Currently browsing… Fly fishing
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The old lady
There’s a lot of white on that black muzzle these days. Flecks of canine wisdom. I never thought Phoebe would get old, but then, I had a hard time imagining me getting old right along with her. Several months back, she stopped trying to jump into the truck. It was just too much. Now, she…
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Midges and anchors to the rescue
Anchor could be connoted as negative, as something heavy weighing you down, but if you look at some of its synonyms, things start looking up. Cornerstone, lynchpin or foundation; these more aptly describe what rivers mean to me, especially lately. Rivers feed my soul, rejuvenate my spirit and bring solace during life’s challenges, and boy has life shown me challenges. After my…
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San Juan New Years in the Old Years
It’s difficult to remember exactly when it began, our annual New Years fishing trip on the San Juan River below Navajo Dam. We had hair and it wasn’t gray, and some of us still had muscles. We brought our kitchen kits and coolers, cooking our meals and washing dishes, then staying up half the night playing cribbage,…
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Fly Fishing and Backpacking the Bob
Those of use who have the good fortune of living in the West might take for granted the public lands at our doorsteps—we literally have millions of acres of American lands spread out before us that offer some of the best fishing and hunting on the planet. And a lot of that acreage is designated…
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For the love of the Animas
By Ty Churchwell No one in Durango nor Silverton, Colo., will ever forget Aug. 5, 2015 — the day of the Gold King mine spill that sent 3 million gallons of ugly, toxic mine water down the Animas River in southwest part of the state. To say the accident was highly visible is an understatement. In today’s digital world, photos of the orange…
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The Beetle, the Hare’s Ear, the old man and the cutthroats
Years and years ago, while attending college in western Colorado, I drove up the shoulders of the Sawatch Range between Salida and Gunnison as far as my old VW Beetle would make it on a road it had no business traversing. After reaching a stretch of two-track I could no longer navigate, I pulled the…
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Passing the time ’til it’s fishing season
What do you do to pass the time between fishing seasons? Mostly, I daydream, frequently. I catch myself staring out the windows to the snow-covered landscape and dream. I dream of heavy summer rainstorms that bring ants and other terrestrials off the vegetation and to the water’s surface. There big rainbows and browns can’t help…