The rainbow trout wouldn’t start swimming again.
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Gas Station Coffee
That last sip of gas station coffee goes down smooth. It’s almost entirely hazelnut flavored creamer at this point, and little more than lukewarm, but I am loving it.
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Fishing along the Boulder Creek Path
Photo by Sam Larson
Fishing in Town
There’s no real gray area about fishing in town. You tend to either love it (well, maybe be ok with it. Love is a strong term), or you hate it. It’s a difficult position to find yourself in, knowing that you may have great fishing in town but that the surroundings definitely won’t be the pristine river environment that you prefer on the weekends.
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Photo by Jeff Stutsman
Hampstead's Knockabout
The honest truth about this fly is that I stole the pattern from Jeff, who either invented it or modified it, I can’t remember. I contributed almost nothing to the development of this pattern, except for the name, the erroneous pedigree, and the verbal abuse I offered up to Jeff whenever he was catching fish on it and I wasn’t.
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Photo by Jeff Stutsman
Casting Call
When I picked up a Western rod again I told myself that I’d be willing to settle for bare competence.
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Walker Ranch Trailhead
Photo by Sam Larson
Raincoat
When I was a kid I used to put on my raincoat and matching yellow plastic pants and go sit on the front porch when it rained. Every thunderstorm would find me sitting on the milkbox looking out at the falling rain. It made me feel alone, tough and self-reliant, to know that I was out of doors while everyone else stayed inside and watched the rain stream down their windows.
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Photo by Jeff Stutsman
Peak Rotary Vise
My first fly tying vise came from a kit. It was terrible. I bought it, even knowing that I would hate it, because at the time, when my life felt like it was falling apart and things around me were lacking in sense, I needed something to grab ahold of. I’ve always fallen back on using my hands to get through the hard times.
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Photo by Jeffrey Stutsman
A Winter's Tie
I cultivate a fly tying lifestyle of carefully curated panic. Last year’s trip to Steamboat Springs, when I was supposed to be on the road at 5am? I was up at three, in a stone-cold panic, tying as many foam beetles as I could before I had to leave. Last minute trips to the fly shop for essential materials are a matter of course, and hot-blooded tying sessions the night before I leave, or in the pre-dawn gloom, are almost a requisite part of any trip.
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Photo by Sam Larson
Medicine Bow
By the time I return to the cabin I am dead tired. It’s all I can do to get my boots and waders off, gulp down some food, and then collapse into the bed, a mess of sweat, mosquito bites, and sunscreen. I caught fish despite myself, and a full day’s worth of jumping brookies fills my head, individual fish blurring into a long montage of strikes and releases.
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Salvation at Joe Wright
“Just wait,” another angler called without looking away from their indicator. “In another two hours there’ll be forty-five, maybe fifty people standing here.” And so it goes on Joe Wright Reservoir, where the inlet is off-limits until July 1st, and the grayling spawn draws crowds of anglers eager to stand shoulder-to-shoulder while a veritable herd of fish stampedes upstream, deep in the throes of piscine lust.
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Photo by Sam Larson
BWO
Streamlined and minimalist, my Blue-Winged Olives are impressionistic, a sketchy rendering of the barest outlines of an insect: hackle, body, and tail with no fisherman-pleasing upright wing to complicate the pattern.
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The waterfalls on the Big South fork of the Poudre River
Photo by Sam Larson
Fallen In
I’ve just fallen into the river. Perched one-footed on top of a slick rock and trying to cast into the deep part of the pool was too much for my boot’s aging tread. I’ve just splashed, magnificently, inelegantly, completely, into neck deep water. A quick, gasping lunge towards the bank and I toss my rod into the willows, rip open my chest pack, and throw my phone onto the grass.
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Sam tries out his 3-wt. Redington Butterstick on the St. Vrain.
Photo by Jeffrey Stutsman
Nymphs of Doom
The spillway of the Lake Estes dam is choked with chunks of blue-white ice. Up the valley and over the roofs of Estes Park proper, the Continental Divide is knife-sharp against the cloudless Colorado sky: stark, jagged, and cloaked in snow.
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