The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere - 02.07.2025

Ramblings & Readings, Creativity & Conservation, Happenings & Hope

My Fishy Friends,

I have an aversion to chaos but it seems to find me from time to time regardless. My natural response is to try to fix the problems as quick as possible, but unfortunately, time is often the only remedy. So in that meantime, I try to combat the chaos by reminding myself what grounds me and clears my head: actual ground, and actual clear air. I ought not forget to use these elements proactively as well.

Cheers,
Jesse

Banner photo: Where ‘glass calm’ originated, and sky and sea are one.

On Soul

For me, it’s typical that trips and travels have to marinate in my mind and soul for a while before moments and reflections bubble up to the surface for identification, further chewing, digestion, and then, finally, some regurgitation…

Here then, in no particular order, are some ramblings following our recent trip to Soul Fly Lodge in the Berry Islands…

A Guide to Fighting for Wild Rivers

Despite this newsletter being heavy with and focused on writing, believe it or not, I’m a numbers guy and even came away with a minor in mathematics from college. That’s to say, I like equations and formulas and when trying to understand something new, I often find myself crafting ‘qualitative formulas’ — a list of all the elements that make up the whole. A Guide to Fighting for Wild Rivers, a new film from OARS, provides such a formula as applied to river conservation. Check out the film and get the details on their formula, which includes the following elements:

Be Proactive
Team Up
Connect Decision Makers to the River
Build a Movement
Share Stories with the Public
Keep it Wild

For Your Galleries

There must be a positive correlation between an interest in fly fishing and an affinity for physical, collectible collections of words, i.e. books, magazines, etc. This is certainly true for me, so when I started accumulating physical copies of the publications that my writing appeared in, at some point I came to the understanding that they would be better served in an archive of some sort. I found my way to the Bar Harbor, Maine-based brand Gallery Leather, and their most excellent and customizable Presentation Binders; just this week, my third arrived in the mail. Gallery Leather has a wide variety of keepsake, handcrafted leather stationary products, from planners and photo albums to scrapbooks and journals, there’s something for everyone, and they’re all 100% analog, which maybe the best part!

Fly Tourneys

I wonder who it was that first posed turning a recreation or practice like fly fishing into a competition? I’ve thought about this concept on a variety of occasions and wondered, namely, do I like the idea? I still haven’t come to a conclusion, but the chapter “Speed” in The Emerald Mile, wherein the author poses that a ‘speed run’ (essentially doing something you enjoy in as short amount of time as possible), while counterintuitive, is indeed another, legitimate way to experience the thing/practice. I think fly fishing competition falls into similar ground. A few days ago, registration opened for the Cheeky Schoolie Tournament, the “world’s largest fly fishing only tournament”. Regardless of how I feel about fly tourneys, I feel real good about such endeavors’ ability to raise tens of thousands of dollars for conservation.

The Heart of Bonefishing

Perhaps the heart of bonefishing is ecstatic, more like prayer, which makes the elusive fish a grace we intuit or perhaps even glimpse at the verge of sight, then probe toward via the faith we place in the cast. After we catch the fish and hold its pulsing form briefly in our hands, we typically release it, since grace isn’t edible or own-able.

~ Chris Dombrowski, Body of Water

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