When I was 18, my cousin and I put together a string of days on several southeast Missouri bass rivers that simply could not be beat. We each caught multiple two-pound bass (largemouth, smallmouth, and Kentuckies) in low-productivity water where a twelve-incher is average, and on the last day of the streak, in late May, I caught more fifteen-inch bass than I have in any complete season since, and probably two-thirds of the fifteen-inch smallmouth I've caught in my entire life. We had the pattern dialed, but we also benefited from several years of great water conditions that had produced a bumper crop of large fish that season, and from the fact that we had ferreted out access points on second- or third-tier rivers, access points leading to stretches of canyon water that were faster and steeper than any other stretches of the rivers, miles of water with lower fish densities than elsewhere but which were almost never fished, though they ran only an hour and a half from St. Louis.

        Then I wrote a magazine article about it, as a break from the "serious" literary writing I was doing as a college freshman. As a how-to where-to story, it was great. Only the fact that I lost the four-pounder I hooked on one of the rivers kept me from getting a cover shot for the magazine I wound up selling the story to, Missouri Game & Fish . The picture of a fish my cousin got and the two-page spread one of my slides merited showed what the 2500-word article did not. I got $250 for the story, sold a half-dozen other pieces to the magazine, had a regional fly-fishing article published simultaneously in several other Game & Fish publications, and eventually landed a scholarship based on these stories. In most senses, my article was quite a success. Read the full article

"Are you sure this thing will float with two people in it?" I said. My cousin Jack and I were standing on a boat ramp on the shore of a lake whose name I'm not allowed to mention, getting ready to shove off after loading fly rods, cooler, and a couple boxes of carp flies. The stern of the boat was still on dry land, for good reason. The boat was one of those cheap Bass Pro Shops hard plastic things that looks like the bastard child of a cracker box and a soap dish, and it had been used hard. Jack usually fishes alone, so to launch the relatively heavy boat he would simply push it off the roof of his Toyota Tercel and drag it over the concrete boat ramps to the water. The heavier end of the boat, the end with the battery and motor, would grind against the concrete the hardest. Read the full article



“Boooonniiiieeee,” I called as I rose from my tying station, scissors in one hand and fragment of beef jerky in the other. Boonie the Shop Dog woke immediately and jumped to his feet like a puppy, knowing from past experience what was about to happen. He trotted over to the rack of neoprene waders, where no one ever goes, and hid behind the sun-faded bootfoots hanging there. As he trotted, that lovely, lovely white tail caught a ray of sunshine that had broken temporarily through the low overcast, and seemed to glow. Read the full article



One: Poolside, August 2000 I stared out at the same pool I’d been guarding for the last five summers, which I now managed. In the shallow end, one of the old bats who thought she owned the place scowled at the twelve-year-old girl drifting by on a raft. The breeze had pushed the girl across the pool into the old lady’s path, an affront if ever there was one. She shoved the kid out of her way, waking her up and making her fall off with a splash. One of my teenage lifeguards was sitting next to me, making bedroom eyes when she wasn’t watching the pool. In my idle moments, I made them right back, age difference and immorality of boss-employee relationships be damned. I needed something, anything, to break the monotony of what had been a long, long summer. Besides, she liked to fly fish. I'd been fishing myself all of twice since May, and both times Bennett Spring had been packed solid with morons aiming only to get their five stockers for the frying pan. To add insult to injury, the Pale Evening Duns hadn't revealed themselves, and there had been only one sporadic midge hatch. Not good. In the deep end, the eternally off-duty cop was between his girlfriend's legs, again, having left his wife at home with the kids, like always. I thought about telling them to cut it out, but only for a moment. A friend had overheard the cop ranting about how he was looking for an excuse to arrest me, so it seemed prudent to lay low for another two weeks. After Labor Day, when I went back to school, I'd never see him again. I was barely 20 and already felt like I was at the end of my rope. It was time for a change. Read the full article