In rural communities all over the world, the story of some homes can be read from the large and small detritus found surrounding the structure. The uninformed will declare this slovenly behavior to be that of an incorrigible slob or hoarder. Perhaps the person has a mental illness.

My experience, as a citizen of a rural community, is that the explanation has little to do with personal habits. It’s often simple economics, logistics, or both. It costs money to dispose of large articles at the dump. You have to be able to get them there. The yard is free. If you’re concerned about your home’s aesthetics, you use someone else’s yard. Or, more often, the roadside.

Twenty-minutes east of Haines Junction, just off the Alcan is an angler’s navigational aid. A front-loading dishwasher sits near the fork in a gravel road. The instructions I received went something like this.

Park at the top of the road and walk down to the water. At the top-loading dishwasher, take a left. Yes, it’ll be the one with the old TV antenna leaning on it. Go around the ancient pick-up truck and to the left of the gravel pit. Enter the water by the steel chair frame.

These directions were to a creek that started on the Kluane Plateau, slid past Paint Mountain, and began a meandering journey to the sea. We were told that grayling could be found in these headwaters so we rigged light rods and ties on dries. This would be a nice respite from casting heavy streamers on 8 weights.

Tony went downstream to some likely water and I went up to explore around the bend. There were no good runs upstream, just lots of wood. While I’m not shy of fishing among log jams, the combination of overhanging branches and leader snagging wood were a potent portent of frustration. I made a few half-hearted casts and went downstream to see what kind of water Tony was into.

On my way back I passed the chair frame. The swift current flowed along the far bank and most of the wood ran parallel to the bank. This wood looked less dangerous than the upstream tangles so I added a dropper and made a few drifts. I was shortly rewarded by my first grayling of the day, a fat sixteen inch fish.

Grayling are a curious fish. The first thing that strikes you when you bring one to hand is how firm they are. Rock solid. I’ve tried to think of the appropriate metaphor and am stumped. Solid and fiery. They do not give up easily and will struggle incessantly as you try to unhook them. Finally their coloration also defies description. Silver in most light, holographic at just the right angle. And that fin.

My initial impression of the Grayling was that they were the brook trout of the northwest. They’re found in many streams. They are prolific. They’re the poster child for cold clear water. However, Grayling differ from brookies in important ways.

First, they’re virtually unspookable. Sure they’re wary of the angler but instead of vanishing into some hidey-hole, they just ease out of the way. You can sight fish to grayling that are no more than a rod’s length always.

Second, where you find one grayling, you’ll find a hundred grayling. Their schooling behavior probably helps explain why they don’t disappear when a predator appears. They’re betting that the angler will flock-shoot the school and miss them all.

They are similar to brookies in that they’ll go after anything that looks like food. We caught them on dries, droppers, streamers, and even dries stripped through the water.

I joined Tony at several long runs he had discovered below the gravel pit. Again, plenty of wood. Also, plenty of fish. We caught them from six inches to pushing eighteen or so. We eventually switched to large hooks to reduce the likelihood of catching the over-eager yearlings.

We fished until it felt gratuitous and then fished a little while longer. The sun moved on and the wind picked up. It was about an hour back to the lodge and we needed to return before dinner lest they send out a search team.

The hand of man can be seen everywhere on this planet, from large communities to remote mountain roads. We leave our mark and our trash wherever we go. In a place where 48,000 people inhabit a land twice the size of New England we still use a rusty washing machine as a landmark. It says something about us, though I’m not exactly sure what.

Scope. Scope mouthwash if the flavor of travel.

At every dentist visit, you get parting gifts. Some of them are modestly useful. Who doesn’t like a new toothbrush? Not my brand, but what the heck. Has that handy phone number on the handle in case I have a dental emergency while brushing.

You mainly get a handful of detritus that sets up home in the bathroom closet, such as a small cartridge of new-fangled dental floss. No thanks, I’m a loyal Reach user. The other bits and bobs take up residence alongside the floss. I’m unsure why I put them there, perhaps to ensure good dental hygiene during the apocalypse.

The one useful item in the gift bag are the travel-sized toothpaste tubes. At my former dentist, the tubes came in two varieties: newly released whitening toothpaste and Scope-flavored Crest. I have too many crowns to use a whitener, but the Crest satisfied TSA guidelines.

For two decades, Scope-flavored Crest has populated my travel kit. As a tech exec I routinely roamed the world, accompanied by the ever-present taste of the 1960s interpretation of mint. But this is about to come to an end.

Two years ago our move to rural New Hampshire prompted a move to a new dentist. They’re a Colgate shop. No longer will I need to tolerate the taste of Scope. This will be a new era of travel. One that I look forward to.

This morning I boarded a Delta flight in Boston. This journey will end in thirty-six hours when I arrive in Haines Junction, Yukon. It’s a slice of Canada that I haven’t seen since I was 14 years old. Forty-six years ago, I had only a passing interest in angling. I caught a small pike in Kluane on a Dardevle spoon.

This time, I’m traveling with forty-nine pounds of fly-fishing gear. I will join good friends, Tony and Chris, at the Dalton Trail Lodge. There we will deploy our considerable angling skills and voluminous gear against Grayling, Rainbow Trout, Lake Trout, and Pike.

This is the travel that I look forward to over the next few decades. Family and friends, in new and familiar places, enjoying the time together, doing the things we love, even if it’s just sitting staring at clouds in the sky. Of course such adventures will be enhanced with cocktails. Occasionally, they’ll have little umbrellas in them.

Fittingly, it looks like my last tube of Crest is nearing its end. Onward to new adventures and new flavors.

Bridge pools are the sirens of trout waters. One is drawn inexplicably towards them knowing that only doom awaits.

You stood at the railing. You saw the fish, they're right there. But, of course, they also saw you. Finning calmly in the deepest slot they dare you to waste your time.

The irrational angler-brain weaves a story about fish that aren't spookable because they're so close to regular traffic. As if on cue a logging truck rumbles across the bridge's wooden deck. Below the pool, the creek makes a turn that provides a perfect casting lane. And there's a rise! Oh, this is so sweet.

You come back later knowing they're there. They’re rested and a sporadic hatch brings them to the surface. At the edges, minnows and other fell fish rise, but you are not distracted. Near the middle, but just to the left, an occasional suck exposes the trout.

A motorcycle roars across the bridge. Twin pipes with bored-out baffles that make your teeth shake. Asshole. The trout still rise.

A delicate cast of a fly three sizes too big garners the attention of only the minnows, and the trout are down as you real in a fish not much larger than the Stimulator that caught him.

Patience is not rewarded.

When they come back up the trout are now rising among the minnows. The right fly, a small emerger, lands just where you want it on the third cast. A minnow pecks at it, but you are not fooled until another minnow, perhaps smaller than the first, makes an outsized swirl on the fly, and again, you reel in a fish that cannot bend the fiberglass rod. The trout are down again.

The black flies are not around today, which is odd, given that early June is prime time for the bloodsuckers. The skeeters are trying to make up for it, but after two weeks of black flies, a mosquito bite is hardly noticeable.

In all your daydreaming about the potential of water above and below your current perch, you fail to notice that nothing is happening in the shadow of the bridge. The bugs are off and even the minnows have quieted down.

There’s a long drive ahead of you. During the next three hours, you cross numerous waters at high speed. Your head swivels to hear the song despite the failure that can only await. Circe was right. You need to get some beeswax.

According to the rocks, the water was down about two inches, and while it wasn't muddy, I couldn't see the bottom; it was not opaque enough to chase me away but gloomy enough to lower expectations.

Upstream I found the water clearer and fished a dry-dropper rig. I placed a flashy fly on the bottom hoping it would distinguish itself in the gloom. It was the first time I had fished this stretch since winter, and the modest runoff had moved a few things around. For years, the river has been trying to decide whether to carve a new channel from a former braid, and it seems settled now that the old channel will remain. That braid has always looked fishy but I've never found anything there.

The bend that has had its flow restored is well known to locals as a reliable spot. Years of lowered flow sanded up the far bank, and I found it the better location to cast into the head of the pool. The dropper quickly brought the first trout of the day to hand. I fished the deeper recesses of the hole, hoping for some fatter cousins, but they resisted my charms.

Upstream is another big pool, but the fast water in between holds fish, and the second came in the soft water not far from the start of the run. It's one of those spots where the stream goes straight when it would seem that it should arc away. There's something about that far bank, perhaps a piece of ledge, that resists the water's efforts. So, you get a deep, fast run, which is a nice way to mix it up from an angling perspective.

The big pool above, where Jonny took a surprisingly big brown a few years ago had been reordered as a large stump guarding the head finally dislodged. I expect things are going to shift significantly once we get another good rain. I should have fished it down with a wet, but for some reason, I decided to fish up without changing rigs. Perhaps it was laziness. Or maybe hope.

The small tributary was clear, and I wandered upstream when I got to its mouth. I fished quickly, moving from spot to spot, making a few casts. I had switched to a dry and hoped that the fish were looking up in the clearer water. By the time I got to the old bridge, perhaps a quarter mile of water, I knew of my delusion and switched to a nymph rig sporting a small pheasant tail beneath a large BH pheasant tail.

Purple. The new black.

There's a spot that I think of as a "three-fish hole"” It's a marvel of hydraulics that holds trout reliably though it looks so nondescript that I only discovered it by accident. On a trip to the stream a few years ago I resolved to fish every bit of the water, fishy or not, to see what I might find. It turns out there were things to discover.

On the first cast, I caught a brown trout on the smaller PT. A few casts later, I caught another. The third trout eluded me, though it didn't stop me from casting in the water long after I should have expected results. I fished the pockets above with no luck, though it was all just a prelude to the next fishy spot.

At the bend, I cast the nymph rig to the foot of the hole, but my eye was on an overhanging branch that provided a sheltered spot near a root ball. There was no way the nymph rig was getting in there without making a hell of a racket so I put on a purple Adams and cast side arm under the brush. I was a bit disappointed by the lack of results. These small stream trout are generally less discerning so anything buggy will usually do. I was worried that my choice of purple had perhaps gone a bit too far from something recognizable as food. But then I flubbed a cast and it landed in the softer near seam. And a brown smacked it.

I suppose I should have discerned that the soft water was the more likely holding spot in the higher flows, but that's hindsight. Maybe it was just a bit of luck, something that all anglers can use from time to time.

At some point, I stopped being concerned about getting older. I was probably just shy of 60 when the feeling of creeping doom receded. Over the course of a few years, everything that could ache began to do so. The accumulated baggage of the aging process had gathered in one large sack of decrepitude. In spite of this, I began to care less about the parts that didn't work quite right. Ibuprofen helped. So did Bourbon. However, like all phases of one's life, there are surprises, most of which aren't pleasant.

Six months is a long time when you must suffer the indignity of incapacity. Perhaps the worst thing is having some middle-aged stranger wipe you because you're too feeble to exert sufficient toilet paper leverage to clean your own ass. You don't think about this shit when you're younger. Heck, not even when you're older. My six months of hell started with a minor heart attack followed by a stroke. At 72, I suppose it's not unexpected though I'd expected it would be somebody else.

My heart attack was described as mild but the stroke was a whole ‘nother thing. I'm still confused about what happened. It was two days before the winter solstice, and while watching television, I forgot who I was or what the purpose of this body was. For a short time, I became something else. Fortunately, Kate was there with me and witnessed whatever it was that I was then not doing. We've talked about our mortality and our preferences. She's determined to go first and probably saw this as my way of skipping out early. She made sure I got the immediate professional attention required in such a situation.

My stroke came when trout season was well over, and the only hope for a tug on the line would come from fishing midges in some tailwater. From December through May, I tried to put the pieces back together. Tons of physical therapy. Dogged determination to get back to my former incarnation. If I was one of the lucky ones, my recovery would happen faster than my baseline health was failing, and maybe I'd have some semblance of normalcy in a year or two. My hope was to at least be able to fake it by May.

Early May is Hendrickson time around here. The Hendricksons, the first good hatch of the season, are the hatch of which I'm most fond. The renewal, the new start of things, is a magical time on the water. The warming trend in the air is mirrored in the water and the trout and their prey awaken. These large flies are the first signs of hope for the warmer weather that is a balm for my bum knee and swollen knuckles. Further, my near sighted eyes prefer to see big artificials over tiny wisps of cul de canard. And the trout are recklessly hungry. They're as desperate for a meal as I am for a tug on the line.

My buddy Mark always seems to know when the Hendricksons are coming off because I get a call each spring at almost the same moment as the first hatch reports. We've known each other for more than 30 years, though if you'd told me at the time, I would never have predicted it. We met on the water fishing a spring spinner fall. Fishing ten yards apart in a pool full of rising trout we cleaned up. It was the sort of epic fishing that you remember and tell stories about for years. At that time I had one of those fancy gas-powered micro-stoves that’ll make two cups of coffee in three minutes flat. When I took a break from the fishing to make a cup, Mark cast a longing glance my way. A spare tin cup in my pack birthed a caffeinated friendship.

We exchanged numbers at that time and have met every year since to fish the Hendricksons. Mostly, it's for a single day, though sometimes we spend two or three together. It all depends on how good the fishing is and what other commitments we both have. Aside from fly-angling and the love of caffeine, we appear to have nothing in common. We've never really delved into family and personal lives. Most of our talk is about travel and the sport and the quality of various whiskeys, cheap beer and locally crafted porters.

Mark is an itinerant angler which I suppose is a nice way of saying that he's a trout bum. He appears to live simply; there's nothing pretentious about his angling gear or his conveyance. He always shows up in an ancient Ford pickup with Idaho plates. I once sent him a package, a dozen special flies, to an address in Boise, but that was years ago, and I'm not sure if he's still there. I try to imagine what home looks like though I'm sure I'm guessing wrong. You can't often separate the wandering poor from disheveled trust funders. Regardless of where he fits on that socioeconomic continuum, he's a good guy with whom to share water and caffeine.

Mark is three years older than me, though through the blessing of an active life or good genes, he has the physical stamina of a younger man. He has that wiry toughness that makes you think his muscles are made of coiled iron and tough beef jerky. That spring he called me on cue. I brought him up to speed on my illness and progressing recovery. He seemed disinterested in that personal stuff and got immediately to logistics. The first Saturday in May, noonish. The field upstream of the bridge. I made plans without telling Kate.

By May, I was in no shape to wade a river. I had graduated from a walker to a multi-footed cane, but my right foot had a bad habit of dragging and turning at an awkward angle. There were times when I thought about having it removed. I was certain that an artificial foot would be easier to tame and control.

On the appointed date I was in a car driving north. Kate was behind the wheel. I still hadn't been cleared to do anything more than walk. She was being a good sport about this whole thing though she thought it madness. Mark's pickup was at the first pullout along the farmer’s field just where we agreed. I was happy to see the field was fallow. I hoped it would provide easy off-road walking. Wishful thinking had become a key part of my worldview.

When we pulled up, Mark was suited up and sitting on the tailgate of his truck nursing a Styrofoam cup of gas station coffee. My beard is longer and grayer than it's been in a long time. The final remnants of personal hygiene have given way to pragmatism. The less I trim my beard the less I worry about being able to trim it. Kate seems to prefer it scraggly as well so there's that too. When it comes to scruffiness Mark and I have converged. He's looking as unkempt as ever, though older, just maybe.

Mark wandered over as we pulled to a halt and managed to make some small talk about the weather and the water levels. Kate was a real trooper. She helped me into my waders and even stood by as I strung up my rod. I wished I had practiced at home once or twice because the normal moves weren't possible in this new body. But I managed even though I could sense Kate wanting to reach out and help at every moment. Mark's sidelong glances said something, though what I wasn't exactly sure.

A wading staff replaced the cane, and with a worried peck on the cheek, Kate left us to make our way to the water. The first few steps went off without a hitch. Mark took the lead down the path as Kate turned back to the car. That's when I had my first stumble. Fortunately, neither of them caught it, and after a quick recovery that practically threw out my back, I was hobbling at a slower pace behind Mark.

Mark paused every dozen steps or so waiting for me to catch up. He made small talk to fill the spaces. We talked about off-season fly tying and some skunk fur he picked up off a roadkill and how it wasn't worth the trouble. As we got closer to the water the talk veered to the fishing and then just to an impatient silence as we approached the water’s edge.

Downstream a handful of guys filled the long pool. Trout rose sporadically to a hatch that was just getting underway. Large mayflies twitched on the surface though they weren't yet thick in the air. Ahead of us, under the deep shadow of the far bank, the silver flashes of rises caught our attention.

Mark lit a thin cigar and asked what the next step was. That was more of a figurative question, though, in a literal sense, I had to figure out how to make the one-foot drop onto the gravel. Mark extended an arm and let out a grunt as I shifted my weight and hopped down. My knees and ankles didn't appreciate the maneuver but at least my foot landed about as correctly as it could. I was still upright.

This pool is a spot between spots. You can't see this section from above as the river curves out of view in a long riffle. From below, the near bank looks like a riffle, and the left, while smoother water, doesn't look like much. This is a place I found by accident years ago. It has never fished particularly well, but it is good enough, and it’s sort of a secret that makes the fishing that much sweeter.

The wade-in was slow and uncertain. The flows were just about perfect for this section; enough water to cover the low gradient riffle to just below the knee about halfway out. At the mid-point of the river, the ledge upon which the riffle is built disappears. There's a deep, glassy bowl midstream, and upstream, the ledge arcs to the far bank, which is also deep and glassy. The frequency of the splashes was picking up.

I wavered in the current, ginking up a fly, trying to find the right rise, close enough for a cast without having to take another step. Mark was still at my elbow watching closely. Apparently, he was more concerned about my safety than I was.

I asked him if he was going to fish and he made some crack about not wanting to have to face my wife after I drowned. He nodded to the same rise I had selected and I made the cast. We both chuckled when the first cast only made it about half the distance. He because of my failure to make the drift, me from the relief at not having landed on my ass.

The second cast was made a bit more assuredly and the third was where it needed to be. By the fifth, I was able to set the hook, though that act threw me off balance, and Mark’s hand on my shoulder prevented me from pitching back. A spunky rainbow came to hand quickly and was released.

Mark asked me to take it easy setting the hook and then proceeded upstream to work the far seam. I'm not sure how convinced he was that I wasn't going to drown, but the hatch had picked up, and the fish were recklessly on the surface. No doubt it was a temptation too great to resist, no matter what my cost.

Over the next 15 minutes, I cast to a half-dozen fish rising in the close water. Most I quickly put down. Only one swiped at the fly, and I managed to hook it and remain upright, though I lost it after a couple of head shakes. I saw Mark land two and hook a few more.

I was tired. Who knew a half-hour of fishing could take so much out of you? Truth be told, the walk took it out of me, but upon sight of the water, I was restored. Now I was knee-deep in a bit of trouble, but the shore wasn't too far, and I still had a few more steps left in me.

I went down easy in enough water to cushion the fall but not enough to drown me. Feet and stick downstream, I skated along on my ass for a dozen yards before my good leg stuck, and the current helped push me back to something resembling standing. Spring water is a whole lot colder than you expect it to be, and now, with my waders half-full, I was unsure if I could make it to shore. A boulder sticking up a few feet away seemed a reasonable, short-term goal.

As I plopped onto the rock movement out of the corner of my eye swiveled my head. A white-bearded, elderly gent swam past me, cursing. The string of “dammits” he sang as he glided along were wholly expected of someone in such a situation, I may have said a few myself during my own swim. I thought I heard him shout something about the “goddamned river” but the comment was lost as he sailed downstream. Mark seemed to have more trouble than I did getting upright but he did manage to take a knee in shallow water and slog to the bank.

After resting a few more minutes I shuffled to the bank and sat heavily. I untangled my lanyard from the sling pack and set them up high. Unclipping the shoulder straps of my waders I rolled them down to my waist and then scooted them under my butt. Raising each leg in succession allowed most of the remaining water to return to the river. I recalled an exercise in physical therapy that had the same movement. Perhaps that stuff isn't bullshit after all.

Mark's method of dewatering seemed to involve rolling about on the small beach on which he landed. I couldn’t hear him cursing over the voice of the riffle but his spastic motions and flailing appendages spoke volumes. He walked up with a limp. I could see by the way he held his rod that it was likely broken. His hat was missing and he was hunched over as if aged a generation by the swim.

“You're too old for this shit!”, Mark said as he sat down. He described how he saw me go down, and when he turned to come to my aid, he also went down. His gaze was hard to catch. He peered downstream sucking on his upper lip, scowling uncharacteristically. The creases on his forehead and cheeks still held the dampness of the river and the sand of the beach. His scraggly beard dripped.

I had two cigars stashed in an old waterproof fly box. Mark's offering was a disposable lighter that caught after about twenty tries. He nodded satisfactorily as the cigar caught. We rested in silence and smoked for a while. The trout continued to slash at the surface unmolested. Whoops and groans came from downstream as fish were hooked and lost.

Before long, our cigars were stubby, and there was no question that our sorry forms needed to head back across the field. We scrambled up the bank like toddlers trying to surmount stairs. Saplings provided secure posts upon which to lean as we gained our feet. Mark followed me along the path. I stopped twice to allow him to catch up. There was no small talk.

Kate was surprised when I knocked on the car window and alarmed when she saw my dampness. But the smile on my face seemed to ease her worry. I had a fleece in the trunk that replaced the shirt plastered to my skin. I shivered at the immediate warmth. Mark had a full change of clothes stashed in a duffel and was soon looking as he had when we arrived though apparently fresh from the shower.

We briefly related the story of the swim to Kate which she found more amusing than we did. That joyful, evil laugh still warms my heart every time I hear it. She shared the joy of my first trout since the solstice and oohed and aahed at the few photos that Mark had managed to snap of my fish and the handful he had caught. While she's never quite understood my passion for this sport she's always appreciated its importance and at least played along when tales of the stream were told.

Mark finished packing away his damp gear and snapped the tailgate of the truck shut. He mentioned heading to the Cape to see if the stripers were running though I related the reports weren't good. Maybe north for some brookies, he suggested. I shrugged. Mark thanked me for the company with a shake and a wink. Kate got a kiss and a hug.

As he got into the truck, he turned and admitted that he had gone down just before I did but managed to claw his way back upright before falling again. He shook his head.

“Maybe we're both too old for this shit”, he said. The door clunked shut. The truck started and pulled out. Mark waved and drove south.

That was the last time I saw Mark. The next spring the call didn't come. The number I had for him was out of service. I still fished the Hendricksons. It was one of the best hatches I can recall. But it was different. Not good or bad, just different. The following year I could have sworn I passed that pickup truck driving up Route 7 but by the time I glanced in my rear view mirror it was too fuzzy to make out. I drove by the field and the spot by the bridge but he wasn't there.

When you're young, you wade deep, fish hard, and drink harder. You shit in the woods, talk shit around the fire and give little thought to the time when everything shits the bed and you're old. So far, this thing hasn't killed me, but I'm left wondering when it will happen again; when some small portion of my body will fail all the rest. I hope that I have my grandfather's constitution. A drinker and smoker, he lived well into his ‘90s and suffered countless illnesses that would never quite kill him. Until they did.

Thanks for sending along "Hendricksons" for our review. It has its moments, and it carries strong feelings of familiarity for all us aging anglers. Therein lies its charm, but also its drawback: it's simply too familiar an approach, into far too familiar a topic, to elbow its way into [Insert name of famous journal]. - Editor

As the year waned, I was consumed by urgent professional matters that seemed to have evaporated opportunities for angling, heck, for much of anything other than email and PowerPoint. I see that my last post was in early October which was roughly the last time I wrote for Hatch Magazine and fell into a black hole of work. Being in the middle of the holiday season, work has moved to the background and I've been able to refocus on the important things: family, rest, sport.

I sat in a blind last week waiting for geese to fly. We saw some geese but the only shot we took was at the bull. It was good to be among sportsman again talking about nothing more consequential than whether we needed more dekes and if that was a crow or a hawk on the far treeline; consensus was a hawk.

My boots, muddy from the cornfield, got a proper cleaning when Ann and I took Ripley for a walk in the woods. Sam and I got them dirty all over again yesterday as we spent a few hours wandering on the trail. There's something to be said for having opportunities to get wet and muddy. It feels a whole lot more like living than what we do most days. Tomorrow I'll be on a stream hoping for a winter trout. It's good to be out again.

I've been in a bit of a writing funk. I'm not sure if that's due to the urgent, stressful matters at work or if there's something else at play. Regardless, the words have been slow in coming, though I do have several half-written pieces that I should probably be polishing up. I've set some time aside today to write and clean my office. I'll probably get more of one done than the other but at least I set off with the right intentions.

In this stack of writing, there's a piece of fiction I wrote two or more years ago. It sat with an editor for almost a year as he promised to put it "in the next issue". It turns out his publisher didn't like it as much as he did. We eventually agreed to set it free. Since that time it's been with several other editors. Some sent quick declines, others sat on it and one, the author of the quote above, made it clear this piece wasn't publishable.

In May, I sent it off to yet another home, and since I haven't heard back, I'm now confident I've exhausted opportunities for financial renumeration. I'll have to be satisfied with the remuneration of knowing that someone other than a few editors has read the piece.

So, to end the year,I present Hendricksons for your reading pleasure and critical review.

I hope you enjoy the piece. Have a happy and safe evening tonight, and I wish you all a prosperous New Year!

As an angler it's easy to get down on the coal industry. What they've done to water and air quality over the centuries is a crime. The industry continues to enjoy the protection of both parties at all levels of government. I suppose that's because we like what happens when we throw a light switch but there's clearly room for improvement in how things get done. Of course, in every cloud there is a silver lining and I may have found one in coal.

West Virginia is the place I most associate with coal mining. I'm not sure why that is. I was going to blame it on A Coal Miner's Daughter but it turns out Loretta Lynn is from Kentucky. It also turns out West Virginia isn't at the top of the list. Wyoming produces more than three times the coal of West Virginia; 388 million tons in 2013 down from 457 million tons in 2008

Indiana is also in the top ten. As America has sought energy independence all manner of taxpayer funded incentives have been lavished on the industry. As a result, Indiana's coal production has increased over the past few years reaching an all time high in 2013 at 39 million tons.

You can read the rest of this article at Hatch Magazine.

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I'm doing some writing over on Hatch Magazine each week (or so). Stop over there to read my complete articles and more from other great writers. 

While I've been busy with other things others, besides you, have been judging my writing. Earlier this month, the Outdoor Writers Association announced the winners of its 2014 Excellence in Craft Awards. I won four awards; one for an article on stoneflies in The Drake and three for pieces that appeared on this blog.

The Award Winners

• The second to last summer

• Steelhead Camp

• The fishing was hell

Additionally, the piece titled The Second to Last Summer won a President's Choice Award as one of the six best for the year. As my buddy Jonny says, I'm now an award-winning writer of some small acclaim, which I suppose means my fifteen minutes of fame are up.

HRO. One of the better ones. (Update: Now, sadly, closed)

The prime difference in the shopping experience between a fly shop and the internet*** is the ability to fondle the goods. With something variable, like deer hair, if I want what the shop has I have to buy it from the shop. I can't scope out the best feathers or hair and then expect to get something identical from the intertubes.

But when it comes to mass-produced items - rods, waders, boots, etc. - one can fondle locally but purchase globally. Now this behavior isn't unique to fly shops. I've walked into Best Buy, fondled the goods, then scoped out the web for the best price, sometimes right in the store.**** More often than not the best price is from Best Buy or some other big box retailer. I don't feel so bad doing this with large retailers because that's the game these guys play.+

But I think it's a different game when you do this to a small retailer. Sure, they've signed up for the Russian Roulette of Capitalism, but the game is much different for the small guys. Volumes are low. Margins are slim. Cheating them of a well-earned sale is cold. If you walk into a shop, scope out the goods, take the rod for a test drive, make the clerk answer twenty questions, and then go buy on the internet to save a few beans, then you're an asshat.

Shop owners aren't operating a charity, and they don't get a commission when some other guy rings the register. If you take the time to visit the shop and scope out the goods, then you should dance with them that brung ya. Heck, amortize those internet savings over the number of fishing trips you're going to have during the lifetime of the product and you're probably talking about chump change per trip.

Shop on the internet or shop in a shop. But don't showroom. Showroomers are asshats.++ Don't be an asshat.

Notes:
* Gals can be asshats too
** I was tempted to use the term "douchebag" in this article but restrained myself because it is too vulgar for family audiences. I do, however, love how the word feels rolling off the tongue.
*** Well, besides the generally apathetic sales force.
**** Referred to by professionals as "showrooming"
+ At least that's what I tell myself.
++ Except for the previously mentioned exclusion

The calendar lies. It speaks of Spring, and that bullshit about out like a friggin' lamb, but the thermometer is spot on. Thirty-two degrees and heading south.

I was tricked into feeling the joy of the coming season last week. When I left a meeting Wednesday night, fat raindrops were steadily falling. I was almost giddy with delight at the absence of gently swirling snow. Over the next few days, air temperatures taunted my misery, melting the last of the snow cover. Piles still sit below the eaves and in places where the sun can't burn it to nothing but the end of grubby snow is here.

Except for tomorrow. One last jab from the menace.

Two Saturdays ago, I swung a purple Wooley Bugger in a muddy flow. The melt had just begun and road sand coupled with farmland tailings made it difficult to see much of anything beneath the surface. It was one of those days that less infected individuals were sitting by the fire. But I am deeply affected and tired of sitting. I inhaled deeply the odor of the striped one and was as satisfied as a madman.

Suffering through the week's toil I escaped on the Sabbath for something that my hopeful brain phrased a scouting trip though I knew it was more. The muscles of my forearm had forgotten the pressure applied through three yards of graphite and I desired a refresher. 

I hiked water I had not fished before, spying on those places we all recognize. This thin ribbon on a map, no more than three strides measured by cleated boots, displayed little though I did catch glimpses of a few sleek objects balanced on splayed wings edged in white. They knew my game and were not playing.

Twenty degrees. And falling. I can feel the freezing water. In my bones. At the bottom of the stream, anticipation. Ready to spring forth as soon as the unknowables align.

This shit has to stop. Soon.

My buddy TJ Brayshaw has posited that once one has twice achieved success in a given arena, one has achieved sufficient expertise to counsel others with authority. I cannot deny that his logic leaves an indelible impression on the mind. It is both mystifying and liberating at the same time; the profundity of angling expertise on the Intertubes is at once revealed.

Last November I missed a trip to Pulaski, New York. It was an annual event that I missed for the first time in two years. During my absence an otherwise mundane journey turned into the most successful Steelhead trip in recorded memory. Not only were the fish numerous, but they were large and strong and firm and brightly colored. Nickels and Kardashians were, by comparison, dull. Tales of this epic will be told for years to come. I'll be sitting on the sidelines nodding and smiling wanly as the stories are retold. I will pretend that I understand one iota of the awesomeness that I missed. I would be wrong.

As I pondered my misfortune through the bleak, frigid days of the season I wondered if there was anything to be taken away from this. I even ventured to the water myself to try and find some connection. I couldn't. There wasn't.

As the year turned, I received another invitation. This time, I was to journey to the Blue Ridge to find a connection to mild weather, flowing water, and brook trout as long as my arm. But as a minion, I was not able to sever the strings. The clan gathered, and they drank their shine and fished lines in the mists of waters curling around hillocks smooth and firm like the Kardashians while I dialed into conference calls.

The first text I received about this trip seemed to be an error of auto-erection. Sitting around the fire, sipping shine and bourbon, the host passed to me a story told in less than one hundred forty characters about brook trout exceeding eighteen inches. It was too fantastical to comprehend, and I fell asleep pondering such mystical creatures.

Grrrr..... You're welcome

The next morning, I was awoken from a mid-meeting doze by the urgent buzzing of my smart device. This genie beckoned me and taunted me with the news of a rainbow trout measuring thirty-five inches. I swore that I was bewitched by some demon of labor. Yet the characters told of the insufficiency of Brodin and 6x and of the escape of the beast. Surely this was a tale from Quill Gordon or Twain! The story was repeated yet still I doubted. But the words and the emotion and the certainty eventually led me to believe that it was, disturbingly, true. Epic fishing, alone a grail, had been eclipsed by the discovery of the Castle Anthrax and its willing inhabitants.

And I wailed at the injustice and doubly painful pain.

Until the argent fringe was revealed.

In my absence, I had twice been granted bounty that was unexpected and undeserved, yet it did manifest itself. There can be no explanation other than my expertise for the dearth of me and its effect on angling success.

I am unavailable for your next adventure. I await your invitation. And your gratitude.

Where the hell did the sunlight go? More importantly, when is it coming back?

Gone are the opportunities for a quick trip to the water after work. Hell, there's not much water in the streams that are close at hand, so I suppose nothing is lost. It's still depressing as hell. Especially with the change of the clocks. More darkness during the seasons prime non-work hours.

I was out to the river twice in October which is roughly half the pace I was managing in mid-September -- on a weekly basis. Skunked both times. I suppose I deserve it for trying to stretch a good thing too far.

It's the time of Steel and I need to be plotting though November is already gone and committed. The first weekend in December looks promising. Perhaps a day or two in Pulaski.  I'll call for reservations in the morning.

I suppose I should just succumb to the reality. This time of year is increasingly filled with the administrative tasks of our sport. At some point, I'll have to sort through fly boxes to see what's what. I am a compulsive buyer of Parachute Adams, a pattern I hate to tie, so I'll not worry about those. But PT nymphs are in short supply, the spot where Hare's Ears are stored is sparse and the Wooley Buggers and Worms of New Mexican descent remain only in less desirable colors. But if I try to tie any more Sulphur Sparkle Duns, shoot me. I have more than I'll use in four seasons. There's something about that pattern that I like. Maybe it catches fish. I also have a fetish for fine deer hair.

My fly lines need attention as well. I know at least one has a nick in it from a boot stud and there are probably others that are in need of replacement. I may even clean them. I'm sure I've bought some doodad for fly line maintaining though I'd be hard pressed to find it at this point. I suppose there's a place where lost angling trinkets collect. It's probably adjacent to the home of lost socks.

I could also do something about that black duffle I keep in the car. It's a crazy mix of spare reels, winter gear, lost flies, cigar wrappers and twenty other random things. Of course, it always seems to hold just the right piece of gear at the right moment. Probably best not to over think it and let it alone for now. Mojo counts and I think there's a fair amount encrusted in that battered bag's weave.

I still have to plot out some fishing over the coming weeks in between all the personal commitments. I did start November with a quick trip. I tried to catch an Olive hatch on Sunday. A front had moved through Saturday and Sunday afternoon the clouds were scattered causing the hatch to be sporadic and put the trout in a bitch of a mood. I was getting refusals on #20 and #22 Olives. I suppose I should have tied up a few #24s but then I don't have an electron microscope to see the damn things.

Back to the tying bench for now. I've brought the nymph box inside for a proper inventory. And I did find a box of #24 hooks. Of course, I do have some reading to get caught up on. So maybe the vise can wait for a bit. I'll probably regret the procrastination in the spring.

Summer is toying with us. With crisp mornings mimicking early fall and lush greens that remind one of late spring, August is all wrong. Even the dogwoods, which by now have usually become ugly, shriveled, befungused drooperies along the edges of the deck, still look robust. I sense sweltering late summer days are coming but for now I'll toy with dreams of cooler streams, perhaps cool enough for trout fishing.

In the Catskills summer is stunning. The folded landscape shimmers as sunlight slides between heavy white clouds and dapples the shoulders of the ridges. Deep in those folds fabled trout streams named in a different era -Willowemoc, Beaverkill, Neversink - tumble over freestone and beckon with sparkling winks through trees heavy on their banks.

Camping in the land of Gordon, Wulff and Van Winkle has become an annual event for my clan. We've not yet been doing it for long enough to call it tradition, more of a habit I suppose, but it's something I've come to look forward to each year when the days grow long and hot. This year good friends joined us. It was perfect.

If angling were our purpose we'd be in tents on the banks of the Beaverkill earlier and later in the annual cycle of hatches but that's not why we've come with houses of nylon. I'm not really sure why we do it beyond the fact that it feels right that in an era of connections that are less and less physical and more and more transient that we should gather in one place with the ones we love, disconnect and share for a short time intense periods of that other connectedness that we seldom experience.

We may have one more summer together in a tent. Twelve months from now my eldest will be preparing for his first year of college. If we're lucky we'll get him to ourselves on one more camp before he starts traveling his own road.

I still remember dark, quiet nights just after my children were born when Ann and I would lie awake listening to their deep rhythmic slumber. You almost couldn't bear to be separated from this new life and yet over the years you've let the distance grow, nurtured the independence, though you secretly wish you hadn't. Saturday night we slept together, all within arm's reach of each other, for what may be the last time in our lives.

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The sun was likely too high to make fishing worthwhile but the time seemed right for many other reasons so we were off to the water. Up here, far from its merger with the Willowemoc, the Beaverkill is a stream not a river. Calf deep in the heart of the riffle, we marched downstream to the pockets and seams that had yielded trout in the past.

Sam has been fly fishing on and off for the past four years and at fourteen, his physical stature and talents have finally caught up to the geometry and physics of the sport. He casts wonderfully when he focuses on the fundamentals and even his bad casts are pretty good and he's tolerant of my coaching. In the time he's become a better angler I think I've become a more patient coach. I suppose there's room for us all to grow.

We worked the water hard for a few hours with a variety of summer flies. We talked about the stoneflies and caddis whose homes and shells littered the water's edge. We spotted minnows in the shallows feeding on the detritus kicked up by our steps. We fed them some more. But we saw nor hooked anything fish shaped.

On the way back I noticed a dark slice of current running against the bank under overhanging hemlocks. It sure looked fishy and my Yellow Sally dry drew two splashy rises without a connection. In hindsight, we probably should have looked for faster water. It's a summer tactic that I had forgotten. Next time.

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Looking up at the stars late at night, the campfire tricks the eye. I'm sure it's a trick of depth of field as the mind tries to sort out the starry expanse from the amber light on the branches arcing overhead. Against the black sky the layers of branches seem flat, painted on a wooden panel and artistically layered, a perfect viewing portal for the wonders above.

Sitting around a fire, the night held at abeyance, intimacy is enhanced. The cold, dampness which places ache and stiffness in older joints seems to soak truth and passion from the conversation. In this safe place we talk about secrets and remembrances and dreams while still allowing for that deep lean back to silently view the expansive, endlessness of the night's starry sky.