Measure Up
I wish I had a photo of that moment. I don’t. You’ll not be able to see it. I’ll not be able to forget it.
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THE DAILY DRAKE - FLY FISHING NEWS
Clyde Resurrected
I recently received an AA unity chip for four months sober. In an episode of The DrakeCast with Elliott Adler, I spoke often about “the curse” Clyde has been in my life. Today I realize much of that curse had less to do with the car than with my own attachment to the chaos surrounding it.
Colorado’s Newest Public Water
There’s a certain solitude and wonder that only public lands can provide. It’s freedom in its most tangible form. These places have given me some of my strongest memories, but it is no longer safe to assume they’ll remain public forever.
Benevolent Ass
There is a holler high in the hills of East Tennessee, guarded by an ornery old ass named Festus. His bellows shake the walls of the valley night and day as he protects his livestock and property. Donkeys are stubborn and strong-willed guardians; known to fight off all manner of danger to protect their herd. Festus looks over a group of about forty cattle and is warden to a small creek that borders the pastures he roams. A small creek with big trout.
Seven
Daybreak on the last day of the March Merkin permit tournament in Key West. The sky is virtually cloudless, the winds light. It’s not what Nathaniel Linville and Ian Slater had in mind. “We like it when it’s tough out,” Linville says. In 2024, he and Slater had won the Gold Cup tarpon tournament in horrific conditions. “Our strength is outlasting and outworking everyone else when it’s like that.”
Crisis Antidote
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to split western hemlock. Especially a piece with knots and badly twisted grain that is still a bit green. But I have. Our remote Forest Service cabin in southeastern Alaska was pretty well-stocked with stubborn piles of it.
The Cigar Box
Each winter around the first week of January, Steve hand-delivers the wooden cigar box. Previously filled with premium Nicaraguan Padrons, the box now holds premium hand-tied flies. Steve always comes through for our Penn’s Woods West TU chapter Great Fly Sale fundraiser. Collecting the donated flies for our annual event offers a glimpse into the lives of our local tyers. Most deliver their patterns and prototypes by way of plastic fly boxes and containers to organize them in sets. Six flies for five bucks.
