a Vote for messy

“So what I am suggesting here  is a complete approach to our waters where the competitive, lip-ripping edge is left back in the fast lane of societal superficialities and the joyful spirit of camaraderie, sportsmanship, and involvement with nature are the main goals”.  Jerry Kustich I get a sense that my fly-fishing is a more messy affair than it is for the guys I bump into around these parts.  Take Squidlips from Smoketown for example:  He  drives his blue Nissan up to the Bushmans on an appointed Saturday, and a day later there are a dozen glossy pictures on social

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Coffee and quotes

“……..in the old days anyone with a bucket or a milk can could get a load of fingerling trout and put then wherever he wanted to, and that the first plantings done by the Division of Wildlife itself weren’t much more scientific than that. The result on the one hand was that a lot of already depleted native cutthroat fisheries were destroyed altogether by the introduction of brown, rainbow and brook trout. On the other hand, some thriving fisheries were established where before there had been no fish at all. You can apply revisionist criticism to all that if you

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Books and thievery

It was a very disappointed thief who broke down my patio door in the middle of the night with an axe, in search of a flat screen TV. All he got was an angry Great Dane and a sea of books. I only wish we had managed to give him some fast flying lead too….the bastard! But let me put the angry thoughts of retribution aside for a moment and focus on his disappointment, and my delight: Books. I hadn’t realised it, but books, and more specifically flyfishing books, have been in my blood for a long time.  I remembered

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Close your eyes

I have an old friend who, when he is sitting comfortably in our lounge, and a truly classic piece of music comes on the stereo, closes his eyes as he listens. I think he sways a little too. He certainly zones out. He escapes the confines of our simple human surroundings, switches off the world around him, and allows his mind to soar to lofty and beautiful places in which the depth of his appreciation knows no bounds. He transcends those in the room who nod in his direction and snigger, and he rises to a place above us all.

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