The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere - 04.19.2024
Ramblings & Readings, Creativity & Conservation, Happenings & Hope
My Fishy Friends,
It’s a little calm-before-the-storm this week as we prepare for our upcoming Writers on the Fly tour. I hope you’ll join us at one of our stops because there will be some incredibly talented writers and artists sharing their soul-stuff. In the meantime, the NBA playoffs started, my legs are sore from playing my own b-ball, and the rivers are calling, almost daily. Hopefully you’ve been answering!
Cheers,
Jesse
Catching the Window
Written for Trout Unlimited’s Priority Waters program, this story is based on a moment from the half-year that I spent in Paradise Valley. The included video is a collection of windows from that spring, including the one described in the story.
A New Book
I don’t know where to begin with David James Duncan’s new novel Sun House. This took me about six weeks to finish, warping my sense of time along the way, as decades passed in the book. The story is, at the same time, shake-your-head unfathomable and yet, makes perfect sense and at the end, I was left in awe of the journey I’d been taken along. My friend Rob put it this way: “I don’t know what the fuck I just read, but Sun House is the most masterfully written book ever. I feel like I need to do something. What? Who knows? I put everything aside to read the book and now I can’t get it out of my mind. Who writes something like this?” Read this note from the CEO of the publisher about DJD and Sun House, buy a copy, clear your calendar, and buckle up.
An Issue
Near the turn of the century, Maine’s Kennebec River was in the conservation spotlight as Edwards Dam was removed, opening up over 20 miles of river to anadromous fish for the first time in over a century. Now, four upstream dams on the Kennebec are up for FERC relicensing and we have a chance to weigh in with our comments and concerns. Removing these dams would allow anadromous fish, including endangered Atlantic salmon, to reach the Sandy River, where pristine spawning habitat awaits. Follow this link to the Natural Resources Council of Maine’s website with great information on the Kennebec and a petition to help get the dams removed.
A Film
Following the theme of New England rivers, here’s a link to a great PBS episode of a source-to-sea paddleboarding trip on the Saco River. In the show, my good friend, photographer, angler, and all-around great human Joe Klementovich and fellow river-runners take SUPs down the Saco from the White Mountains in New Hampshire all the way to tidewater in Maine. As a kid from rural Maine, the local PBS television station was always one of the few that actually worked; this episode is a great reminder of the cool work they do.
A Listen
A couple winters ago, I had the great pleasure to take part in an online writing workshop put on by Freeflow Institute. Even though it was brief and digital, I took a lot away from the course, including some new connections to other talented and inspring writers. Freeflow was founded by writer and river-runner Chandra Brown and this podcast episode shares the Freeflow story as well as a tale of one of their in-the-field writing workshops in which things got a little spicy.
A Thought
You know what your problem is? You don’t realize who I think I am.
~ From The Dude and the Zen Master
by Jeff Bridges & Bernie Glassman
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