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Book Review: Black River Dreams

Black River Dreams is a collection of 16 essays written by Maximilian Werner.  The book is 176 pages long and includes no pictures.  But thats okay, cause you don’t need them.  The author, Maximilian Werner, does an awesome job of painting a picture for you with enough adjectives to make Hemmingway blush- yet they’re not overdone.  I think this may be the first book I’ve ever wanted to loan to my friends before I was even through the preface.

From the publisher,

Black River Dreams is a celebration of the fly fishing life. It is also a record of human awakening. Alternately lyrical and meditative, mystical and sensuous, each of these sixteen essays represents an exploration of the intersection between past and present, spirit and body, water and land, trout and people, ghosts and dreams. Whether Mr. Werner is describing his first and last time fly fishing as a boy on a stream in northern Maine; or the experience of sitting on the river bank with a dear old friend who, moments earlier, told him he had cancer; or the many golden evenings he and his wife cast big dry flies to Apache trout cruising in the dim mountain light, he brings an ecologically informed, poetic sensibility to all of his fly fishing encounters.

The stories take place primarily in the New Mexico/Utah part of the country, however there is a little bit of Maine thrown in the mix as well.  But it isn’t the places so much that I remember as it is some of the experiences mentioned above.

There were also some excellent quotes:

“I don’t think a person can ever really know a place until he appreciates how he got there.”

I’d also say that you can never really appreciate a place until you know how you got there.

Another good one:

“Something very old happens when you hook a fish, but something timeless happens when you lose it”

Then there is the idea Werner presents that we take our stories to the river, and not from it.  How true.

To read an excerpt from the book, check out Green River by Maximilian Werner, only a small part of a great essay on the Green.  To read other reviews, or to purchase the book, CLICK HERE.

The First Fly I Ever Tied

The pic above was taken 5 years ago, to the day.  It was a catskill style Light Cahill.

Man, I sucked.

Video: Tying a Damselfly Nymph

Santa brought me a new video camera.  While it will get most of it’s use at chorus concerts and the kids’ sporting events, it’ll spend its off time at the tying bench and on the water…

I’ve got a lot to learn when it comes to this video stuff, but I gotta say that I’m pretty happy with the results of the tying video I did below at the camera’s default settings and basic lighting.  I should be able to ramp up the quality level a notch or two once I figure out all the buttons and stuff.

Anyways, here is a video tutorial on how to tie a very simple damselfly nymph pattern that proved itself over and over again on my local panfish puddles in ‘09.

Squeezing is Bad

Rat Pack

Rub a Dub-Dub

The biggest perk of this blogging thing is the friends I’ve made along the way.  One such friend is Keith Barton, the dude who writes the Singlebarbed blog.  Among his many talents, Keith makes a pretty sweet dubbing blend or three.  I got a baggie of one of his newest blends a month back or so, the peackock blend I used on the bottom right flies in the pic.  I think Keith nailed the peacock herl color scheme in this blend, but what I was really impressed with was how soft the stuff is.  It stuck to the thread like glue.

The copper/brown mix at the top is also from Keith, but isn’t really a blend, more of an uncut ingredient that isn’t too shabby by it’s lonesome.  The flo-orange stuff on the bottom left color scheme is the stuff you get at your local fly shop.  It isn’t too bad to work with, unlike some sparkle dubbing stuff I’ve used in the past, but it lacks the softness of Keith’s stash.

Mako Sharks on the Fly

I drew the line off my fly rod and draped the loose coils in my left hand. I felt the 30 lb, wire leader between my fingers as I grasped the hook in my right. The eye of the fly looked at me as if to say “you better mean business this time.”

Check out the full story at FlyAddicts.com

Heroes

Ya know, I’m pretty sure that if I ever heard you say a fly fishing celebrity was your hero, I’d either laugh or roll my eyes at you.  Yet, there is some hypocracy there, cause most of the people I look up to are in fact, fly fishermen.

We've Lost Another Legend, RIP Rusty Gates

I’m deeply saddened to report that Rusty Gates is no longer with us.

Once in a lifetime there is someone that touches your life in so many ways. Rusty Gates was one of those people. His spirit and tenacity had an affect on everyone involved in environmental causes, from hikers to hunters to the many of us who came here to cast a fly far and fine. He was a fighter and it was the good fight that he chose to engage; catch and release on the Holy Waters, National Guard noise pollution on the North Branch, oil wells on the South Branch, and toxic chemicals on the Big Water. Da Gator led the way. A tap on the shoulder, a glance from those blue/grey eyes, a short conversation; that was usually all it took. We set to our tasks with a brio, partly from the cause, partly not to let him down.

You can learn more at either his website, or at the Anglers of the Au Sable website.