Archive for the 'we're not worthy' Category
Purity.
Posted in we're not worthy, Why do we make this so complicated?, no, Just plain wrong, Babywipe Nation, A Retort, Utterly Ridiculous, Holy Ghey!, You Won't Find This Shit On The Fly Fishing Rabbi, Fodder, Absolute Horseshit, In Depth Beaver Analysis, Stuffing Removal on June 29th, 2010 by Smithhammer“I believe it is the purest form of fly-fishing.”
- Daniel Galhardo, Tenkara USA
You know, Danny, I really don’t care how other people fish. Honestly, as long as you’re not raping the resource, do whatever you want. But can you spare us the sanctimonious bullshit about how, just because you don’t have a reel, you’re somehow doing something that’s more “pure” than the rest of us?
But let’s take your logic forward - if ditching my reel makes me “more pure,” then ditching all of my tackle would mean a full state of never-ending satori, right?
I give you His Venerable Noodleness, the Dalai Jerry Wayne:
(Photo by Pete McDonald)
An Utter Loss For Words
Posted in Holy Crap!, stands on its own, Tastes Like Chicken, we're not worthy, gotta be a place for this, Utterly Ridiculous, Great White Hunter on April 10th, 2010 by Smithhammer“Just as I started going over the next wave I saw something jump just off to the side of me, and sort of had to clench me bum cheeks for a few seconds and then I looked at it again and it was a dolphin comin’ up outta the water. Apparently there’s supposed to be no sharks where there’s dolphins but we soon proved that myff wrong…”
Step into the New
Posted in strange water, arriving in style, we're not worthy, Spey, Gone fishin' on February 19th, 2010 by G_SmoltTo the winter steelheader, stepping in to new water is a high test of faith. On home waters, after becoming intimate with the textures and subtleties of your favorite grease and learning which rocks don’t like being stepped on, you can play the game with brazen ease. After a few years of deconstruction, moonlight chanting, and the occasional impromptu grab-dance, you get a feel for what’s going on beneath the mirror and can adjust your game accordingly.
Stepping into the strange requires a certain humility, a deference to the river and her bed. Your choice of fly isn’t based upon any understanding of the current fashion trends in this flow, but more on a hazy, atavistic reckoning, a gauging of the new environment you are in. Tentative steps are taken on unfamiliar rocks, and you begin to cast clumsily, almost apologetically. Pushing you around, the current reminds you that it will tell you how things are going to be here, thank you very much.
But the fumbling casts soon become fluent questions, asked of newly-sighted seams and interesting tidbits in the jumbled flow. The questions develop into a halting conversation, and the flow of the game takes on a tenor of familiarity. As confidence builds, the questions become deeper, trying to see past the coquettish veneer that the river wears.
With confidence comes the exposition of faith, a scattershot cobbling of elements from the practical and the supernatural, influenced by equal parts logic and campfire smoke, the firm belief that the Daughter of Fog is watching, and the hope that she rewards her acolytes with the opportunity to dance with one of her charges.
Most likely, your faith will get you nowhere. You emerge from the end of the run, thinking about questions you could have asked but didn’t, wondering if there was something else you could have said, maybe something that the river coyly whispered that you didn’t quite pick up on. These things will gnaw at you, make you question your decision to try new water.
Occasionally, randomly, Creek Woman empties her basket for you, and the faith is validated.
Thee typer is for sale… maybe we could all pitch in…
Posted in Craft, don't you ever wash that thing?, we're not worthy, something for the smart kids, Accoutrements Collectibles And Antiquities, Books, Eat This Jim Harrison on December 1st, 2009 by thee
Cormac McCarthy’s Olivetti typer is going up for auction, so sayeth the NYTimes. They’re expecting to fetch 20K for the thing, which means we’d only have to sell 150,000 stickers… or something. Anyway, here’s the supa sweet money quote:
Glenn Horowitz, a rare-book dealer who is handling the auction for Mr. McCarthy, said: “When I grasped that some of the most complex, almost otherworldly fiction of the postwar era was composed on such a simple, functional, frail-looking machine, it conferred a sort of talismanic quality to Cormac’s typewriter. It’s as if Mount Rushmore was carved with a Swiss Army knife.”
yes, godammit, there will be plenty more hockey posts in the next few weeks…
Posted in Night Ops, fuck you you fucking fucks, thee's stanley cup minute, open thread motherfuckers!, not even remotely related to fly fishing, Lucky Hat, something for the smart kids, see, i am not fucking kidding, no, we're not worthy, spicy polish!, stuff fly fishermen love, Dirty Hippies, Near Death In Real Life, You Won't Find This Shit On The Fly Fishing Rabbi, Sunrises And Sunsets, Lazy Ass YouTube Posting, Us vs. Them, Revelry, Flotsam, Old Timey As Hayul, whein thee issues yet another morsel of profundity, Of Marginal Importance, Laser Awesomnality on May 16th, 2009 by theethis seems to be in super reduced ultra drunk-o-vision, but it still pretty cool…
and…
And this is how it happens…
Posted in Books, Flotsam, art lessons, we're not worthy, Utterly Ridiculous, In Depth Beaver Analysis, You Won't Find This Shit On The Fly Fishing Rabbi, gotta be a place for this, Absolute Horseshit, Stuffing Removal on May 1st, 2009 by SmithhammerAhhh, the life of a successful flyfishingphotojournalist, on the road and at the peak of his game. Fans awaiting you in every new town, everyone wants to take you fishing, pick up your bar tab, hotties literally throwing themselves at your highly-literate feet…and, well, occasionally you wake up in a pink room full of stuffed animals wondering how you got there. But that’s just the way life on the literary edge is lived, man, and most will only dream of it.
But then sometimes, on those rare occasions, a book tour takes on a twisted life of its own, making an abrupt left at an unmarked dirt road in the middle of that metaphorical cornfield that stretches to the horizon, hoping you’re going the right way, as shadows lengthen and darkness descends. It enters another, slightly creepy dimension, maybe even a little bit mystical, in that way that makes you look over your shoulder and your short and curlies stand on end. Just as you’ve begun to struggle with your meteoric rise into that rarified air reserved for fly fishing’s elite superstars, still trying desperately to maintain an air of humility (that your friends deny you ever truly had), the fates throw you a curve ball designed to test the very core of your very human-ness, temping you into believing not only in your own immortality, but your downright unquestionable divinity.
We’re talking, of course, about a devoted fan discovering your likeness on a common, everyday food item:
Gaper, dear brother, wherever you are on that double-line destiny with the next hamlet of adoring fans, we beg you to maintain some sense of healthy skepticism and watch your back. And check in a little more frequently, cuz we’ve got a weird feeling about this. At least until the lab results are back…
“The song of the river ends not at her banks but in the hearts of those that have loved her.”
Posted in we're not worthy, art lessons, stuff fly fishermen love, BWTF Luxury Tours, Laser Awesomnality on April 2nd, 2009 by thee
“No sense taking anybody’s word for it; we’ll see for ourselves.”
Posted in dogs, Know from where your dinner comes, we're not worthy, The Scattergun Chronicles, fill that freezer, BWTF Seal Of Approval, hook & effin bullet, Eat This Jim Harrison on March 29th, 2009 by SmithhammerA fine new essay in WSJ:
Tom McGuane on the charms of guns, dogs, shells and supper.
The author on the trail with Daisy, left, and Abby
(Photo - Andrew Geiger for The Wall Street Journal)