"Song for the Woolly Mammoth" by Lauren Moseley

Beth Zaiken, New York State Museum

                    When glaciers trapped a third of Earth’s water and drained the Bering

                         Strait, humans
                     journeyed to this land where wind swept the steppes of snow, exposing

                         grass

                    that would be plucked by mammoth trunks and ground by washboard

                         teeth.
                    Up to thirteen feet, their tusks curved helically and would intertwine

                         if they went on

                    a little longer. The beasts’ dense hair—brown, blonde, or ginger—

                         swung like a skirt
                    about their flanks. I want to rest my head against that shaggy coat, to

                         crane

                    my ears, to be protected from the giant short-faced bear. I want to be
                    their baby, wrap my trunk around my mother’s, watch the wild horses of 

                         Beringia

                    canter across the steppes in tawny, fine-boned movements. The thick

                         fat
                    under my hair keeps me warm when the sun goes low, and I grow into

                    an eight-ton bull, pierce the ice with my tusks and drink from glacial

                         pools.
                    The wind is bitter, but my strongest features have grown bigger than

                         my father’s.

                    When summer comes I must find a mate, and it only takes a few tusk

                         locks to show
                    my strength. After our calf is born, I see upright creatures eyeing him

                         from the mesa.

                    I will fling them against the icy mountains. They wear our hair as if it

                         were
                    their skin. Still, I will live through many winters, through each warm

                         season’s

                    hardheaded matches. I know the range that slopes like the hump on

                         my back, sunsets
                    redder than the long-toothed cat’s gorging mouth, how musk oxen

                         form a wall of horns

                    and still fall prey to the blade thrown. I know how many herds have

                         fled, and the curves
                    of carcasses stripped to bone by men, wind, and time. I do not know

                         that I am gone.

Local Wildlife

Half of a frantic game of tag wondering where the other half went.

Red-bellied sunbath on a 31 degree day.

Fish and Hike with Sebastian -- Summer, 2018

This is mainly a family post, but if you might enjoy a kid messing around in water on a hot day at the height of summer then take a look.

"Thanks" by W.S. Merwin

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water thanking it

standing by the windows looking out

in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the door

and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks we are saying thank you

in the faces of the officials and the rich

and of all who will never change

we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us

our lost feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

we are saying thank you and waving

dark though it is

The Henry's Fork: Day Eight

The morning of the eighth day is frosty.

The river is a zen koan.

We meditate on the bank for a timeless space.

Fish start to ring. An Osprey pair dance in the sky.

I hike around the island. Some spooky risers are out there in the main channel. They do not want me there.

I follow John out by the first rocky point. There are fish popping up to look at our flies. Eventually a pleep sparkles in my net.

Once again the wind comes early. Feels like the earth's rotation has sped up.

John goes back to the cabin to hang with Jake. I am going to stay the day. First a lovely bankside nap.

I wake up and start upstream past the moose.  

I stop at rocky point number one. I fish it. The wind is still stiff but the lee of the point is fishable. And there are fish rising sporadically. I show them a cinnamon ant and they bump it and roll at it. I spend a long time trying to get them to take it. Later and even now I wonder why I didn't try another fly. When the memory rises into consciousness a long list of flies that I could have used reels through my aching mind. Must go back. 

I hike and wade back downstream.

I take a brief break back at my camp.

I then fish the back channel until dusk. John comes back and we fish until almost dark. Then back to the cabin and meditations on the sins of the day.

This Is Fly, No. 70

Get it  HERE.

Rain or Shine -- Fly Fishing New Zealand

Hoo boy.

S.C.O.F., Fall 2018

Huge anniversary Issue. Celebrate HERE.

"On Receiving the First News of the War" by Isaac Rosenberg

Snow is a strange white word;

No ice or frost 

Has asked of bud or bird 

For Winter’s cost.

Yet ice and frost and snow

From earth to sky 

This Summer land doth know;

No man knows why.

In all men’s hearts it is:

Some spirit old 

Hath turned with malign kiss

Our lives to mould.

Red fangs have torn His face,

God’s blood is shed: 

He mourns from His lone place 

His children dead.

O ancient crimson curse!

Corrode, consume; 

Give back this universe

Its pristine bloom.

Rosenberg is considered one of England's foremost "trench poets."

This poem was published posthumously in 1922.

Rosenberg was killed in battle on April 1, 1918.

"Shirt" by Carl Sandburg

"Study for the Bachelor" Andrew Wyeth 1964

I remember once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering

      shirt of you in the wind.

Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and

      the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the stuff.

And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the

      singing voice of a careless humming woman.

One night when I sat with chums telling stories at a

      bonfire flickering red embers, in a language its own

      talking to a spread of white stars:

                          It was you that slunk laughing

                          in the clumsy staggering shadows.

Broken answers of remembrance let me know you are

      alive with a peering phantom face behind a doorway

      somewhere in the city’s push and fury.

Or under a pack of moss and leaves waiting in silence

      under a twist of oaken arms ready as ever to run

      away again when I tag the fluttering shirt of you.

The Henry's Fork: Day Seven

On the morning of day seven I collect my frosted waders from the porch of our rental cabin. I had visions last night as I fell asleep of porcupines gnawing them to pieces. We're in a neighborhood where that is a possibility. But they are fine.

Frost on the windshield, too. It's what one can expect at 6,000 feet in September. We're grateful to be in a cabin this year instead of a tent. We've paid our cold weather camping dues in years past.

It's a road trip day. I have convinced John to take a day at the Teton River near Driggs. His son, Jake, who drove in from Minnesota to take advantage of the chance to explore Teton country, supports me. He's not a fly fisher--yet--but he would like to see how it's done on his way on one of several day trips he will make to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. So off we go.

It's a hazy morning, and the Tetons come in and out of view. There is at least one fire still burning in Yellowstone.

We wade through the tall grass and willows and right into the middle of a blizzard hatch.

The fish are up and we catch small cutts and brookies with tiny dries. I could do that forever.

A moose calf comes out of the willows for a drink. Then, later, its twin joins it. The occasional drift boats tell us they have seen their mother just off the river. We keep a wary eye out but never see her.

We do see a duck who keeps us company throughout the day.

We work the bank hard. There are cuttbows in here, and the last time we fished this undercut bank John hooked a heavy fish that he played for twenty minutes and then lost.

I'm upstream from John fishing a bead head nymph in a long pool. I catch some small fish with it. Then, the fly tumbling deep along the bank, I get a strong pull. As soon as the fish feels the hook it surges away and breaks me off. I think that would have been my fish of the trip.

I have more bead heads and catch some more beautiful fish. But I don't get a second chance on a big one.

Jake gets back from a flying trip to the Tetons. We pack up and drive toward Driggs. We know of a good Mexican restaurant there, and we're hungry.

Two Places I Would Like to Be

"The Things That Count" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1919)

Now, dear, it isn’t the bold things,

Great deeds of valour and might, 

That count the most in the summing up of life at the end of the day. 

But it is the doing of old things, 

Small acts that are just and right; 

And doing them over and over again, no matter what others say; 

In smiling at fate, when you want to cry, and in keeping at work when 

you want to play—

Dear, those are the things that count. 

And, dear, it isn’t the new ways

Where the wonder-seekers crowd 

That lead us into the land of content, or help us to find our own. 

But it is keeping to true ways, 

Though the music is not so loud, 

And there may be many a shadowed spot where we journey along 

alone;

In flinging a prayer at the face of fear, and in changing into a song a 

groan—

Dear, these are the things that count. 

My dear, it isn’t the loud part

Of creeds that are pleasing to God, 

Not the chant of a prayer, or the hum of a hymn, or a jubilant shout or 

song.

But it is the beautiful proud part 

Of walking with feet faith-shod; 

And in loving, loving, loving through all, no matter how things go 

wrong;

In trusting ever, though dark the day, and in keeping your hope when 

the way seems long—

Dear, these are the things that count.

The Henry's Fork: Day Six

The morning of day six we count our blessings and express our gratitude to be six days on the Fork with more to come. We try not to disturb the swans on the back channel but they soon paddle away upstream.

It's a pristine September morning. We seek out the trout.

The pattern is establishing itself. John catches fish and I fish.

In the afternoon John heads upstream like the swans, like a salmon powerless to resist the biological imperative. I fish the grassy bank a little longer then follow him. The bridle trail is enticing. It reminds me of boyhood trails that were a part of my growing up in this state.

I cut off the trail to pick my way through the rocks to Rocky Point Number One. That's its name on the maps. It's just downstream from Rocky Point Number Two.

I once saw a man hook a massive Rainbow here. We knew it was massive because it came out of the water and fell back in like a quarter round chunk of firewood. The man played it for about ten seconds and then it was off. He dropped his rod, made the "s-word" echo from the mountaintops, and then sat down and just watched the river flow by for a long time.

I also have some memories of fish lost here. I hooked one on a cinnamon ant right up against the rocks, and then lost it when it managed to get downstream in the swift current. When I retrieved my fly it had a piece of Rainbow jaw on the hook point.

This time I just check it out and then resume my search for John.

There he is.

This is new territory for us. We're down along the actual ranch stretch, and Millionaire Pool is somewhere up there. We go down to that point and cast to some rises out in the middle of the current. It's deep and rocky and uncomfortable fishing, so we tell ourselves they're probably just pleeps. Then one rolls with a big splash. That was no pleep. John lets me go for him--the pity phase has set in--and I manage to get a few drifts of my ant right over the spot where he rolled. But the surface is unbroken as it flows by.

We hike back to the back channel. All is quiet. So we head for the car and Pond's Resort for burgers and cold beer. Sometimes you just don't feel like cooking.

Back at the "cabin" we sit around the table for awhile. There's a big TV on one wall but once again it stays black. We talk over plans and process the day and tie a few flies to replenish our boxes for the day ahead.

Another full day of fishing in Teton country.

Halloween Muddler

On the day before Halloween I went to Yellowwood. It was a gusty day and the leaves were coming down all around.

I shared the lake with a couple and their kayaks. No other fishers.

I started out subsurface but the summer haunts for fish were deserted.

I crossed to the west side and tied on my secret weapon, a Halloween muddler. Time to see if a bass or two would be attracted to this orange and black treat.

It's a tradition. In Washington I always tied up something in Halloween colors and fished it on Halloween, which was also the last day of the season. Most years I found trout with a taste for orange and black.

I worked the HM down the shoreline giving it plenty of time to get noticed.

But alas, it was ignored. Maybe it only works on Halloween day itself.

I came to a downed tree whose submerged branches sometimes hold a school of bluegill. The last time I was at the lake I found some who wanted a small fly. My cinnamon ants from the Henry's Fork filled the bill. So I tied one on again. It worked.

Then I noticed bugs on the water. Lots of bugs. What do you know, it was an ant fall. I thought for a minute that they were cinnamon ants--what a serendipitous turn of events that would have been--but they were black ants.

Even though my cinnamon version had caught fish up against the weeds, it was shunned by the bluegill rising out in open water. So it goes.

As dusk fell the bluegill went down. I tied the Halloween muddler on again and worked it down the dam. It felt so right in the spooky, misty gloaming. I could picture a monster bass looking up, seeing the fly's enticing shape slicing across the surface, and turning for it with blood in it's eye.

That would have been a treat, but it was just a trick of my imagination.