One of the better writers in fly fishing blogdom is Mike at Tamanawis (hell, you’d have to be good just to type that name).
In this post, he sits at the campfire and pokes a stick at the fire that is his fly fishing obsession, looking to uncover the reasons why his love for the sport continues to grow. […]

 Bad poetry about trout? Frankly, I can’t think of anything better. Consider this gem (probably written by Claude Freaner):
Trout
To think that I shall never shoutA poem lovely as a trout.
A trout whose hungry mouth is prestAgainst the creek’s sweet flowing crest;
A trout that looks at God all day,And lifts her pearly […]

Those slick bastards over at Ass Hooked Whitey scooped us on this exceptional New York Times interview of writer Jim Harrison, and though we hang our head in shame, we love it enough to bring it to you anyway.
For those who have been living in caves - or playing Nintendo non-stop - Harrison is one […]

I largely avoid fly fishing coffee table books. The problem? Fly fishing picture books typically attain a kind of artificial beauty, and do so at the expense of spontaneity, realism or soul.
Images are carefully arranged, styled and colored - to the point I’m witnessing the product of an advertising shoot instead of a real moment […]

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to stumble across a copy of Muriel Foster’s Diary, and bought it faster than your average fly fisher buys a big fish story.
If you’re not familiar with Muriel Foster or her diary, she was an upper-class Englishwoman who lived from 1884 to 1963. In addition to fly […]

I wrote an essay about winter fishing for Ben Rualo’s Fly Fishing Norcal site. I don’t have as much time to write essays as I’d like, but Ben’s agreed to run one now and then just to keep me from completely giving up the ghost.
Here’s a short passage from the essay:
Winter fishing isn’t something you […]

It’s a Big Day for a pair of the West’s Best Writers.
Today is the birthday of Thomas McGuane - my favorite fly fishing (and short story) writer.
His book - The Longest Silence - was an instant fly fishing classic, and should be on the shelf of every fly fisher (if it’s not on yours, be […]

Ass Hooked Whitey publishes a brilliant letter from the late Norman MacLean (author of A River Runs Through It) to a publisher who rejected his first manuscript (after apparently toying with MacLean for some time), but was gunning to publish his second book.
Every writer who has ever, ever been yanked around by a publisher or […]

Tom McGuane might be my favorite writer. And John Gierach opened my eyes to the idea of life beyond a 9-to-5/high-blood-pressure/road rage existence.
But right behind those two you’ll find Annie Proulx, the Pulitzer prize winning author of The Shipping News and writer of the short story that became the Brokeback Mountain movie.
I don’t think it’s […]

I expanded a recent post about Fall Fly fishing into an essay, which you can READ ABSOLUTELY FREE.
Sure, we’re giving it all away down here at the Trout Underground, where life is cheap and the gold-plated words are even cheaper, but that’s me - I’m a generous guy.
(Here, want the shirt off my back? Cup […]

Mt. Shasta, CA — The Leader of the Underground didn’t run for office, and neither was he elected to any. Still, watch out for my 2008 Presidential bid.
The democratic tsunami will have passed, and I’ll be riding the crest of the Trout Writer wave. Naturally, I’ll be contacting all of you for bribes donations campaign […]

Via MidCurrent comes an interesting opinion piece by a writer who wrote a kiss-and-tell article about his favorite stream for Fly Fisherman magazine.
It was years ago, but regret clearly runs through his psyche like… well, the stream he gave up:
If I had the money and wherewithal to buy up every copy of that magazine, I’d […]