It’s not every day I capture the blame for war, pestilence and earthquakes (I’m not a presidential candidate after all), but now I’m taking heat from flyfishmagazine for hurricane winds and forest fires:

Famed blogging angler Tom Chandler of the Trout Underground is planning to visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the next couple of weeks. Around the time he announced his plans to visit the park on his excellent blog, several area roads were closed due to high wind and downed trees. Now, as the time for his visit approaches, we learn of a forest fire in the park that has closed a campground and trails.

I’d like to point out that flyfishmagazine has been beaten to the punch; last year Ian Rutter dubbed me “The Cooler” when I showed up.

Not only was I barely conscious enough to fish (I even let Ian fish some runs first, a sure sign of disease or mental decay), but I managed to squelch a caddis hatch that was going big guns the week before I showed – and revived the week after.

In fact, if had a dime for every time a fishing buddy said “It’s odd — they were hatching like crazy yesterday,” I could afford to fish those expensive private clubs where the big, dumb, hand-fed trout are always biting.

Still, where there’s trout, there’s hope. This is going to be The Year. I just know it.

[tags]fly fishing, flyfishmagazine, gsmnp, caddis, trout[/tags]

Posted in Underground Entertainment.