than I otherwise might so as to have that time to put enough gas in my Jeep so that it was ready to immediately hit the stream once my shift ended at 2 p.m.
 
The immediacy, the rush, the pressure, wasn’t anything to do with one-day sales or limited items, but a simple product of the fact that at 4:30 p.m. in Upstate New York in late November, you run out of sunlight. In order to maximize my time on the water between my 2 p.m. shift end and the 4:30 sunset, with a 45-minute drive in-between, I’d need to fill up the tank before arriving at Bass Pro Shops at 4:45 a.m., which meant leaving at 4, instead of 4:15.
I looked at the forecast for the foreseeable future and all the highs were in the 30s, which is typical for December in Upstate New York. Trout fishing when it’s 30-something degrees isn’t impossible, but iced-up guides, numb hands and frozen, kinking braided line make it decidedly more challenging. The difference between fishing when it’s 41 degrees and fishing when it’s 34 can be enormous.

With the threat of a long dry spell looming I sucked it up and rushed out the door. After student loan payments, back taxes and groceries, I had twenty-eight dollars left to my name, and I put it all in the gas tank, leaving my bank account exactly at 0.18.
                     Everything I had to my name was in my Jeep and it’s tank, with only nine hours and 15 minutes of Black Friday mayhem between me and the last comfortable day of fishing in Upstate New York.

I am sure that participating in Black Friday craziness as a shopper is chaotic, but it can’t compare to witnessing it play out from behind the counter. Because, in retail you see the never-ending stream of people and gifts for hours, and hours and hours….

When I arrived at the store at 4:30 in the morning, there was a line that started at the front door and wrapped 200 yards around the sidewalk and down through the parking lot. These people, if they didn’t come right from the dinner table on Thanksgiving, couldn’t have slept long in-between family celebrations and shopping plans.

I always jog through the parking lot toward the store. Some time ago I discovered that while many of us wait to feel positivity, hope or energy on the inside before we can manifest it externally, sometimes it can work just as effectively in reverse. What I mean to say is… smile if you’re seeking happiness and run if you want energy. It doesn’t always work but it does always trump the alternative.

We had our typical morning meeting of associates going over procedure and protocol and attempting to ready the store team, some newly hired and some steeped in retail experience, for the oncoming frantic rush of customers and then we opened the doors.

For nine straight hours there was never a moment where the lines at customer service abated. Some customers brought multiple carts of merchandise, some spent thousands of dollars. There were carts full of hangars from clothing purchased that had to be re-stocked every hour, there were boxes and boxes of paper bags that seemed to empty like a water bottle with a leak. There were demands about prices, damaged items, missing tags, misleading ads. Multiple times the batteries on our communicators died so that we couldn’t contact other departments. The drawer I ran up to at customer service, in an attempt to help keep the crowd moving smoothly, kept running out of cash, so that I had to scramble to make change with other drawers because for a time, our cash machine wasn’t functioning. Crying toddlers, barking dogs, and irritated adults rounded out the mix.

It was a day as full of stimulus overload as I can imagine on a continual basis. Most of us experience some degree of chaos at points in our lives, but to be standing in a stream of it for nine straight hours is something else entirely. You become so overloaded with lights, sounds, questions, and demands that you go into a robotic repetition of what needs to get done, repeating the same words that you hope make sense: “Find everything alright,” “Happy Holidays,” and “Thanks for coming in,” until it’s on to the next cart, next dog toy, next pile of sweatshirts, pair of boots, and the next and the next.

It is not, I am careful to add, comparable to anything really stressful. We are not saving lives or taking them, defusing bombs or putting out fires. In a society that tends toward hyperbole, I think it’s important we reserve the strongest descriptions of anxiety, stress and difficulty for those occupations and situations that truly warrant them.

The night prior I had made a point to call a friend of mine, Jacob Jonza, who was a private in the 81st Airborne Division of the United States Army for three years, who was deployed to Iraq and who watched friends die in close proximity to him. While I was working, a cousin came through the line and patted me on the back, a cousin that worked as an E.M.T. in an ambulance struggling to keep people alive to get them to Urgent Care (Thank you Don Healey). Another cousin’s wife, who was a nurse that had gone through the Coronavirus pandemic at her local hospital (Thank you Sue Crittelli) with grace and grit in the midst of hardship I can’t even imagine tapped me on the shoulder as she moved through with her cart of gifts for family and friends.

Jacob, Donnie and Sue knew was stress was about and they knew that retail frustration and anxiety, while not ideal or serene, couldn’t really compare.

But nine hours of non-stop cartloads of shoes, sweaters, air rifles, fishing rods, waders and toys isn’t exactly relaxing either.

Nine times out of ten, if I am leaving before the store closes and I have not hit the 40-hour mark beyond which no manager in his or her right mind will keep you (for fear of the dreaded overtime expenditure), I will ask if my staying longer would be helpful. I can always use the extra hours and many times the store needs the help.

At 2 p.m., I shut off the light that indicated my register was open, politely excused myself and directed customers to another open register, and walked toward the back of the store where I’d punch out to leave.

I considered for the entire walk my empty bank account, the stack of bills that required attention ranging from back taxes to student loans. Was it irresponsible of me, or worse yet, indifferent, to walk away when there was work to be had?

All I kept thinking about was the notion that unless you become incredibly wealthy, in today’s economy, for most of us, bills, payments and debts are going to be an ever-present reality, albeit to varying degrees. They are a forest fire we can seemingly gain an upper hand on momentarily until we rest for a moment and another stand of spruce ignites. My working a 16-hour shift for what would amount to an extra $175 would feel good for a brief moment in time. With that paycheck I’d chip away at a few daunting bills and get the temporary sensation of relief, but it would fade just as soon as the next round of e-mails flooded in and paper bills piled up in the mailbox. It was a temporary fix in a scramble most of us stay uber-focused on for the brief moments where it feels like we’re winning something.

If, on the other hand, I watched over my shoulder as the last light of the final day in Upstate New York where it was going to be above 40 degrees faded from the sky while I rang out customer after customer frantically attempting to accumulate stuff…

Watching the sun sink beneath the clouds in a brilliant display of color for what might be the last time for an extended period… watching a blue heron or a white egret soar over a marsh, or the light hit the water as it faded from the sky, knowing this could be the final time for a little while…
 
We have come to see the world in such a way that we like assigning value to things because it’s easy. A vacation costs this much, a house costs that much. A car, an education, a new television, we can assign values and prices to all of these things. Then we figure those evaluations in with how our time relates to that cost. “Well, it would take me two years to save this much money, so to buy that house it would cost two years of my time…”

It’s far from the most effective means of figuring out our lives, but it is relatively easy, in the sense that it only requires knowledge of time and math and we can arrive at an answer. There should be something itching at us even after we’ve arrived at that answer, because not all moments, not all hours or days or experiences are comparable.

But we can ignore the itching, because the math is simple and we can justify decisions without too much deep thought or self-discovery and it allows us to move forward without debilitating doubt, fear or anxiety.

While it is relatively easy to arrive at a conclusion about what we will earn when we, say, work an extra few hours or save for an extended period, it is decidedly more difficult to decide what it will cost us to do something, or more aptly, to decide not to do something.

When you sleep in, turn down the invitation, leave the stream or the beach or the woods early, what does it cost you?

That’s harder to figure out because there are not certainties when it comes to conjecture. You could very well have, and often we’d like to think that you did, avoid or cut short an exercise in futility or failure or at the very least boredom.

But this brings up an important question. If, as we head out to the stream, or into the woods, we are telling ourselves that anything is possible, that this day, and this hour, might provide a fish, deer or turkey that we remember forever, that might provide a story we share we friends and family, a photo we take that we look back on with gratitude and excitement, then that makes sense. But if when we forego an opportunity to fish or hunt, or cut one short, we cannot with the same mind tell ourselves, or at least tell and believe ourselves, if we say we are now cutting short a waste of time or saving ourselves unnecessarily exerted energy.

Every hour on the water can be a chance at the memory of a lifetime or it can be time idly spent that might have been better allocated elsewhere, but it can’t be both.

So the difference, then, between an angler arriving at the water with nothing but possibility and potential in front of him, and the angler leaving the water so as to get home early, get back to work, or relax elsewhere is and can only be one thing, really: Frame of mind. The angler on his way to the water must see the future with inherent optimism, whereas the angler leaving must view it as time better spent elsewhere. The lens through which you view the unforeseeable future is what inherently defines your present.

It can sound trite, naïve or cliché to maintain that state of mind, or how you look at things, invariably dictates direction and progress, but cliches get that way for a reason. Every action starts in the mind, and nothing exerts so much influence over our decisions as how we perceive our situation.

For example, you could easily view a day in which you were working until 2 p.m., with a sunset time of 4:42, and a forecasted high of 43 degrees as a grey fall day best spent inside.

Or you could see that two hours of sunlight and warmer-than-freezing temperatures as as good an invitation as any to get on a stream.

I sat in my Jeep for a moment considering a short drive and collapsing on a couch versus pulling on base layers and waders and climbing into a stream, and chose the latter. The wondering would have nagged at me incessantly.

My father was my hero and one of my closest friends. He was a man of remarkable drive and determination who rarely made time to relax. The closest he came was a rapid 2.5.mile walk throughout our neighborhood on a Sunday morning with our golden retriever. I’d accompany him and he always made note of the geese flying north or south with the seasonal change, reminding me that spring was coming, or winter, depending on their direction.

He was a man tied to his work by ambition and uncertainty, so the notion of flight undoubtedly seemed appealing. As an attorney who ran his own legal practice, the concept of being able to predict what might happen next with any degree of accuracy probably seemed alluring in its own right as well. So he always made a note of the geese, those free-flying birds that still maintained a precise V as they pointed toward an impending seasonal change.

Ten years after he lost his battle with cancer, the geese still remind me of him, and a V of them had briefly accompanied me overhead on the thruway.

My grandmother on my mother’s side was another hero we’d said goodbye to just five years prior. A woman of 83 who was remarkably intelligent, creative and kind, she took special delight in natural beauty. She loved the ocean and the sky, and sunsets especially.

She maintained that no two were alike and never tired of visiting a hilltop we’d found when exploring one day where the sunsets were particularly stunning. She’d take photo after photo in awe and be every bit as enthusiastic about returning the very next night.

Viewed through the lens of modern culture and popular priorities it might seem strange to return to a given location to photograph the sky. But if I lined up the images of the gold and violet and amber and rose spread out against the clouds all in a row from years of returning it might seem strange that you would have been doing anything else at that particular moment aside from capturing that scene.

When I arrived at the kayak launch by the stream where I’d become accustomed to parking, it was a relief that I was the only vehicle there. The stream was closer to a metropolis than most trout streams, and I’d seen cars and trucks use the dirt pull-off and kayak launch as a spot to relax, I’d seen duck hunters, other anglers, you just never knew.

It was always the pulling on waders and tying boots and getting the waterproof zipper on the neoprene jacket to cooperate that was the most vexing part. Once you were back in the still-wet waders and the jacket was zipped the laces were double-knotted then it was just a matter of making the most of the remaining daylight, calculating where to cast and how many times and the next move.

I fished my way back upstream to a sizeable beaver dam that always drew me back. I’d caught tiger muskie on the upstream side, landed browns both above and below, and it provided that section of the stream’s most prominent structure.

Just three days prior I’d hooked a brown on the downcurrent side of the dam that had run across the current, jumped and thrown the hook.

As late in the season as it was, the fish just stayed with me. You try not to consider the prospect of a long stretch of winter days where it’s so cold that fishing is unenjoyable and you are constantly remembering the last fish you’d hooked that you couldn’t land, but you couldn’t exactly dismiss the entire scene in your head either.

If we love to fish because the moments stay with us, then we can’t get upset when… the moments stay with us.

What, I thought to myself, were the odds in hell that a fish that had secured a feeding lane on one side of a beaver dam, after being hooked, fought, jumped, and lost, would return right to that same exact feeding lane within a 72-hour period?

I calculated the likelihood the be decidedly in the fish’s favor, but cast there anyway, because that’s what we do.

The stream flowed through a densely wooded area and looked, if you viewed it from the center facing west, like a runway leading into the sky. By the time I’d waded the couple hundred yards to the dam the sun was sinking and painting the sky a variety of memorable shades of amber and the kind of cold metallic blue that only comes in the autumn.

I cast around the side of the dam where the brown had been the night before because you did not expect the brown to be there again, but casting anywhere else in light of what you’d experienced so recently didn’t exactly make more sense, now did it?

And the fish took.

As I fought him down through the current and brought him back up toward me, I coaxed him in as carefully as possible. I knelt down with the trout at about five yards and unclipped the net off my back, gently easing him toward me.

I paused for a moment, net in hand, fish a few turns of the handle out of arm’s reach. This was the moment, if something were to go awry, when it would likely happen. At that landing stage is when we exert the most pressure at the least favorable angle, and if a hook is going to pop or shake, often it’s then. I didn’t rush the fish in, I just knelt there with him two arms’ lengths away for a moment. I was still connected to a decent brown on a beautiful night in one of my favorite streams at the perfect time of day.

Forcing any quick change of circumstance seemed ill-advised.

But nothing gold can stay.

​

So I coaxed the brown into the net and there were no dramatic last-minute acrobatics, no sudden rod straightening, heart-breaking slack to reel in. Just a gorgeous brown trout, submerged beneath ice-cold clear stream water in a rubber net, gills slowly rising and falling. I popped the hook and took a photo.

There are some moments where you can feel the entire domino effect of moments that lead to this one falling just the way they did and I thought simultaneously about losing, likely that same fish just days prior, and how one moment can change the lens through which you see something entirely. I thought about sitting in the Bass Pro parking lot, thoroughly worn out, and how much it would have cost me to give in to that exhaustion. I thought about how much we were potentially sacrificing any time we chose to forego a trip, an adventure, a last-light expedition.

How many perfect moments had we just foregone for some temporary respite or immediate gratification? On any given day, with even the choice to travel and fish, did we ever really realize what we were turning away from.

I watched the trout slowly swim away. The bigger ones seem to take their time, as if to say, I knew you’d let me go.

Two of the hooks on the tiny treble on the Phoebe were bent when I looked at the lure more closely. They’d been so well stuck in the brown’s jaw that pulling them out had bent the thin wire. That fish was not coming off before the net, that much was certain.

At that given moment I don’t know that I could have been more grateful to be where I was, to be a fisherman, and for a near-perfect fall afternoon.

It was a series of small decisions that might easily have gone either way that lead to a moment I’ll never forget.

If we’re lucky, we’ll stack those moments on top of one another in our mind’s eye, and lean them against the weight of trepidation or uncertainty or doubt or discouragement to push the door open for more just like them on the future streams and beaches, rivers and creeks that we’ll have at least the option of walking along in the days that have been given to us.

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The Road to Water Eight Is Live

                     Fishermen… are… fascinating. That’s all I kept thinking as so many of you helped me put this issue together. I could not believe, for example, that Ryan Lorensen of Locked with Lorensen charters guides all year in Upstate New York, for salmon, steelhead, all manner of fish through the ice, sometimes guiding two full trips a day, all while working a full-time job at a hospital. When I spoke with Lorensen to interview him, he was on vacation in Florida, fishing with his family and had just lost a goliath grouper that day. The next day he sent me a photo from having gone back and landed the behemoth fish.

                     If you ever wanted to know how to stay prepared, and awake when balancing a hectic life, there couldn’t be somebody better to ask than a man working a full-time job while guiding two trips a day in peak season.

                     Or how about looking at perhaps the most famous trout river on the East Coast, the Delaware, through the lens of two incredible guides, Joe Demalderis and Mike D’Accurzio Jr. This river sees more pressure every season then most rivers ever will and how it affects the fish is remarkable.

                     What’s it like to be so obsessed with muskie that you get a full-sleeve tattoo and travel from New York to Wisconsin to target them? We asked Jillian Beattie, a veterinarian who has traveled around the country chasing big muskie on the fly. She’s also got species like roosterfish to her credit after fly fishing in Baja.

                     If you like fishing writers, this is an issue you’ll enjoy. We mourn with the fishing world as we pay tribute to John Gierach. And we talk to two incredible writers producing compelling reads right now. Both Peter Cammann and Mark Usyk were kind enough to take some time and talk with us about what inspires their writing.
We examine the insanity of New York’s Salmon River from up close, go into a remote cabin in the Adirondacks and prove that a boat the size of a bathtub can be an effective means for getting on the fish.

We’re proud of the color, beauty, and laughter in this issue, and we’re grateful to have gotten to know the amazing anglers whose shared stories make it such a lively one. Thanks for joining our journey.

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