lies, smiles, and simple truths

"ain't life sweet and weird and wild and wooley and foolish and cash
poor and rich in experiences and opportunities....
wish i could cash in and travel and fish....visit and revisit the scenes
of some of my crimes, lies, smiles, and simple truths.

someday the wants and warrants will expire in pennsy and
surrounding areas, dubois for example, and then when the lawyers
say it is ok again, i will be at your door......fat tire beer in one hand
and a rod in the other, probably wet with a belly boat around my
waist and trackin in mud and freakin the dogs into a barkin fit, big
straw hat stung all over with stuck flies danglin and spinnin, grinnin
goofy, mud cheeked fore and rear, spitten out kelp, draggin a
stringer o smallies to be cleaned before the flies get any worse,
smellin o deet n stale beer n maybe half out of it on an advil and
tylenol cocktail,

sputterin bout freedom and let's go, whassssss holdin ya up,
awwwwww come on hush up them dogs, get them cats away
from the fish gut pail, we got some fishin n lyin n catchin up"

managing editor to publisher aug. 22, 2002

what are you doing out there?

here's the deal. fat marty jumped the fence. the deed is done. now the plot thickens and the vibes is high out here on the plains. vigilante action, middle of the night, camo faced, hugging the treeline, running through the open fields, dipping into the ditches when the carlights go by, and filling the bottle, and high tailin it out of there.

been about 3 weeks in the planning stages, one deaddrifter dropped out, another wanted to be the one to do the deed, but fat marty knew it was up to him. high noon, time for civil disobedience....

so the upshot is f. m. is drunk tonight on 18 pack o beers all alone in celebrating and cookin chicken and ribs at 10:00 pm completely soused talkin to me on the phone while the ribs burn, blasted, out of his gourd high on fermented wheat and malt.
weird is getting weirder,

now we send off the sample to the lab, can't ever say who did the deed. gotta protect sources and the deed. gonna say we have journalistic immunity to divulge our sources....remember that phrase, may wanna tattoo that on our left thigh for later recitation.....yupster....we have crossed some kinda line here....

been trying to get the government to go out there and do it. they danced all around it and avoid the subject like the plague, and the epa came out and failed to do so....

lots o heat, our sample is gonna be discredited etc. but it will establish something for them to put up or shut up with their own legal samples....we are the baseline till they go scoop their own lil bottle of shit....

this is gonna be another storm on the plains...
so what is a little jump over the fence, scoop up a jug o water, and begone by the light of the moon to me....civil disobedience is my middle name....as henry d. thoreau answered from behind bars to a concord resident who said "henry, what are you doing in there?" well henry stared at him long and hard and answered, "the question is...what are you doing out there?".

thinkin about swans

“...getting as far as we can is the best we can, more than one way home, ain’t no right, ain’t no wrong, you’ll find your own from where you are, from where you’ve gone...”

olddog/newtricks, songs of the new millennium

i was reading a deaddrift inner office memo by the publisher the other night, a long rambling thing about “the cognitive interface” or something. he went on about his newest project using the psychological principles underlying human personality and communication, about this is an attempt at constucting user interfaces that proact (instead of react) and adapt to human needs. interesting reading and i am glad there was no test after for it went on to describe his current work in continuing on the intriguing possibility of a digital, multisensory personality system that would encapsulate the basic graphical, vocal, mental and attitudinal characteristics of a person. he just won’t give up on the “intuitive web” idea either...and this got me sleepy as most office memos do read late at night....

and the image of the swan came back to me. from last fall. from the fishing trip to missouri. there was a low, misty, coolish breeze in about 30 acre quarry; full of water about 60 feet deep, up against the large rock wall dam. just me all alone on the water in the bellyboat with the quarrymen working the big boys toys on the other side, humpin through another quarry day. and me on the other side alone but for a swan. lonely swan. broken wing living there all summer and now the north winds are beginning, living on a spit of land with a few bushes and one overhanging, small cottonwood for shelter. and the winter coming and unable to fly away south with the rest of the group. rare for swans there. he just gave me lots of room and i paddled around and he paddled around. and i caught 12 to 16 in. bass and large bluegills and rockbass irregularly in my trolling goof casting technique. just relaxin with the dam blockin the wind and me in the calm water cruisin and kickin flippers and thinkin about swans and me and losses and so little gains and my worries and my art and my losin and so little winnin. and then i caught a few more on every fly i put on. each did its work, none rejected, just many slams and me watchin the line jump and not reactin, no hurry, no one to judge, just let em bump the fly and jolt my arm. no barbs easy releases. catch em not catchem no difference the jolt from the fly to the hand is enough. tells me they are there, truly there. tells me the flies work fine, just teasin em. too lazy to fight em. only the occassional slam and a surprized self hooked giant bluegill would throb the rod and demand attention in the here and now. then toss it back in and troll paddle up and down the face of the rocks and worry about swans and winter coming and havin a broken wing and so far from home.

minnetonka slumber

"There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.
Fat Marty mumbled as he slept fitfully in the warm Minnesota sun.
We had beached on the leeward side of a little no-name island to do shore
lunch and escape the bucking breakers and the sieve of a boat.
To get Marty ashore was no small task. Someone at the golf resort in Bemidjii
had told him some bear mauling tales and I had to lie to him that bears can’t
swim before he would even get off the boat. And then when I told him to
start a fire while I cleaned lunch, he wouldn’t venture far from the beach to gather firewood.
I returned from cleaning the fish just in time to stop him from pouring gasoline from the
boats reserve can onto the smoldering waterlogged driftwood excuse for a camp fire.
I left Marty sulking in the sun while I rounded up some dry wood farther ashore all the time hoping
I didn’t come across the bear that left his tracks near the beach where I had cleaned the fish.
When I returned Marty was sleeping fitfully propped against sun drenched boulders. Sleeping
the sleep of the gods. I didn’t have the heart to wake him even though he owed me for
disabling my fishing guide.
I got the fire going and as I waited for good coals to develop, I looked at Fat Marty and wondered.
I wondered what was the purpose of his traveling all this way to see me. This man, more comfortable in hand made shoes and custom tailored suits than the wool shirt and yellow rain slicker he now wore, had come a long way to suffer a hangover and serve as an indentured servant to a gonzo walleye guy.
He obviously wasn’t a fisherman, so his story about coming up here for the smallmouths didn’t hold up.
And KD had given him my itinerary so it must be important for us to meet.
But why?
I couldn’t help but believe that this had something to do with that CAFO mess we had gotten ourselves into.
Just as I had the slab bacon and potatoes going and a skillet full of golden brown walleye filets bubbling over the coals, and was about to roust Marty from his reverie, I heard the whine of an over-revved outboard. I squinted at the now calm lake and saw a bright yellow camp boat bearing down on our cozy little camp. As the boat came closer I recognized the tanned leather face beneath a fifty mission crush University of Nebraska ball cap. But without his usual trademark smile, I suspected that bad news was on board the boat being driven by ol’ One Tooth Charlie."

publisher's account of fishing with f. marty may 28. 2001

deaddrift in deadwood, jenny gulch

note from f. marty 11/16/2001

"I've got to give you and the boys credit for sticking with the good
fight through thick and thicker. Don't see much of that anymore.
Seems most folks hang in there as long as the fight doesn't get too
messy or inconvenient. Don't know 'bout you but most fights like
this that I've seen or been involved in get pretty pissy pretty quick.
As I advance in years I try to be somewhat selective on which fights
I choose to get into in the first place. Every time I confront the
opposition they get to know me a little better. My biggest weapon
is catching them on the blind side with their pants down. Come in
when they least expect it, with guns blazing and don't let up till the
fight is won or the barrels have melted down. I admire you guys
because this contest can not be won with a quick strategic strike but
only through a long grueling battle. Not many folks are up to that
and all of you have proven yourselves worthy opponents. This may
or may not come out the way you would like but in the end the
folks will know they've been in fight and sometimes
that's the best one can do.

Keep the faith and do what you can, where you can every time
you can.

As usual you'll find me back lurking in the shadows always watching."

long pine creek, nebraska

deaddrift tip of the week:

There are 3 state owned public areas on Long Pine Creek.
One is Long Pine State Recreation Area just south of
Highway 20 near the north sideof the town of Long Pine
(Park Permit required).
It has camping pads, picnic tables and fire grates,
hand pump wells for water, and outhouses, and about
1/2 mile of stream running through it.
Just north of Hiway 20 where it crossed the highway
is Long Pine Wildlife Managementarea with some
good trout stream habitat.
The 3rd area is Pine Glen Wildlife Management Area
that is 8 1/2 miles north ofLong Pine (turn north of
hiway 20 at the drive in theater just east of Long Pine).
Only primitive camping is available at the Wildlife Management Areas.
The area is scenic with both rainbow and brown trout available.
Be careful if you go fishing during shotgun turkey season.

a fish, a barrel, and a smoking gun

"well boys, it looks like the government fellas been doin the midnight oil, workin, slavin, worrien, checkin with the legal dept., makin phone call, faxin, late night calls to the director, and postponin their vacations till this work is done. i feel bad about the extra work load. ya, right. anywho, i am sending the clarifications to KM to peruse and then my people will get back to their people and maybe we can wrap this segment of deaddrift research up and ponder the answers so laboriously created to spin the spin of the great government spin machine. i await the verdict in my hammock, watching my bobber from a distance, listening for the catfish bell to tinkle, then i will crawl out of the swaying hammock, saunter over to the rod and bring in the slack line, and then calmly set the hook in one upward motion. it ain't over till we say it's over. "

managing editor report to the dd posse 7/19/2000

rocky highland reservoir that just screams

now as editor, managing that is, i have to, this time of year, realize that
deaddrift east publishing offices are off the grid until ice consumes the
waters around the publishers valley. most of the staff wanders the halls
with no marching orders, no boss to answer to or a boss to locate.
preholidays doldrums develop into ennui and morph into office malaise.
without the captain at the helm, the ship just drifts....
we have, here in the dd west offices intercepted some info originating
on some type of dell laptop located in a lund boat in a to be nameless reservoir.
our tech staff is working on a gps location device we planted on his boat, but the
signal is being jammed by interference of the trolling motor and depth finder.
nothin to be done. happens in cyclical fashion. just wait for the weather to
change and he parks the boat.
here is garbled info we gleaned from his last message to the office receptionist:

"i have been trying to refine my hunt for late season smallmouth this year.
i fish a couple of local reservoirs that have a good population of
smallies and are real sleepers for trophy class fish over 5 pounds.
the place i caught the musky today is a rocky highland reservoir that
just screams smallmouth. big boulders, chunk rock and shale and laydown
trees. 20 feet of water a boat length from shore and 80 ft of water in
the main lake.
today i saw a bald eagle that was sitting on a deer carcass floating in
the middle of the lake."
w

round as a tuna

this just in from the publisher

nov 14 musky

about 48" and as round as a tuna
caught on a 1/4 oz hair jig; 10 lb test
water 48 degrees; overcast w/light drizzle. perfect pa fishing weather.
steep bluff bank
yeah, looks like i took the air hose to her too. 50 psi in the anal
vent. bet she has a couple 2 lb suckers in her belly ... or smallies.
i was fishing a little hair jig for smallies in 20 ft of water and felt
a tick. can't take credit as a musky man for this one.
the water is cold and the smallies weren't cooperating. i was getting
cold and considering calling it quits. i saw some fish suspended along a
stretch of shoreline and decided to work it with that little brown hair
jig before quitting.
it was amazing that the line held up for the 10 min fight. leading me
around the boat ... trim the motor up ... dance around 8 rods spread out
on the deck ... a pirouette over tackle boxes. sure would be nice to
have a nimble deck hand or better yet a camera wrangler.
i have a tripod but the camera gear was stowed because of the light drizzle.
i've got the fever this fall. i usually quit fishing when the water gets
below 45f but i have been reading about some techniques to catch bass
until ice up.
i had a good day last fri when i found some nice bass stacked up on a
deep outside bend with some deep tree tops. caught 7 from one spot no
bigger than my boat. the biggest just shy of 4 lb.
i am on to the fact that i need to work slow and deep until i get the
first bite. then really concentrate on the sweet spot. if you catch one
there will be more.... i am becoming more comfortable with the notion
that not catching fish is part of catching fish. i fished three hours
with out a bite until i found the spot on the spot.
i'm going out tomorrow. supposed to be 50s with showers. i should have
the lake to myself and a chance at another behemoth to wow the crowd.
the little brown footballs are my passion but the big gators are the
crowd pleasers.
i like the news about the fathead fed bass. do you think we could get
the lund backed down into the lake?
w

loopwing extended body parachute adams

"feel surrounded by wolves. and now the troll from under the bridge emerges.
i want much for so little like always, feel just out of grasp something big and vital, accessible and ready to harvest. the longer this goes on the more educated and skillful WE become.
but i dont know what it is.
in my cockleshell thinkin on how to deal with trolls who come out from under bridges."
fat marty email fragment febr. 15, 2000

dancing into the nightmare's of night

" and keep the boat floatin while i spun circles on the lake in a clear french air mattress while the world worked and warred and lived and died and i watched clouds, pondered my extistential vagaries of character, art, and this last of my greatest performances with my greatest role and finest director...never gonna get another chance at this crowd, this theater, and this play....
next moves gonna be tricky...
the deed is done, the fox has left the henhouse, repeat the fox has left the the henhouse.
and the lesser planets spin and whirl, the friends who fail you and the friends who save you. the moons rise and wane, the tides rise and fall, and all just dreaming without nightmare of day
dancing into the nightmare's of night..

and tonight the f. marty is rip roaring drunk, the professor unleashed, all alone, calling me wishin "you and wayne could be here to help me finish this beer and eat some ribs". celebrating alone...celebrating the deed, wishin he was the hero in the tale told around the campfire of the night the legend of the deed...

the deed is done. heard round the world. trust me. rolling plains thunder. another chapter starts right here.

and you are in the front row, the house lights dim, and the curtain rises for the next act, and the set is a marsh, and a lone man, hunkered down in the twilight, approaches the fence, and looks around, sighs,
and climbs over the fence..."

just players

remember the great baitboy bill shakespeare and his "...all the world's a stage and we are merely players..." well that is good, cause..." fat marty said, "...we are just players, vegas is the stage...".

make time stop

"it is all in the present, the old man said, all in the present. he meant the shortened deaddriftspeak of presentation. the act. all in the costumes and the sets, and the theater where the performance is held. all in the words of the playwrights dreams as they fascinate and frighten him. all in the "...sound and fury, signifying nothing..."

all in the drama and fake blood and gore of the shakespearean tradition or the modernist tradition of ennui and desperation......all in the publisher and editor....all in the song and dance and shuffle and jive of the show, give em a show, oh how they loves their shows....tinsel and glitter and vegas vaporous atmosphere...give em a show that makes time stop...and then boy ya got yerself a hit.........

ya gotta as an artist make time stop. not stop dead, just cease to exist as a fabric of your consiousness... poof..."

from olddog/new tricks, songs of the new millennium, kd bay

gold chains are vegas

anyway anglingnews.com, how would that look on a t-shirt....

lordy lordy tommorrow i have to be at al's cafe for meeting breakfast becoming a tradition of the dd group....the sec. will hand over check to verdigre creek defense fund, (iampresident) and ah well ahum then i will hand the money to ah the front person and he will ah well ah give it to juney.....called the trail of evidence in my muli-lateral intertwined corporations in a shell like circumference of off shore securities and war supplies and of course if all cools down real fast then i will have a healthy selection of war surplus items i think some folks will be interested in, sure it is a bit scruffed, but hey they ain't makin gas masks as fast as they need em and remember the government always goes with the lowest bidder, just fact o life jack, walk up smell the coffee burnin and until the next war the stuff can sit in storage for years and years cheap, no lights or heat, just store it and cash it in the next time around, hell the whole fruitlooped world is pissed at us for something, these things are gonna keep happenning like cyclical locusts and habitual criminals. just cost o doin business in vegas man. it is the millennium, chances are more than lightening strike you and some lawyer are gonna tangle before the year is out. just a litigious times we got here mac, as the great patriot and innovative car guy lee ioccocco said drunk in reno on july 15, 1993 said to me kenn, i wipe my ass with lawyers....and ya know the look in his eye the total slack look in his jaw and the glint off his gold tooth, i just knew he wasn't bullshitting me. and i took it as a truth.

i think he really did.

not that i would. i think that is wrong and a waste of education.

but lee, that guy, god i could tell ya stories...but lee was a light hitter compared to fat marty...fat marty is the wise man you crawl up the mountain to ask your cosmic question....the buddhayouknew knew just by standing in front of you in a hawaiin shirt clashing with the blue sky blue water dazzle sizzle of a Mojave day on lake mead.....and the shorts too short for an old white guy...unless he was rich and could pull it off by lots of young women running around...and sure gold chains are vegas they only really mean anything as totem except in vegas and of course some folks think that in the bronx, say for an example, gold chains mean something, but no they don't in comparison. just don't. just go to both places, spend some time, observe empirically what i am saying...only in vegas is the meaning evident...

but i digress.

fat marty said things at sunset like "ya know bay, i live a charmed life. a charmed, charmed life." and bam right at that moment the sun set bam behind the volcanic littered mountains surounding us in the mojave sudden night. and bam behind me fat marty's three decker houseboat luxery lake mead's finest cruiser's photovoltaic sensing system sensed that it was dark and hit the internal lil computer switch in it's electronics innards turned on the generator and everylight on the mega-yacht went on with a audio whoooooooooopppp. we were bathed in light, me and fat marty...i was speechless. the sound system the size of a medium size radio station blasted into playing dean martin's greatest hits...and the three large large ceiling fans on the upper deck where sent whirring awaiting the dancers on the dance floor, and later somebody slipped on some reggae and i turned as marty walked out into the water up to his chin, holding his beer above the liquid lake, just a head floating suspended in h2o. holding up the beer like a grail. water like a warm friendly toasty bath, or a hot tub shaped like a thousand mile shoreline lake, and he said, go up and dance, "but before ya go rookie, one for the road...a friend is a present you give to yourself."

i turned toward the blazing lights and whirring cooling blades and thought of ice tinkling in a glass, and the riddim blasting out of the kind of speakers reserved for theaters or medium sized amphitheaters, and slowly climbed the steps to the 3rd deck and the party lights blinking and the laughter echoed out into the mojave sudden night.

old dog/blah blah blah blah blah chapter 13. page 8 lines starting at paragraph 6.

techie geegaw

... it is way more power than I need right now, but there are plans in the

works that will test every bit of the new forge's processing power. And you

know what a sucker I am for any techie geegaw. Why the particle accelerator

with write back cache will boost our server productivity 100 % according to

Carl in tech processing. And wait til you play Quake III on this puppy. It

is so real you have to wear a clean suit (as I am seen wearing in the

picture) to keep the gore off the street clothes.

Zoom in on the monitor screen and you will see that I am hard at work on the

next page on our new FermieLabs Millennium Forge. Oh, we are having a little

problem with brown outs on the northeast grid when we process pages, but

once the nuclear reactor power pack is installed that should be virtually

eliminated.

Just don't you worry about the technical stuff back here. We got it under

control. Oh, and when you get the bill on your credit card ... just act real

dumbfounded and deny any afiliation with Carl. I had him sign for the

delivery and then sent him to Vegas. You should have Fat Marty pick him up

and .... well Marty knows the routine by know... I don't want any body parts

turning up in the fountain at the Bellagio this time though..

publisher report to managing editor and financial advisory group

recollection

long ago, i drove through the night ... non-stop 20 hours headed for your

door... a chartreuse spinnerbait tied on a rod .. i rehearsed the line i

would use when you opened the door .... and the cast I would make to catch

one of your fabled lunker bass. we wasted little time after my arrival

shortly after dawn, and in a leaky boat packed with the best tackle we could

afford you put on a show ... you caught fish on a pico pop, and I think a

stick bait .. the bass were post spawn and suspended off shore. I made a

fair showing with my spinner bait, and maybe imitated your topwater style

... but I had been shown my destiny, and in my exhausted, loaded reverie i

held to that vision. we fished nearly 3/4 way around the lake .. well you

have the pictures and hopefully the memory is as lucid for you as it is for

me ... and then there was the time on table rock when bruce and i collapsed

in exhaustion, and you performed in the zone ....

publisher recollection of visit to dd west, catching a 5 plus largemouth about an hour after arrival

the tiny gnat

bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzzzz niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

gnats a fraction of the weight of their quarry .... buzzz and nip at the

thick hide. the great beast shakes its head. and swishes its tail. and

shifts its position. bzzzzzzzzzzz bzzzzz niiiiiiiiiii niiiiiiiiiii bzzzzz

and one finds a tiny crack in the defense. and bites. tastes blood. and then

another also finds a tiny opening. bzzzzzzzzttt bzzzzzttt niiiiiiiiitt the

seemingly impenetrable defense, the powerful is powerless over the incessant

single mindedness of the tiny gnat.

chip chip chippin' away.

note from publisher describing investigative journalism power to bring down the beast.

the ear

email from dd publisher to dd west managing editor in the midst of the creek battle,

"thank god it's not yours. i wasn't gonna make a peep after i got that
grisley thing in the mail. take a deep breath and breathe thru a reed like
tarzan did in that one episode.
figured it was yours and fat marty was tryin to smoke me out. next thing you
know body parts start arrivin and i'm left with "some splainin to do lucy".
i been fishing cross the lake from you....kinda quiet, slow cool jazz in the
background..a couple poles set with dead baits on...catfish ready....a pint
of kesslers to soothe the throat and cut the cigar burn. i see you come down
to the shore and look into the water, darker now since the first
frost....turning over..the shallow weeds receding and turning brown. i sense
your inward gaze and wait for you to look up an catch a glint of sunlight
off my flask. I have a place cleared off for you beside me. a rustic chair
of driftwood and rushes where we can soak in the last mild afternoons of
fall. watch ducks filter in, a heron, and a beaver...and contemplate our
waning middle age...what it means, has meant,...or if meaning is
necessary..wire brushes staccato on a muffled snare....a flugal horn gives
way to a tenor sax ...implies a melody unplayed....mellow as autumn sun
smooth guitar/wes montgomery harmonics joyously sad ...."

deaddrift home office

Nietzsche said, "All great things must first wear terrifying and horrible
masks in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity."

big, two hearted river

fly fisherman are made, not born.
my adventures in flingin flies was created by steve westphal in years of stories, details, tips,
laughter, tying materials, rod blanks, and shared serendipity.
i resisted at first. i owned a multitude of 5 1/2 ft. medium heavy bass rods with shimano matching reels gleaming down from the rod rack. i had 45 lbs. of assorted plastic worms n jigs.
my tackle box could not be lifted eventually. just would not budge. gravity took over. too many cone head worm sinkers, too many crankbaits n jigs n spinnerbaits n such.
i was a bass fisherman. bred for a pedestal seat, a foot controlled trolling motor and vast southern impoundments to be conquered from the console of a ranger bass boat.
i did not go fishing unless i had 5, count em five rods, fresh spooled, and loaded with treble hooks freshly sharpened.
3 baitcast rods and 2 spinning.
it took a wheelbarrow, hey i ain't kidding, to get my gear from my shed to the lake a few hundred feet away.
i was at the "go pro or quit" stage of bass fever.
in those days, steve was right there bassin with me, but he always was more the gentleman fisherman than i was. i was lbs. and more lbs. and records and personal bests and expectations.
steve was more genteel. and he gently talked of fly fishing the snake river near valentine, nebraska. just fishing stories then, but they had their cumulative wave effect on me.
he backed up his stories with old copies of flyfisherman magazine that was at it's zenith then.
the finest writers with stories, lore, knowledge, and a tradition of art and fly fishing intertwined.
those thumbed copies reside in a special wood box in our deaddrift archives and library complex now. they are still used for research and a nostalgic remembrances and searches for lost fly patterns.
eventually on a fateful day, steve dumped a couple boxes of feathers n bits of shiney stuff, and furs, and goofy things, and tools and a ten buck vise at my feet. "i can't see enough to tie flies anymore. you could do it. i'll show ya how."
well, i was hip deep in electric blue fire tail plastic worms and trying to get more.
bruce and i were trying to figure a plan to buy the company. it was up for sale at the time, and we figured that if we owned the place we would have enough for awhile and could worry about buying 12 lb. mono in boxcar loads.
but, steve was patient. and he needed some flies. so i began my lessons.
steve would come over every day for weeks and weeks and weeks and he would show me a fly.
show me how to tie it. talked symmetry and proportion. of "bugginess" and tactics and stream flow. i would then tie a dozen flies that day. the next day session steve would critique the effort.
show me new moves, discussed techniques, and suggested improvements.
then i would cut off the fly from the hooks and start over. we had limited hooks.
i tied flies for a year or more before i tossed them into moving water, learning on the lakes around me. i still threw the hardware, but my consciousness was changing.
i wore out 3 ten buck vises. i am on my second 25 buck vise.

couple decades went by and now i carry a lil fanny pack and a fly rod.
fishing for me now is only really "fishing" when steve is 10 ft. from me while i cast, calmingly narrating the action, when to mend to the left, wait till the fly drifts over the hole,
and laughing large when the fish fools me again.

steve is my big, two hearted river.

steve westphal's blog is at http://hoggertheblogger.blogspot.com/