Northern Pike on the fly: The saga begins

I’m leaving tomorrow for the annual Northern Migration. I’ve been going to a lake in Northern Ontario for well over a decade with my family, and every year the fishing seems better than the one before. I missed the trip last year, due to the Alaskan Brown Bear hunting trip, so this year is going [...]

Read Full Post »

Twelve-mile photo slog on the Eagle Creek trail

Last weekend we did an awesome hike with C-dawg and Amy on the Eagle Creek trail to ther Mark Hatfield Wilderness in Northwest Oregon. I took a billion photos, several of which are of various flora. I’d just purchased a new plant ID book, so I’m going to go through the plant shots and try [...]

Read Full Post »

Stream of consciousness experiment attempts to recover originality

I’ve decided to sit down every day and jot stream of consciousness for 15-30 minutes with no discernable goal, in a notepad. I guess the idea is to jar loose some new ideas, original thoughts. I spend so much of my life reporting on other people’s thoughts and observations, that I’ve started to forget I [...]

Read Full Post »

Wildflowers, bear bait, BBQ and hidden lakes

Pretty good headline, eh? Well, it was a pretty good weekend. It started out with a keg of Ninkasi at my house on Friday night. I did what was expected, grilled food, drank beer, pitched horseshoes and eventually busted out my guitar. The crowd actually cheered when I threw the lyrics and chord chart to [...]

Read Full Post »

Fishing pals back east killing it

So I think I’m done being smug about the fishing in Oregon. The boys back east are banging it up this spring. My brother is killing it off the coast of Brooklyn and the big man Matt Z. is literally crushing monster brown trout on the Delaware River, seemingly every other weeknight. Matt Z is coming [...]

Read Full Post »

Bauer fly reel factory tour post is up

Not to toot the old horn here, but for those of you who don’t check in on the Oregon Fy Fishing blog regularly, please see the Bauer fly reel Factor Tour post. I think it’s an awesome video (of course) and it’s a pretty good read if you’re interested in how a small manufacturing business [...]

Read Full Post »

McCain onboard for cap and trade, so where is Gordon Smith?

Well folks, the Post-Bush era of climate change policy has begun in the U.S. Senator John McCain in a speech in Portland yesterday addressed global warming, vowing to set limits on green house gas emissions and to implement a carbon cap-and-trade scheme.
So if the anointed leader of the Republican party is on board to reduce [...]

Read Full Post »

Southern Oregon weekend extravaganza blows up my Civic

Last weekend we traveled down to Southern Oregon to visit with the folks at the Bauer Reel Company. I’m putting together a feature article and video profiling the company and its operations in Ashland, OR for the Oregon Fly Fishing blog. Bauer and crew pictured below.

In case you’re wondering, I have lost my mind with [...]

Read Full Post »

Vendetta: Keep your enemies close, the BB gun closer

In my effort to build a bird nerd, garden paradise, I’ve bought a BB gun to take out the undesireables — i.e. European Starlings. These invasive birds poke around my backyard, bug the natives in the feeders (like the AHEM Towhee pcitured below), and generally stink up the joint. Plus, they have some interesting feathers [...]

Read Full Post »

Alcohol destroys my will to blog

Somehow, last week at a conference I managed to get into about a bottle of free Chivas Regal. Very poor decision making indeed. There are a number of people out in my work realm who know me, and probably know me a little better after that night. Hopefully they chocked it up the natural affinity between whiskey [...]

Read Full Post »