The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere - 03.28.2025
Ramblings & Readings, Creativity & Conservation, Happenings & Hope
My Fishy Friends,
Well, it rained so hard last Friday night that my angling plans were foiled and I returned home with my tail between my legs and a weekend’s worth (which may as well be a couple weeks’ worth) of unused camping and fishing gear to put away. I only pouted about it for a day, then found a stretch of fishable water the following. How’s that for a fishing report?
Cheers,
Jesse
p.s. — If you haven’t already, please take my one-year newsletter survey! I’d love to hear from you.
Banner photo: Rio dog, the river hound, waiting for risers.
Between the Lines
I’m in constant conversation with waters and fish, when I’m fishing and when I’m not. I drive on a bridge over a river, get a quick glimpse at the water and immediately my mind considers whether or not I’d like to be fishing it right now or maybe tomorrow or maybe in a few weeks…
Remembering Jim Harrison
Two days ago, nine years ago, novelist, essayist, poet, and angler Jim Harrison passed. “Other than fishing and a little bird hunting, all I do is write,” he says in this PBS interview and profile from 2009. Given the massive breadth of his work, it might appear impossible to name a single piece of his writing that’s a favorite, but as it turns out, it always seems to be whatever of his that I have just read. For more on Harrison, check out this essay “The Gospel According to Jim” by Chris Dombrowski and this tribute from Garrison Keillor.
Some Good Conservation News
Some good news came from Florida this week as Captains for Clean Water reported that a U.S. Court of Appeals issued a unanimous decision opposing a “Big Sugar” lawsuit and ultimately ruled in favor of Everglades restoration. Click here for more details on the ruling and why it matters. In CFCW’s words, “The decision protects the EAA Reservoir’s mission: to store, treat, and send clean water south, restoring natural flow to the Everglades and reducing harmful discharges to Florida’s coasts.”
An Ode to Wilderness
“Some places choose you,” says Riverhorse Nakadate in his new film, The Reindeer Journals. Based in the Swedish Laplands, where wildlife, rivers, and even people roam in solitude, the film features Riverhorse’s writing and narration — intoxicating, as always — set to gorgeous videography from Tony Czech. “Whatever your heart seeks to understand in this life, wilderness has the answers.” Click here to watch The Reindeer Journals.
Associations
The associations connected with artificial flies are so many and so pleasant that they should neither be lost nor ignored, since they constitute one of the charms of angling. To us, beyond the value of service, past or prospective, a fly is often of more real interest in being the reminder of more than its actual worth.
~ from Mary Orvis Marbury’s Favorite Flies and Their Histories
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© Jesse Lance Robbins, 2025
