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.