Southern Tier Fly Fisher

Nanticoke Creek

April 28, 2024 / stflyfisher

On the mainland of America, the Wampanoags of Massasoit and King Philip had vanished, along with the Chesapeakes, the Chickahominys, and the Potomacs of the great Powhatan confederacy (only Pocahontas was remembered). Scattered or reduced to remnants were the Pequots, Montauks, Nanticokes. Machapungas, Catawbas, Cheraws, Miamis, Hurons, Eries, Mohawks, Senecas, and Mohegans. Their musical names remained forever fixed on the American land, but their bones were forgotten in a thousand burned villages or lost in forests fast disappearing before the axes of twenty million invaders. Already the once sweet-watered streams, most of which bore Indian names, were clouded with silt and the wastes of man; the very earth was being ravaged and squandered. To the Indians it seemed that these Europeans hated everything in nature – the living forests and their birds and beasts, the grassy glades, the water, the soil, and the air itself.

Dee Brown

Last month I enjoyed a two-day spate of good fly fishing for stocked brown trout in a small put-and-take fishery in northern Broome County. The weather was much un-like March with temps reaching the mid 60’s by late afternoon. With those afternoon highs came little black stoneflies, fluttering clumsily to lay eggs on the water, bouncing off the creek’s surface as if suspended by silly string from above.

I’ve fished Nanticoke Creek in early spring for years as a general tune-up for spring, summer, and fall fishing to follow, just as I have it’s bigger and better brother to its west, Owego Creek. It’s stocked in late March with one- and two-year-old browns, the 8″ to 10″ one-year olds far outnumbering the 12″ to 15″ two-year olds.

A typical 2-year-old brown from Nanticoke Creek

Nanticoke Creek runs from its headwaters near Nanticoke Lake some 22 meandering miles to where it empties into the Susquehanna River. It averages 20 feet in width and has a gravel and rubble bottom, though lower reaches can tend to silt up. It flows through forests of hardwoods and majestic hemlocks above the junction where the East Branch joins the Main Branch. Below this stretch, its environs are more typically abandoned farmland and residential areas.

Nanticoke Creek is stocked at three points along its 22-mile length. The lower stocked reach consists of half a mile of mostly featureless water from the confluence with the Susquehanna River upstream to the Route 26 bridge. This section is stocked annually with around 840 year-old brown trout and 90 two year-old brown trout. The second stocked reach runs from Pollard Hill Road upstream to Cross Road and is stocked with around 1,780 year-old and 190 two year-old brown trout. The last of the three stocked sections is the East Branch of Nanticoke Creek, from the confluence with Nanticoke Creek upstream roughly a half a mile. This reach is stocked with 170 year-old and 20 two year-old brown trout.

Nanticoke Creek is considered decent trout water above Maine, NY: the farther downstream one fishes, the warmer it gets once Spring matures. I’ve been told by conventional fishermen that the mouth at the Susquehanna can be a great place to catch large muskies, that apparently lay in wait for hatchery candy to foolishly foray into the river.

Looking upstream towards the junction pool on a snowy winter day.

J. Michael Kelly, in his excellent book, Trout Streams of Central New York, rates Nanticoke Creek a 3 out of 5 in terms of its trout fishing appeal, noting that the creek is fished hard in Spring by Broome County residents but adding that “it’s reassuring, in this age, to encounter a decent trout stream that has so few KEEP OUT signs.” Indeed, according to the DEC, there are 1.3 miles of public fishing rights (PFR) along Nanticoke Creek and three official PFR parking areas.

Looking downstream on the Nanticoke towards the Ames Road bridge. This stretch is characteristic of the upper Nanticoke, which is a pretty little stream, in places flanked by deep hemlock groves that no doubt preserves snowpack and casts shade, keeping its water temps more suitable for trout.

By late spring the creek is largely forgotten by anglers, the stockies having been hammered for weeks, their destiny often a well-buttered skillet. Given the annual stocking Nanticoke Creek gets, there is always the possibility of a holdover. I remember one such fish reported at a TU meeting at well over 18″, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

Despite is piscatorial mediocrity; Nanticoke Creek is still worthy of respect. It is named after the indigenous Nanticokes, who by fate, were the first native Americans to have contact with Captain John Smith in 1608. While exploring Chesapeake Bay, Smith and his crew had sailed up the Kuskarawaok River. The Kuskarawaoks, later known as the Nanticokes, cautiously watched Smith’s ship from the shore, climbing into the trees for a better look. When Smith approached the shore in a boat, the Nanticoke answered with arrows. Smith prudently anchored for the night in the middle of the river.

Several Nanticokes agreed to serve as guides for Smith to continue his exploration of the Kuskarawaok, now known as the Nanticoke River. Smith described the Nanticoke as “the best merchants of all.” In Algonquian, the common Indian language of Northeastern tribes, the word Nanticoke is translated from the original Nantaquak meaning the tidewater people or people of the tidewaters.

Over time, of course, the Powhatan Tribes faced conflicts with European settlers. Some of the Nanticoke, tired and disgusted, chose to accept an offer from the Six Nations of the Iroquois in New York, Pennsylvania, and Canada. Though they were once enemies, the Iroquois promised the Nanticoke both land and protection. Starting in 1744, some individual families left in dugout canoes and traveled north up the Susquehanna River, settling near Wyoming Pennsylvania and along the Juniata River while others migrated slightly north into New York, where they established a settlement in what became the town of Nanticoke.

Someday I hope to bring my grandson to Nanticoke Creek so that he may feel the tug of a feisty brown on a fly on the swing. There we’ll spend the better part of a day in the quiet of the woods, where I’ll tell him about the indigenous people who once walked these same paths, hunting, fishing, and harvesting, far from their tidewater home. And maybe, if we listen carefully to the wind song of the hemlocks, we’ll hear them speak for themselves about the great beauty and provision that is Mother Nature, and so worthy of a future much like they enjoyed.

Fluke in Chablis Sauce

April 20, 2024 / stflyfisher

I opened a favorite book and found the laminated recipe, titled Fluke in Chablis Sauce, handwritten in my mother’s perfect script. As with all things her, it was both beautifully positive, ending with Bon Appetit! Reading it brought me back to the day we followed it.

That day dawned bright pink around the edges of the horizon, and I was out fly-fishing Double Creek, a place where the tidal flood and ebb of Barnegat Bay etches deep channels in its soft shifting sands. I was fishing the inside of the dike, a man-made spit of land and a place of bayberry snags, sod banks, and with the west wind, horrendous swarms of biting greenhead flies.

An aerial view of Barnegat Bay. To the right is the inlet and at center pointing north (up) is the dike. To the left of the dike is Double Creek, the haunts of big fluke that hold below the channel edges, feeding up during summer.

Fluke, known as summer flounder in the south, are a favorite species of anglers there. They are a staple of summer fishing on Long Beach Island, NJ, a place of memories that still brings me back. Fluke enter the saltwater bays of the mid-Atlantic in early summer. They are drawn by the warming of the water and return to the home of their rearing with the turning of the season to summer. There they take up haunts, hiding in the bay bottom, perfectly camouflaged, ambushing prey. They are there for the plenty of the season, becoming larger and highly predatory as they grow into their 12 – 14 years on this good earth.

Some fluke caught party boat fishing – my nephew Jake in the middle and my father to the right.

These were the early days of my mother’s shining light dimming. She stood beside me as we followed the steps, adorning two large fluke fillets from my morning trip with the recipe’s contents, a work of art to be delightfully enjoyed and not forgotten. At this stage in her disease, my mother was still “with it” as one might say. You could forgive her repeating or forgetting things, but you could not forgive where it would go.

We worked together, my mother executing the small tasks I gave her with her usual precision, as she had once done the larger tasks of life, graduating high school valedictorian, marrying and bringing three children into this world, cooking, cleaning, editing papers, reviewing homework, running a sales office, and all else that makes a life.

We placed the dish in the oven, set at 400 degrees, and in 40 minutes, the baking was done. I retrieved and placed the platter at the center of the table, the dish still bubbling, the now-ivory fillets simmering. I then ladled the Chablis cream sauce over the fillets, thin slices of lemon atop them. Mom was seated and seemed well-pleased with the meal. Garden-fresh asparagus was served alongside the plated fluke, with a spring greens salad. We all toasted the meal with chilled martinis.

I’ll selfishly admit it was a delicious dinner. The fluke was velvety mild, the Chablis sauce like butter with a touch of fruity nose from the Chablis. We sat and quietly enjoyed the meal – my father characteristically silent as he inhaled large portions of it – meaning it was very good. My mother ate at her piece, eliciting compliments all the while but never truly cleaning her plate.

Years after she passed, my sister and I shared such a meal during a visit. “You know”, she said, “Mom never liked fish”. I was dumbfounded – never had I heard or thought such a thing. She always raved, even when I prepared the strong-flavored bluefish we’d catch through summer and fall. But that was Mom – never self-indulgent, ever selfless. Always the focus was on you.

We had more meals of the bounty of the sea in the following years as my mother’s candle dimmed, and they were all good, but unbeknownst to me still then, not to her liking.

Stephen Covey, esteemed author of “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” once wrote about the social-emotional connection that is the foundation of so much of life. One father he knew, sensing his son’s distance, wanted to more deeply connect with his young son, who was a baseball addict. This father decided that he and his son would attend a game in every city in which his son’s favorite team played across the country for a year, an obviously huge commitment in time and money. Upon hearing the plan, Covey commented to the father, “you must really like baseball to do such a thing”, to which the father replied. “No, I don’t like baseball, but I love my son.”

And so it was with my mother to the last of her days, that she loved me far beyond her own likes, favoring my own.

Three barbers

November 11, 2023 / stflyfisher

“From this day to the ending of the world, we in it shall be remembered. We, lucky few, we band of brothers. For he who today sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother.”

Henry the Fifth

The Doris Mae left the dock promptly at 7 that morning with a good mix of New Jersey’s and Pennsylvania’s best aboard. We shoved off with high hopes that big bluefish would be boiling in the chum slick.

The party boat passed Barnegat Inlet lighthouse close to starboard and her captain, Ron Eble, pointed the bow into the flood tide ripping through the channel. Eble throttled up Doris Mae’s triple turbocharged diesels to a roar, power you could feel through the deck. The horizon to the east was alight in a blaze of red, orange, and yellow. Fishermen huddled aft of the boat’s superstructure shielding themselves from the early morning chill, some smoking, some gazing seaward, others chatting enthusiastically about the fishing reports from earlier in the week.

I dressed in my slicker bottoms and boots. Fishing for blues when chumming is always a messy venture – there’s blood, bait and chum from bow to stern when the fishing is good, the mates ladling a a soupy mash of ground fish chunks and guts over the side and gaffing each hooked fish any way they can to haul them over the rail.

We cleared the inlet and steered northeast to the Mud Hole, a big depression in the seabed known to congregate fish. It would be a long ride out, but past reports buzzed that it was the place to be.

After dressing, I went back aft and came upon three men seated around the top of a big cooler where a game of dominoes was in play. They joked and laughed with each other as men are apt to do when playing board or card games. I approached and engaged the apparent senior of the three in conversation. He was wearing a dark blue ball cap, with “US Navy WWII Veteran” embroidered on it. Thanking him for his service, I asked in a joking way what he had in his “water bottle”, the color of the liquid being the rich brown of bourbon. The old greying veteran let out a deep belly laugh in response. After talking about his service, the conversation turned to my own. “You see” he said to his two veteran friends, “I knew he was an officer”… The men chuckled as if they knew too.

We all talked on as the dominoes game unfolded. Before me sat a Navy WWII veteran, an Army Korean War veteran, and a Marine Vietnam veteran. We joked about the services represented – Navy men always having a clean comfortable bunk and hot chow at sea, the Army being second rate to the Marines, the Marines being a part of the Department of the Navy – the good-natured banter carried through the day even while we fished. And with that I felt that I was one with them, a privilege not forgotten and greatly treasured for these three barbers represented three generations of the best of America from three wars – WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam – all African American and all working out of the same barbershop in downtown Philadelphia.

Veteran’s Day is a day to honor those who served, who heeded the call, voluntarily or involuntarily, and who did what our country asked them to do, no questions asked. Three barbers served the span of some 30 years of military duty, fought far from home in foreign lands, across vast seas and I had the honor to enjoy their company that day. I’ll remember that trip for the opportunity to meet these three who fought and served, witnessed the best and worst of mankind, and returned home and settled into the everyday oblivion that is America.

The fishing was good – we slaughtered them – the blues as thick as thieves in the chum slick. But it wasn’t the fishing that engraved the memory of those three veterans in my mind, heart and soul. While fishing has its own bonding experience, there is nothing like the military that forms connections lasting a lifetime. Veterans serve their country but fight for each other, and in so doing, become a band of brothers.

I’d like to believe that I left the Doris Mae that day, and the three barbers, a lucky man, and luckier still if I had the honor to be considered by them, a brother in arms.

Men, it’s been a long war, it’s been a tough war. You’ve fought bravely, proudly for your country. You’re a special group. You’ve found in one another a bond, that exists only in combat, among brothers. You’ve shared foxholes, held each other in dire moments. You’ve seen death and suffered together. I’m proud to have served with each and every one of you. You all deserve long and happy lives in peace.

General Officer speaking to his men in the movie, “Band of Brothers”

For Bill…

October 26, 2023 / stflyfisher

Any little bit of joy or happiness that we have here is but a taste of the eternal happiness we’re going to have in heaven. But in order to achieve that eternal life in heaven, we must go through the process that we have come to call death. God has given us life that we should live it fully, live it completely, live it happily. God chooses the minute for each death and uses various circumstances to achieve that,

Father Vincent R. Capodanno, LT, USNR

Awarded the Medal of Honor, Posthumously

The book of a well-known psychiatrist I once read starts by stating that one of the greatest universal truths is that life is difficult. And that in overcoming the difficult, we live more fully…

That thought lingered in my mind as I left the small city of Binghamton behind on an early morning, crossing over the Chenango River on Route 17, and then slowly climbing the foothills that serve as the western entrance to that old and wise mountain range known as the Catskills.

Driving eastward in my truck, I crossed the upper Susquehanna, a river I’ve cherished on early summer mornings, fly casting across its riffles and plumbing it’s deep pools for smallmouth bass. Climbing further, I forged on into the promised land, soon crossing the West Branch of the Delaware in Deposit – a cold-water gem of a river for trout fishermen.

On I went, deep in thought, soaking up the trouty goodness all around my route, reminiscing about past places such as Hale Eddy, Ball Eddy, Fish’s Eddy, where I’ve loved fishing the quiet morning hours for wild brown and rainbow trout. But this day I passed all of them by, paying tribute to my best friend Bill and the loss of his dear wife, Pamela.

Bill lost Pamela to lung cancer and in life’s sometimes cruel twist of irony, Pamela never smoked a day in her life. After two years waging war against this shit-awful disease, she finally succumbed, leaving my friend with questions I could sense he thought but never asked; first and foremost, why a good God would allow the love of his life to be taken at the age of 61.

Bill and Pamela in their “happy place”, the Thousand Islands…

It had been a busy work week for me – flying out to Asheville NC to visit a supplier for 3 days, arriving home late Wednesday, going to work Thursday to catch up, and then making the trip east to Plaineville, CT, to attend funeral services for Bill’s wife.

Bill, Pamela, and their great pup, Fern…

While away on that business trip. I read a book about Father Vincent Capodanno, a Catholic priest who had gone on to become a Navy Chaplain, serving in Viet Nam in 1966 with the Marines. Oddly enough, Father Capodanno went to high school with my parents and so there was a bit more than a usual connection here, especially given my mother’s deep Catholic faith. My parents knew him; “Oh, Vinnie?” my Dad said when I brought him up in conversation. “We worked after school together – always trying to talk me into going to church…”

Father Vincent Capodanno started his priesthood as a Maryknoll Missionary. After seminary, he served as a priest in a number of missions in Southeast Asia. He served to his best ability as a missionary, trying to convert locals to the calling of the Catholic Church and teaching English in local schools. But eventually, as the Viet Nam War heated up, Father Capodanno sensed a calling to serve God more completely and directly. As the United States increased its involvement and commitment, the need for chaplains for all service branches increased as well.

“Stay quiet marine. You will be ok. God is with us all this day.” — Father Vincent Capodanno’s last words, speaking to a wounded marine on a battlefield in Vietnam in 1967.

Everyone has their own views on life and death and whether a creator somehow orchestrates our tiny lives, doling out the good and bad times at His discretion. And it is our human weakness, in my opinion, that causes us to doubt that there might be a higher story, a higher purpose, and a higher plan, to our short lives on this good earth.

I still wonder at my advancing age – perhaps will always wonder – where our lives end up, why they are as they are, why some so loved, so precious, like Pamela, can be flicked off like a light switch, leaving their loved ones open-mouthed, teary-eyed, breathless, sick with loss. There is no explanation in human terms, but I think Father Capodanno was deeply in touch with that higher being some of us come to doubt, especially on such occasions when someone so loved is taken, as Pamela was taken from Bill, and so many others – her family, friends, even those she brushed against passing through this life, like myself. I met her only once, at Bill’s father’s own funeral, another good soul taken from us too soon.

Father Capodanno saw more than his fair share of death while serving the 5th Battalion 3rd Marines in Viet Nam. He always went with his Marines into missions where intelligence predicted the highest risk of enemy contact so he could tend to the wounded and give last rites to the dying. He handed out cigarettes, candy, asked for stateside supplies of all sorts of items that might make his marines just a little more comfortable as they faced the peril hidden in the jungles, on the red-dusty plains, and the high hills of VietNam. On his last day of life, he tended to the mortally wounded, said last rites, and shielded the wounded though he was not armed. Enemy strength that day was reported to be at least 5 to 1. And Father was one of 127 of the 500 in combat that paid the ultimate sacrifice.

.And so Bill, this is how I know God is somewhere out there, and how He reaches us in strange ways, ways we can’t fathom to understand while on this earth. Indistinct and different points of life circle about us in our lives and then come together at times with gut-wrenching impact and sorrow, leaving us with a bit more wonderment, and if we listen carefully, with a bit more wisdom. It does not make it any less difficult, but that’s how I reconcile your loss of Pamela who deserved a longer life, a good retirement, and lasting love with you.

For my mother never directly mentioned Father Vincent Capodanno to me, never said she knew him, went to school with him, but I discovered him after remembering her comments one day about a Marine from Staten Island who died in Viet Nam and I found him just after Pamela passed, in a random book I took on a business trip. And in my own searching and wondering what might be passing through your mind, heart and soul, I found some calm in all of this, some presence in his words. Father Capodanno knew my parents, gave last rites to many Marines on their last day on earth, including one who died – a medal of honor winner from just down the road from where I currently live – and died way too early like your beloved Pamela, and it all came to me on a plane flying just a bit closer to him, high up in heaven, on a business trip…

Remember, in the worst of times, like the days you spent with Pamela fighting for her life, that God is with us always, and that you will be OK. And believe in the words of Father Capodanno, that God is with us this day.

Thanks, Dad…

June 18, 2023 / stflyfisher

“A father is a man who expects his son to be as good a man as he meant to be”.
-Frank A. Clark

In a touching scene from my favorite movie, Forrest Gump, Forrest learns that his mother is sick and in characteristic fashion, runs home from his work as a shrimp fisherman to be with her. Sitting bedside, his mother tells him that she is dying. When Forrest asks why, she reassures the simple-minded Gump that death is just a part of life, something we are all destined to do. At the end of the scene, she poignantly adds, “I didn’t know it Forrest, but I was destined to be your Mama. I did the best I could…”

And so it is with fathers. Flawed as they often are, fathers show up to work, bring home the bacon, and love in their own quiet way. Fathers are that stern voice that makes children take notice, the very bedrock on which order in the family rests. They are like a feather of destiny, floating on a breeze, just doing the best job possible to land softly on a few great moments in life.

Summer fishing with my Dad and nephew Jake…

For me, those greatest of moments were when my Dad spent time with me and took me fishing, a sport in which he never participated on his own, but nonetheless made the time for because he loved me. He bought me gifts for fishing, took me on fishing trips, and most of all, gave me life and tucked into it a marvelous little gene that has always drawn me to water…

Fathers of yore often take a bad wrap for old-fashioned values, but I grow more fearful with every Father’s Day that these same values are being lost to us and have been diluted to the point that Father’s Day itself is on its own bad course with destiny.

Me and my boys – a favorite pic of all of us on a night fishing for blues…

I look at my own two sons, standing so close to the line that separates man and boy and hope I have given them what my Dad gave me; that sense that being a father is doing the best you can do with what you have, and hoping they can be as good a man as you meant to be…

Thanks, Dad…

He heard me.

May 29, 2023 / stflyfisher

And let us remember a final duty: to understand that these men made themselves immortal by dying for something immortal, that theirs is the best to be asked of any life — a sharing of the human heart, a sharing in the infinite. In giving themselves for others, they made themselves special, not just to us but to their God. “Greater love than this has no man than to lay down his life for his friends.” And because God is love, we know He was there with them when they died and that He is with them still. We know they live again, not just in our hearts but in His arms. And we know they’ve gone before to prepare a way for us. So, today we remember them in sorrow and in love. We say goodbye. And as we submit to the will of Him who made us, we pray together the words of scripture: “Lord, now let thy servants go in peace, Thy word has been fulfilled.”

An excerpt from President Ronald Reagen’s speech to the families of the USS Stark, May 22, 1987.

A recent comment on this blog came from someone I didn’t know. Its timing was prescient, appearing on a day of tremendous importance that I had forgotten in the fog of everyday living. I have written here before about connections using the metaphor of dropping a pebble in a vast body of water – a seemingly simple act that can nonetheless touch distant shores. John Donne’s poem, For Whom the Bell Tolls, tells us that we are all one, interconnected, and not islands of mankind, even in death. This theme of connection also applies to my life as a fly fisherman, for the very act of fly fishing is fundamentally based on connections – the knots we tie, the line we use, the casts we make, the flies we use, and ultimately the act of enticing a fish to strike.

So out of the blue I was reminded by a former sailor, named Dan, that I had missed the anniversary of the attack on the USS Stark in the Persian Gulf on May 17, 1987. I felt bad that I had to be reminded, but grateful to hear from a sailor who shared my own loss.

USS Stark FFG-31 heading out to sea while conducting training operations at US Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 1983. I was aboard her then…

It turns out Dan once worked for a Stark crewmember by the name of Bob Shippee, one of the 37 sailors who lost their lives as a result of the attack on the USS Stark. Dan’s email correspondence following his blog comment reinforced the importance of connection and celebrated the impact one life can have on another.

Bob Shippee, FTCS, USN. “No greater love..”

Dan was fresh out of Fire Control Systems “C” school in 1977, an E4 (3rd class petty officer) and was assigned to serve at the Sperry plant in Ronkonkoma NY. Sperry was the maker of the MK92 fire control system used on all Oliver Hazzard Perry guided missile frigates, like the USS Stark. At the plant, the Navy ran a full scale mock-up of an Oliver Hazzard Perry class combat system. The detachment used the mock-up to develop preventive maintenance procedures, exercise the system software, and train new Combat System crews prior to reporting for duty to their newly commissioned ships. In total, over 20 sailors and 2 officers were on hand at the Sperry unit, all of them having to be the best in the fleet in order to get such a plum but vitally important assignment.

Bob Shippee was Dan’s lead petty officer, and in Dan’s own words, “the kind of person who commanded instant respect.” Shippee was “confident without being arrogant, had superb technical knowledge, and could easily hold his own with engineers who integrated the system equipment.” He did more for Dan as a man than any of his friends. Dan credits Shippee for lessons he still uses in his career as an engineer, including the values of continuous learning, integrity, respect, hard work and duty.

According to Shippee’s obituary in the Watertown Daily Times, Shippee grew up into a smart kid who preferred to keep a low profile in school. He wrestled in high school, hunted and fished as many kids do in upstate New York, and worked in the afternoons after school at a local horse ranch. With the draft on in 1969, Shippee decided to sign up, partly out of patriotism, and partly because he could take his pick of service. His father suggested the Navy. Although Shippee signed up at a time when the draft was still in force, he did not have to join the service. A boyhood operation had left him with only 10 percent of his hearing in one ear, but recruiters believed he was faking it. When tests proved otherwise, they told him he could obtain a deferment. Shippee refused and his stance of take it or leave it must have impressed the recruiters because the Navy took him on anyhow. And this would end up being one of life’s greatest blessings for my new friend, Dan.

FTCS – the rate and rank Shippee attained…

In reverence for his former shipmate, Dan finds a quiet spot alone, every Memorial Day. There he thinks about the loss of his friend, Bob Shippee, and all the others throughout history who have given their lives for their country. I do much the same. As in past years, I return to Balls Eddy every Memorial Day. On one such Memorial Day, soon after hearing from Dan, the West Branch of the Delaware ran clear and cold, the birds were in full song, mayflies and caddis fluttered about in the spring air, and eagles soared effortlessly against bluebird skies. I arrived before 8 am, rigged up, put on my waders, and after a walk and wade downriver, was soon at the head of a long run I love to fish. The head of the run has fast water where the water bubbles and foams white. Behind the large rocks at the head of the run are eddies and good holding water for trout and it’s there I like to fish a nymph, dead drift.

For the first hour of the morning’s fishing, I chose flies that matched what was hatching. Caddis rode the wind upriver, but my imitations were not getting any interest. 9 o’clock came around and I knew I would soon hear three volleys of the gun salute made by a Marine Color Guard at the cemetery.

At 9:05 AM I heard the shots, the salute to the fallen, and their echo off the surrounding verdant hills. I paused, retrieved my flies, and got very quiet. I said a prayer for all of the fallen heroes of the Stark with whom I served; DeAngelis, Kiser, Foster, but I added one more name this time – that of Bob Shippee – because I now knew him through Dan. The rush of the river sang aloud and seemed to lift my prayers skyward. And I wondered if he heard me.

Then I changed out my fly for a March Brown soft hackle and cast upstream into the fast water. I watched my indicator, kept slack out of my line, and followed it as it passed in front of me. On that first drift my indicator shot like a rocket upstream. I lifted my rod on instinct and instantly felt that good spongy heaviness of a large trout. I saw the flash of the fish as it fought, slowly and carefully played it out of the fast water, yielding to its powerful runs, then gaining line, and finally brought it to the net. I removed the fly and cradled a beautiful brown trout gently and reverently in my hands, set it down for a quick picture and then released it. The trout swam off and vanished back into the river. And I knew then that Bob Shippee had heard me…

Eighteen Mile Creek

May 9, 2023 / stflyfisher

This spring I had the pleasure of fly fishing with guide, Daniel Scheda. I first booked Daniel for a wade trip on a Lake Ontario tributary last Fall. During that terrific trip, Daniel spoke passionately about the incredible smallmouth bass fishing that could be had during the pre-spawn bite on new-to-me Eighteen Mile Creek.

Eighteen Mile Creek is a tributary to Lake Erie, located just south of Hamburg, NY. It’s named appropriately after its run of roughly eighteen miles from its source in the town of Concord, flowing north and then west before entering Lake Erie at the community of Highland-on-the-Lake in the town of Evans. It has one major tributary, the South Branch Eighteen Mile Creek, which joins the main branch within Eighteen Mile Creek Park. The creek drains a 120-square-mile watershed.

Given its proximity to Buffalo and its suburbs, Eighteen Mile Creek can get significant fishing pressure, according to Daniel. The trib’s spring and fall runs of steelhead are the most noteworthy draw, but as we prepared for this trip, Daniel warned me we’d want to start before sunrise to get a jump on the fishermen drawn to its spawning run of smallmouth bass. It would turn out that his advice was well-founded.

I met Daniel just before sunrise at a public access to Eighteen Mile Creek, referred to as “18 Mile Creek – Lake” on google maps. The access has adequate parking space and lies just off Old Lake Shore Road. After gearing up, we initially fished a deep pool under the Old Lake Shore Road bridge. Daniel had me start the day fishing an indicator rig and a marabou jig. We would fish two color variations of this jig off and on throughout the day – black and white being his favorite colors – but Daniel will also fish other colors such as olive, brown, and even chartreuse. What intrigued me most about this fishing technique was the subtlety of the “takes” one experiences. I easily missed at least a dozen fish during my initial attempts to fish the jig with success. Even brief hesitation or a hair’s touch of the indicator was a missed bass, and these fish were consistently hooked in the top of the mouth. According to Daniel, the bass come up, mouth the jig, and reject it in the blink of an eye, so quick hooksets are critical, and “free” as he reiterated throughout that great day on the water.

The early morning was spent fishing from the bridge access down to the lake, and even fishing the lake itself. This was about a half-mile wade and a fairly easy one at that. This section of the river is generally wide and shallow, with deeper cuts, especially where the river runs up against the shale shoulders of the creek banks.

Looking downriver to Lake Erie from the Old Lake Shore Road bridge.

As we waded downstream, Daniel changed to a streamer set-up, using a 7 weight 9-foot fly rod rigged with a floating WF7 line. The leader was tapered to 2X and 7.5′ in length. Daniel clips the last 18″ of the leader and ties on a micro-swivel with 18″ of 8 to 12 lb fluorocarbon tippet tied to the swivel. He goes with the 8 lb tippet if the water is really clear but generally fishes 12 lb., as the bass are usually not at all line shy.

Daniel’s streamer of choice is a pattern he learned about while fishing Michigan rivers for smallmouth: Schultz’s Swingin’ D…

Outfitter and guide, Mike Schultz, created the Swinging D as a swim fly with built-in wounded baitfish motion. The fly features tandem hooks, the front being as large as a 2/0, with the rear stinger hook at a size 2 or smaller. It also uses a half cone-shaped buoyant head that gives the fly diving motion. The fly is typically fished with a sinking or intermediate line to pull it down in the water column.

Daniel’s Swingin’ D was a little different in that the head was not buoyant. Daniel made it using a 3D printer out of a dense plastic that allows the fly to sink, primarily because the relatively shallow nature of 18 Mile Creek would not allow the use of a sink-tip line.

The bass had a hard time resisting the side-to-side action of the Swingin’ D, including how it pauses and suspends between strips. The fly Daniel had me use was the white version, with plenty of flash. It was highly visible in the relatively clear water of Eighteen Mile Creek and watching the eats of the bass was exhilarating to say the least.

We fished the streamer down Eighteen Mile Creek to the lake. One area in particular, where the creek hooks northeast, featured a deeper cut along the bank and a long submerged log. We caught many bass there – the bass seemed to love having the structure of the log for cover – no doubt due to the presence of bald eagles and osprey along the creek and lakefront.

We also fished the lake itself at the mouth of Eighteen Mile Creek in the shadow of the shale bluffs looking out over the lake. This was much deeper water but nonetheless productive.

The lakefront of Lake Erie is shown here looking southwest. Note the tall shale bluffs. The creek is seen in the background to the right in this picture.

After wading and hiking back to the car, we drove upriver to another DEC access at the end of Basswood Drive. There is a nice parking area here and like our first stop, a good number of cars and trucks filled it. We hiked down a long trail into the creek gorge and arrived at a very nice hole just upstream of a right-angle bend in the creek. This section had several anglers fishing it for obvious reasons as it was excellent holding water, so we crossed the creek and moved upriver to a place where a massive stone train trestle crossed the creek gorge. This was another fine stretch of water characterized by deep shadowy cuts in the river bedrock.

Daniel Scheda is seen here at the train trestle pool upstream from the Basswood access. This stretch featured deep cuts in the bedrock of the creek and good holding water for smallmouth bass.

Two fly anglers had been working this stretch from the other side without luck and took some time to sit and watch Daniel and I as we worked the cut with the marabou jig.

We moved again after landing a fair number of bass, climbing back up the long trail out of the gorge to the access where we rested and took a lunch break. Thick Wegmans subs with all the trimmings, chips, cookies and water made for a great lunch.

The weather had been perfect for smallmouth fishing, especially given the very clear water conditions. Smallmouth bass are light-shy, and for good reason. Eagles, osprey, kingfishers, and herons all have incredible eyesight. It had been overcast all morning but now the cloudy skies were hinting at rain.

Our last stop was a spot Daniel referred to as “the cemetery.” We parked along an old cemetery perched on high ground that overlooked the creek gorge. A long footpath led us down the gorge to the creek. From there we fished upstream with the streamer and indicator rig, picking away at the bass in the many runs and pools of that section of the creek.

We headed back to the car just in time with the rain starting. While I was very pleased with the fishing, Daniel said the bite had been better the prior week. He had noticed on a number of occasions that the bass were not as aggressive in taking the fly, likely signaling that the spawn was nearing. Indeed, we did see some bass on beds and of course avoided them. Regardless, I would classify it as a great day with over 30 bass to hand. The quality of the fish was excellent, with size ranging from 14″ to over 18″.

A fine bass caught under the tutelage of Daniel Scheda, a terrific fly fishing guide.

Eighteen Mile Creek is one of many Great Lakes tributaries that get runs of spawning smallmouth bass in the spring. Like the pre-spawn bite in our local warmwater rivers, timing is everything for this bite, so these more distant destinations require a bit of luck to time it right or a local who can give one a call when the fishing is on. And while our local Southern Tier rivers can provide some very large bass for the taking, the tribs like Eighteen Mile offer a shot at some truly epic lake run fish, measured more in pounds than inches.

The distance to Eighteen Mile Creek is roughly 3 hours from Vestal/Endicott/Binghamton, so not ideal for a day trip but not impossible either. It would be a better overnight trip, arriving in the evening to get a jump on a very early start the next morning. If you go, be armed with a 10 foot 6 or 7 weight for indicator nymphing, and a 9 foot 7 or 8 weight for streamer fishing. While flows when I fished were fairly tame, boots with felt and cleats are recommended, as well as a wading staff to keep safe especially when you are wading across bedrock.

I’ll add that Daniel Scheda is a fantastic guide who knows the tributary waters of Western NY extremely well, along with the fishing along Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. He is easy to fish with and extremely knowledgeable. My two trips with him were outstanding. Daniel also has a great YouTube channel featuring videos of his fly fishing trips as well as fly tying of his favorite patterns. It’s well worth a look!

Stockies

April 30, 2023 / stflyfisher

The abundant and willing sunfish might well be the gateway species for almost all fishermen, but one could argue that stocked trout – “stockies” – hold that honor for the fly fisher. Just the thought of them ushers in memories of chilly mornings and swollen creeks colored up blue green with snow melt, and perhaps too, the aroma of bacon, eggs, and coffee before heading astream.

So many moons ago I shivered before flowing waters on the early morning eve of opening day, huddled under a coat too big for my teenish frame and in baggy waders, patch worn. At the crack of sunrise, I tossed a weighted nymph upstream and followed it with my rod tip as an older gentleman, a friend of my parents, suggested. He was upstream of me and watched me between his own casts, correcting me in an encouraging way. I endured his success, as he caught one stocked brown after another, while my own drifts carried untouched. But finally, on the verge of giving up in frustration, a 12″ brown’s take jolted my fly rod and clinched my love for these novitiates of the trout world…

I grew up from there, as most of us flyfishers do when we get serious about this sport. Once one fishes fabled waters and ties into bigger and wily wild fish, stockies fade away for some fly fishers, the looked down upon sand-lot players in the shadow of the big leagues. But not so much I, and I suspect a few others as well. Stockies are mostly pursued by spin anglers armed with panther martins, phoebes, salted minnows or worms, but dotted among these anglers will wade the occasional fly fisher, immersed in a veil of memories of long-gone opening days.

I’ve been driving the same hour-long commute to work for some 12 years now and while most would consider it a tiring slog, it’s made brighter in that a good portion of it takes me aside a pretty little flow that snakes its way on a journey south to the Susquehanna River from its marshy headwaters far north. It’s there all year for me, but in spring, it sings a siren’s song, beckoning me to fish. This spring was no different and knowing it would soon be stocked, I spent the part of a day pulling my gear together to have on hand in my truck when Mother Nature was in a good mood. That day came one weekday afternoon when the creek levels had mellowed. The skies were partly cloudy, the sun peeking out here and there enough to warm the afternoon into the low 50’s, though snow was still clinging to the brown earth. I snuck out of work a little earlier than normal that day like a school kid cutting class and soon arrived at this pretty little creek. To my delight, it was void of any fishermen.

I rigged up not my finer custom 4 weight with its dark green glossy blank and bright hardware, but my St Croix 7.5-foot 4/5 weight. This sturdy little 2 piece has always been perfect for plying stocked waters – a bit worn from use, but no worse from wear, the once-gleaming finish of its dark blue blank and wraps a dull blue, the Fenwick-style grip yellowed and pock-marked from years of use.

There was a jump in my step as I left the truck and followed a twisted path creek-side. The creek ran to the banks, still with the tinge of verdant green of snowmelt. The sun lit the water enough that little black stoneflies were about, flying, if you could call it that, and dappling the water with their clumsy flutter and just occasionally prompting a splashy rise.

I chose a streamer for my fly – a picket pin up-front and a white marabou streamer running tail-end Charlie. I pinched a small shot ahead of the lead fly and pitched the rig across and upstream, mending as it passed, giving the flies short crisp strips as they swung across and below me.

Stepping and swinging down the head of the run, I picked up a bunch of 1 year olds, striking and battling with the vigor all brown trout bring to the fore. And then, casting into a deeper roiled run, I felt a better take. The brown writhed snake-like in the depths, flashing a bit of butter brown, then dug down into the current putting a pretty bend in my 4-weight rod. I landed it and admired it, and continued on, collecting a few more of these two-year olds, amidst a bevy of their younger, slighter brothers, too numerous to count.

Stockies beckon us out in the uncertainty that is Upstate NY spring weather, well before softer May late mornings lure us astream. They put some urgency behind combing through our gear, long forgotten in winter’s doldrums. They hasten us to open fly boxes and get to the tying vise. They force the examination of our 3 and 4 weight rods and reels, our boots, waders and all other manner of the gear we pack, and usually this surfaces at least one issue needing attention.

Figure how many hours you work, attend to family, home, and life’s basics – sleeping, eating, exercising – and stockies prove a bargain in the world of fly fishing. We’re not talking a lot of prep – simple rigging, typically just a floating line and maybe an old leader that can get one more use with a bit more tippet. The put and take creeks are abundant too, and these days the added bonus is that us “artificial lures, catch and release only” fishermen can get out to a bit more solitude before the crowds appear on the traditional opening day.

Some of these small, stocked waters carry the lure of an occasional holdover, smart enough to evade the previous spring’s onslaught. One cold March morning I happily recall a wet fly I swept down into the dark depths of an undercut tree and the solid stop of the fly. My hookset was poorly timed, but good enough to light the darkness of the undercut with the flash of a bigger trout than this creek had ever produced. Short-lived though that hook-up was, it seemed a good way to end a nice morning of numerous 1- and 2-year-olds, brightly colored, ragged-finned, and ever ready to play and a perfect transition to warmer days and “better” trout.

Early Season Bronze

April 28, 2023 / stflyfisher

“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”

Frank Lloyd Wright

It’s early April and it’s about this time every year when you gird your loins for early season bronze. The weather is still typical of spring in upstate NY – cold days interspersed with near summerlike ones, rain showers, spitting snow and just about everything in between. The hills come alive with the newness of pea-green spring leaves. Dogwood and redbud dot nature’s canvas with white and pink. Occasionally you’ll hear a gobbler looking for love and if you’re lucky enough to be fishing on a river with a tall white pine, you just might witness an eagle on the nest, its spouse roosted nearby.

But you’re always cautiously optimistic. The rivers are dropping and clearing of the blue-green of snow melt. Their feeders, the little fingers that start high in the surrounding hills are no longer gushing. You find yourself checking the USGS gauges, looking ahead at the 10-day forecast, and stopping riverside to get a read on water temperatures, anxiously awaiting spring’s turn.

Those days leading up to early season bronze are always too slow in coming and then too quick to arrive. The spring of winter departing is spent chasing stockies or steelhead and shaking the casting rust free. But all that time you’re waiting for that window to appear. Like the eyebrow windows of old houses, they are there but barely windows at all.

You’ve already geared up. The tackle, vest, waders, wading staff and net are ready and waiting in the truck for windows of opportunity are never convenient; they taunt and tease in their coming and going, and so when one finally arrives, you’ll make up any excuse to be late to work so you can be on the water well before the sun pokes its head out from behind the hills.

You’ll pull up to the river in the truck and 4 wheel it across a cornfield just spread with manure. The river on these spring days is guarded by mostly barren trees, save the conifers, and it calls to you in the stillness of the morning. Your waders and vest are on in no time and you’re soon stringing up an 8 weight with an intermediate sink tip line and a relatively short leader. You pick out a big wooly bugger that fished the fall bite well. It’s long with a marabou tail that doesn’t meet the standard for Fly Tyer magazine, but does it ever dance in the water. You remember Lefty’s words as you tie it on – something like “why feed them appetizers when what they really want is steak.”

You make the short hike through the riverbank woods beyond the cornfield. Now it’s pretty easy but once summer comes this place will be a tangle of briars, Japanese knotweed, and swarms of mosquitos. Breaking into a clearing, you look down on a shallow bay where a small river braid rejoins the river. There’s no direct current here, just a backwater that’s silted a bit over a gravel to rocky bottom. You gaze into it in the half-light of the dawn, and you focus on a few large dark spots, the size of big dinner plates, on the bottom. On one, is a bass, and a sure sign that the pre-spawn bite is on.

This spot has always been good to you. When you fish it right the fishing can be “stupid good” as they say. Every bass you catch is a good one, meaning 16″ plus with some nudging over the 20″ trophy mark. But length doesn’t do these big female bass justice – they are heavy with eggs, their bellies broad, bloated, and deep. And they are on the feed to carry them through the coming rigors of the spawn.

You quietly slip into the stillwater and do your best to avoid the beds. Across the bay is a high bank and narrow peninsula shouldering the heavy current of the main river stem, built up over years of high-water events. Below the tip of the peninsula is a tongue of fine gravel over which the river runs clean and fast. To either side the river deepens. You wade along the spine of this gravel tongue, casting up and across river and letting your big streamer swing. You’ll swim the streamer with intermittent short strips, letting it pause at times, and continue it back to you. And you’ll do this thoroughly like a well-rehearsed dance as you cast and step downriver. It’s a favorite rhythm you fish to.

Under that log was a big spawning bed with a rather large male on it, perfectly positioned for good overhead cover and well camouflaged.

The mornings are always colder than you’ve planned for. It seemed warmer when you stepped out to start the truck in the dark at home high up in the hills. Now in the river valley, butt-deep in the spring cool of the river, your hands wet from casting and stripping, you’re shivering. The sun is still hiding behind the hills to the east but the promise of it warms you.

Wading downriver and casting, you’re just above a depression in the river bottom and in year’s past, that’s where you’ve always picked up a few big females. You’ve reasoned it’s a good place for them to hold as they stage to move up on the nests the smaller males have dug. Swinging the big bugger through that area rewards you with a solid take, heavy spongey weight, head shakes, and strong surges as the bass fights. You fight the fish with your rod tip low to the water to keep this bass from jumping but it still makes some big boils in the river. You slowly work it towards shore and this one has plenty of fight as smallmouth bass always do.

You finally land her, stepping back to admire her laid out in the shallows, bankside. The barring on this girl is heavy – a pattern that reminds you of a jaguar. The brown and golden hues are near-perfect camouflage with which evolution has adorned her, and she’ll need it as she does her thing in the shallows soon enough. Her gut is distended with eggs, the progeny of generations to come.

The hook slips out easily and you lip her and carefully draw her out through the bank water to where there’s current. Kneeling down, you hold her there, letting the river flush her bright red gills with oxygen. She’s kicking in seconds, ready to go, shaking her head back and forth against the hold of your thumb. Then you release her and watch her melt into the river.

Years ago you might have stayed and fished this stretch for hours, picking up more bass and feeling the accomplished fly fisherman for doing it. But in later years, you’ll limit yourself to just a few. With each coming year it’s less about the fishing and more about the immersion in nature.

And so, you leave the river early, hiking back through the woods to the truck, thanking nature that you took part in such a spectacle for yet another year in your life. It’s not every year mother nature grants you this gift – the vicissitudes of early spring weather and river conditions being what they are, but each year that she does is truly a sacred gift. You pinch yourself to have the privilege to be a part of it and to be able to remove from the day having left as little a footprint as possible, the only evidence of your fishing being the grin on your face and a thumb marked with lip rash.

The Grinch that gave back Christmas

December 22, 2022 / stflyfisher

I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses.
Taylor Caldwell

Jack Hoffen arrived at the river access parking lot in the dark of early morning, rigged up and donned his waders and heavy outer clothing, and then hiked a half mile through thigh-deep snow. Once riverside, he looked down-stream in the faint light of dawn and took solace in the view. The silver lining in the dark cloud that followed him that morning was that he was the only angler on his favorite Great Lakes tributary.

It felt good to be fishing, especially without the typical crowds, but most of all because fishing always lightened his emotional load. During his most trying times he had made a point of going fishing despite the weather or conditions, as he knew he would end the day with a fresh perspective on a problem or at least with the will to face it on his feet. Today, especially, he needed to get away from his troubles, for it was Christmas Day.

The morning dawned bright with a clear sky and the sun gave Jack some relief from the bitter cold. But as morning turned to afternoon, snow squalls swept in and darkened the sky, coating the ground with yet another layer of lake-borne snow. Fringed in the white of the woods, the river ran quietly by, its sounds deadened to a soft murmur.

Jack had fished a broad riffle and deep run all morning and early afternoon without as much as a touch from a fish and decided to make a move to a choke point upriver where big boulders had been placed to protect a high bank from erosion. He watched the swirling waters of the eddy that the boulders formed and thought how similar his emotions had been lately. The spot had been good to him in the past but now, absent anglers, he could fish it more effectively than he ever had. None of the egg patterns he used earlier that day had worked and it was bothering him. He had adjusted leader length, weight, tippet size, and changed later to an indicator set-up with no luck. Even the Salmon River Gift, a favorite pattern for killing the skunk, was not drawing strikes. It was as if the steelhead and brown trout had taken the holiday off.

Jack opened his sling pack, searching for answers. Digging deep into his bag, he pulled out a box of woolly buggers. He had not opened the box since the spring when black sparkle buggers had been the ticket for dropback steelhead. The woolly buggers were arranged in tight, orderly rows in the box, much like the sardines he had wolfed down for lunch. He grew sad thinking about the spring of the year and its excellent dropback fishing and how a great day on the river had ended so badly. He remembered returning home that evening and finding the note. He grew sadder still thinking about where his life had taken him: a cold tin of sardines on a lonely river on Christmas Day.

Emotions welled up while Jack looked at the box. Reality bit as hard as the tug of a steelhead taking a fly on the swing. His eyes clouded up with tears, several of which dropped into the box and onto the flies in their neat rows. And that is when Jack noticed a different color bugger emerge that had, until then, lay hidden by its black, brown and olive box-mates. Pulling the fly out, he recognized it as a pattern a guide had him fish on the Bighorn River many years ago, in happier times. The pattern was called “The Grinch”, and for good reason: it was dressed in glorious Christmas colors; a red and green sparkle chenille body, red wire counter-wrap, and an olive marabou tail accented with red flash. Maybe, he thought, this pattern was different enough to rouse a strike. Darkness was approaching as he tied on this last hope of a fly. He decided to fish it dead drift off an indicator, letting it swing as it tailed out downstream.

Jack lobbed the rig up above the river chute and high-sticked it, watching the white indicator as it bobbed down the fast water of the chute and into the run below. Once it had swung out, he let it hang briefly in the current and repeated the process like any good steelheader would do. After a dozen drag-free drifts, he changed his cast so the rig would drift closer to the large boulder that formed the choke point in the river. The indicator rode the heavy water, then shot underwater as it ran along the seam the eddy formed off the boulder. Jack immediately swept-set the take and felt the heavy sponginess of a good fish. It was all he could do to recover the slack caused by the fish as it immediately reversed course and rocketed down the river. At last, the line came tight, and the drag brought the fight to the fore. A lengthy battle ensued up and down the pool.

Jack beached the fish on the smooth gravel at the tail of the pool. The buck steelhead laid there looking almost as dark as the water, with the Grinch prominently adorning the crook of its jaw. He removed the fly, briefly admired the fish, and then held the big steelhead in the current to revive it. Slowly its strength came back and then it was gone, back to its icy black world.

Day’s end neared: the sun dropped behind the hills to the west and Jack began to think about the long hike ahead of him through the deep snow of the woods. He wished he had brought his snowshoes. Before leaving the river, in a moment of charity that belied his troubles, Jack clipped the Grinch off and left it hanging from a small tree, near the pool tail-out, much like a Christmas ornament. ‘The Grinch may have stolen Christmas, but this Grinch gave it back’, he thought to himself. Perhaps some lonely, discouraged angler, like himself, would discover it. And maybe too, it would do more than catch a steelhead on an otherwise luckless day, as it had for him.

Jack hiked back to his truck in much deeper snow now, and he labored against it, breathing heavily as he lifted his legs high to move forward with each step. The sky had cleared again, and the wind had dropped. He could see the stars overhead, bright pinpricks that winked at him amidst an inky black canopy. The woods were beautifully silent and still.

Jack thought about the steelhead and the fly that saved his day. The fly reminded him of characters of Christmas stories whose lives – sad, destitute or seemingly doomed – had been saved: the Grinch’s heart had grown three sizes larger, Ebeneezer Scrooge had changed to keep Christmas better than any man alive, and George Bailey discovered that one who had friends had no troubles to fear in life. Jack could not be sure his wife would ever forgive him or even return to him, nor could he bet that his children would ever open their hearts to him again. But for the first time in a long time, Jack Hoffen looked forward to the future, as dim as it might be. Hope, ultimately, had finally come to him in the form of a fly. He had a lot of Grinches to tie before this Christmas day ended.

Nanticoke Creek

Fluke in Chablis Sauce

Three barbers

For Bill…

Thanks, Dad…

He heard me.

Eighteen Mile Creek

Stockies

Early Season Bronze

The Grinch that gave back Christmas

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