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.

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

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.

Last week, I was interviewed over the phone by journalist, Morgan Lyle.  The article was printed yesterday in one of my local papers, the Schenectady Daily Gazette.  You can see it at Morgan’s most excellent fly fishing blog, The Fly Line.

With all of the fly fishing websites aaround these days, I have no idea how something like “The Fly Line” wasn’t already taken.

There comes a point in every fly tyer’s life that they’ll want, or need, to use epoxy.  Unfortunately, epoxy is oftern frustrating to work with.  You’ve gotta mix it right; you’ve only got a limited amount of time to get it on there, etc.  It’s because of this that several alternatives to epoxy have become increasingly popular with fly tyers: Tuffleye, Rio Knot Sealer, and Loon UV Wader Repair.

Now, there’s a new player at the table. Clear Cure Goo.

Clear Cure Goo is still a mom & pop operation at this point, however, after reading the test results  on this stuff when compared to it’s rivals- I’m guessing it will be a household name in no time- at least where fly tyers live.

Clear Cure Goo is another UV light cured product.  However, unlike the Rio and Loon products, this stuff stays clear after exposure to extended periods of heat.  And unlike the Tuffleye,  it’s pretty much unbreakable after it’s been cured.

In other words, it’s pretty much the best stuff going right now.

I’m hoping to get my hands on this stuff soon to do some testing of my own. I work in this big old lab with all these fancy testing gizmos around me, it should be fun to use them on something interesting for once.  I’ll keep you posted.  In the meantime, check out their website by clicking the link above.

So, if you’ve been reading with any frequency, you know I’ve been working on a secret website project of sorts for about 5 months or so.  Well about 3 months into this project, I was messing around with one of the database thingies and lost everything.  Everything.  Moral of the story- if you call database thingies, database thingies- you shouldn’t be messing around with database thingies.

So I was pretty bummed about ~100 hours in front of a somputer screen disappearing in the blink of an eye.  So I cried in my beer for a month or so and started working on things again.  So, since I feel kinda bad for building this thing up for so long, and having nothing to show for it, here is a sneak peak of where I’m at with it.  Keep in mind, I’ve still got another week or two before the first post-guttulata- is ready to go.

Is that logo awesome, or is that logo awesome?  T-shirts are a’comin’.

By the way, this site is hosted at FlyAddicts.com, for free, and I get to keep my domain name, for free.  If you’ve got a fly fishing site powered by wordpress or blogger, you can do the same thing, for free.  Contact me at

alex@hatchesmagazine.com.nospam delete the ‘.nospam’

to inquire.

This post has been sitting in the drafts pile since early August, so after yesterday’s free magazine post, I figured now was as good a time as any to hit the publish button on this one.

I spoke with Brian O’Keefe the other day about a new project he’s been working on with Todd Moen called Catch Magazine.

I’ll be completely honest.  I had already heard of Catch Magazine when it initially hit the web, and the second I hit it’s front page for the first time and saw it was another one of those pdf-flippidity-doo-dah-internet-page-flippy-dippy-things, I hit the back button.  It wasn’t that the cover photo sucked or anything, in fact, it was really good.  It was just that I had already been disappointed by another flippy-fly magazine, who started out strong and then fizzled into a 15 page quarterly publication on how to be be a really cool fly fisherman.

Yet, after reading Brian’s email inviting me to look at his site, I got a vibe from his words that told me there was something different about his project, so I gave Catch a chance.

There were no articles showcasing the best ledges to boardslide on your way to the water.  No playlist to listen to while you read it.  And there was no page from readers telling the editor just how great their flippy-dippy thing is, and how they’ve captured what it’s really all about.

But despite all of those shortcomings…I really liked it.

There were lots of pretty fly fishing pictures, some passionate words about the stuff we do, and a nice video clip of some guy working a popper.  And anyone who is anyone knows that pretty pictures, plus pretty words, plus pretty videos, equals a badass internet fly fishing magazine.  Einstein would be proud.

Just click the images below to go to the website for a free copy of the current issue of each magazine, add the digital version to your cart, checkout, download.

I haven’t gone completely through each one yet, but from what I did look at in each-just the pictues- they look like decent publications.

Now that I have your attention, let me start by saying that I haven’t forgotten about this place.  Fact is, I’ve been uber-busy writing research papers for school, and cheering on my son’s undefeated flag football team.  Fair warning- he’s a linebacker, and you’re wasting your time thinking you can get past him.

I’ve also been helping a good friend with a new website that should prove that despite what some in the print media think, people on the internets have an attention span.  It’s called www.flyaddicts.com, and I can’t deny that there is a lot going on over there.  But I’d suggest that you first check out the articles, art, and videos that have been popping up on the homepage.

Next, if I were you, I’d check out one of the newest blogs to pop up.  AKFishcounter.  I haven’t seen such raw realness in a fly fishing blog since the days of Voluntary Beatdown.  Just read the first two entries and you’ll see what I mean.

Once you’ve done that, check out the members area, the groups, the auction site, the classified site, and all the other stuff we’re still unpacking[evil sinister laugh].  Oh, and if you like videos, there are some of those, with plenty more on the way, as well.

In case you missed it, the Fall ’09 issue of Hatches Magazine is making it’s rounds between bathrooms and fly tying benches around the world.  Click here to order your copy today!