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Mirror, mirror

Wannabe trout bums, changing demographics, and the great unwashed
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
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
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.

The bathtub

Here's hoping normal hangs on at least a little bit longer
Photo: Chris Hunt

It had been a weird summer, which should have been predictable, seeing as how it followed a long and brutal winter and a short spring that seemed to last just a couple of weeks. It’s not all that uncommon in Idaho — this winter-turns-into-summer thing. One day, it’s 26 degrees and snowing sideways, and then, a week later, it’s tickly 80 and the lawn needs mowing. Badly.

Stranded

For most, the idea of being stranded at a fishing lodge doesn't sound too bad
Photo: Chris Hunt

Fifteen years ago, I and a group of anglers spent three unscheduled days loitering around a southeast Alaska fishing lodge waiting for the weather to lift so our float plane back to Petersburg could make the flight across the salt to pick us up. But the weather in southeast Alaska is a finicky bastard, and it refused to cooperate. For most, the idea of being “stranded” in an Alaskan fishing lodge doesn’t sound too bad.

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