Latest Blog Posts

The yard list

Taking stock of what's important

by Todd Tanner - Wednesday, Oct 18th, 2023

Photo: Todd Tanner

Most of us live in cities. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 80% of Americans currently reside in urban areas. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, I suppose, other than that cities are so … limiting. Sure, you can shop to your heart’s content or visit any number of restaurants, bars and clubs. You have your choice of gyms and coffee shops and schools for your kids. And yet the very essence of city life is defined by concrete, steel and asphalt.

A tale of two Tims

There's no feud like a family feud

by Tim Schulz - Friday, Sep 22nd, 2023

Photo: Tim Schulz

Having appropriated the title from Charles Dickens, it’s only natural to poach the story’s moral from Abraham Lincoln, Jesus, and George Costanza: A Tim divided cannot stand. This story, you see, is a tale of internal conflict, for which Confucius is said to have said, “He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior”—precisely the nifty sort of circular logic that made the old bearded hypothesizer a household name.

Mirror, mirror

Wannabe trout bums, changing demographics, and the great unwashed

by Richard Wilson - Tuesday, Sep 19th, 2023

Image credit: Richard Wilson.

There’s a mirror near our front door. It’s the last thing I see before heading off to the river, and I normally give it a quick glance to make sure everything’s in order. Two shoes? Tick. Crumpled sweatshirt? Tick. Counter-cultural Rastafarian neck-warmer that nobody ever notices, cool hat, glasses, etc. Tick. I nod to myself, smile at the absurdity of it all, and head for the door. That’s me in the mirror.

Hope, optimism and fly fishing in a post-Jimmy Buffett world

5 essential songs to help every fly fisher find their inner Parrothead

by Chris Hunt - Saturday, Sep 16th, 2023

Photo: Steven Miller / cc2.0.

I don't want to live on that kind of island
No, I don't want to swim in a roped off sea
Too much for me, too much for me
I've got to be where the wind and the water are free.

— Jimmy Buffett, Cowboy in the Jungle

A train of loose cabooses

But for the vegetation, you’d swear you were in the Bahamas

by Mike Sepelak - Sunday, Sep 3rd, 2023

Photo: Mike Sepelak

We drift quietly to the lee side, set the anchors, and slip over the aluminum gunnels into the cool turquoise water. Crystal clear. Rocky bottom. Surface slick as glass. Smallie haunts. But being a day short of the smallmouth season opener, we wade instead to shore and dive into the dense, hardy cover that keeps this thin spit of island from blowing away in the Lake Michigan winds.