For those sad souls who can't get the angling monkey off their backs and have chosen to live well above the seasonal freezing line, winter can easily slide into a cornucopia spilling over with bountiful excuses. Much like the traveling charlatan preacher for whom the mind is willing but the flesh is weak - we want to fish, but all that whiteness, especially when it's traveling horizontally past the window, is a daunting thing.

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Confessing a love for chasing chum salmon is kind of like of admitting I used to be an altar boy - something I generally only reveal to close friends.

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Painful reality sets in – I don’t have a single salmonfly pattern in my box, and suddenly my meager caddis feels like trying to pawn off a puny cocktail weiner at an all-you-can-eat bratwurst fest...

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Bacchus, the Roman god of feasting and excess, would be proud – the orgy is in full swing and the sheer visual gluttony of the event makes focusing on the details of trying to get everything right even harder. 

Separating the continuous splashy grabs of over-eager young‘uns from the confident, rolling takes of the big fish is like trying to pick out the salient points of breaking news on a radio station full of static...

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Runoff. Somehow the word is far too mild, not gutteral enough, to express my loathing.Can we just agree to call it turd soup? The riparian version of a south of the border bout of Montezuma’s Revenge?

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"Yeah, see this big hole? That's in the timing belt cover. I wouldn't drive very far until we can get your car back in to fix this." He doesn't need to tell me twice – it looks ugly. Make appointment for later in the week. The next morning, pack up the car and head to the Henry's...

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