Tuesday, November 24 2009
Squanto: The Ultimate Guide
Even anglers like myself yearn for guides with fishing IQs as rich as Squanto's, a Patuxet Native American who taught the Pilgrims how to fish.
Thursday, October 29 2009
In from the Fog: Monstrous Fishermen in Popular Culture
To paraphrase Nietzsche, when fighting monsters one should be careful not to become one, but that’s a major reason why many people fish: to slay the proverbial dragon.
Tuesday, September 8 2009
A Beatnik Tuna (Fish)
Charlie the Tuna fish is an homage to the Beat generation’s playfulness and experimentation with language.
Thursday, August 13 2009
Oceans of Fear
Brace yourself: this is a fish tale that can silence – like the great white shark itself – all of its competitors.
Wednesday, June 24 2009
Snagged by Bishop—Hook, Line & Sinker
Like the lakes we fish in, there are great treasures lurking in those depths, and great depth lurking in those treasures.
Thursday, April 30 2009
Missing the Boat while ‘Fishing with John’ (Lurie)
Imagine a 'Seinfeld' episode on a boat with rods in Jerry and Kramer’s hands … you get the picture.
Wednesday, April 1 2009
The Jester in the Fisherman
Lines tangled and broke, feet tripped and slipped, rods and tempers snapped, and sometimes, even anglers fell overboard. It wasn’t funny … unless you were sober.
Monday, February 23 2009
Les Claypool: Where Fish Congregate
Quite simply, like the sturgeon itself, Claypool is the Maestro of the Bottom.
Monday, December 8 2008
Presidential Angling
Now that Barack Obama is America's 44th president, in the spirit of his predecessors, he might want to take up fishing.
Thursday, October 30 2008
Getting the Creeps from the Deep
Deep, dark water – and that which swims within -- inspires our most primitive fears
Wednesday, August 27 2008
The Poetry of Fishing: James A. Emanuel
Fishing and writing are typically solitary crafts that offer fishermen and poets sweet opportunities for introspection.
Thursday, July 10 2008
Myth-Making Dolphins
They're transporters of the souls of the dead, per Dante, transporters of tools and messages, per the US military, and friends to man, per the popular dolphinariums.
Wednesday, April 30 2008
The Real Creel
Creels contain volumes of wonderfully imaginative “catches” that, unlike the box’s contents in the myth, unleash a swarm of positive stories and memories that continue life’s flow.
Thursday, March 27 2008
Shad: An Undeniably American Icon
Emerson spoke of it in a eulogy for Thoreau, not long after, it fueled Doherty and his cavalry in their relentless pursuit of Booth -- no wonder McPhee calls it America's "founding fish".
Friday, February 22 2008
Trout Fishing in America
Richard Brautigan’s minimalist prose wove hallucinations into social commentary, pastoral meditations into cultural satire, and journalistic reports about mundane existence into nihilistic, punkish sirens.
Friday, December 21 2007
Some Thoughts on the Holiday Season’s Über Pop Icon
Imagine sitting down to a fish dinner with Ernest Hemingway, Izaak Walton, Norman Maclean, and the ultimate Fisher of Men.
Tuesday, November 27 2007
Hooked by Antique Lures
Who is more captive to the prized antique fishing lure, fish or fisherman? With fishing, what you catch, or what catches your fancy, is not always in the water.
Friday, November 2 2007
Fishing, Fathers, and Sons
We’re all mythical creatures created from stories that blend fact and fiction, myth and reality, into a magical whole, and no tale does this the better than the fish story.
Friday, September 14 2007
Beware the Kraken from the Deep
Giant eyes, rows of large teeth, and emitting a nasty stench, amorphous, ugly, enormous, and ravenously hungry, the kraken is the perfect antagonist, and makes many appearances in film and literature.
Wednesday, August 1 2007
Giant Catfish…Only a Noodle Away
Catfish are strong, eccentric characters that have for many years snubbed their bottom-feeding whiskered noses at the angling establishment. But still, they're suckers for a wiggling finger.
Friday, June 29 2007
Predatory Nature
Sharks, the legendary "terrors of the deep", are at the complete mercy of the fiercest predator of all. Let's show some mercy.
Monday, April 23 2007
The Kings of Crabs
The Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catchgives one reason to pause and reflect between savory bites of Alaskan king crab.
Tuesday, April 3 2007
Ed Zern: The Fisher King of Droll
Like any curmudgeon, Ed Zern criticized everything, including himself, the sport, and other anglers because they all periodically blocked his path to the river.
Monday, February 26 2007
Defying Extinction and Celebrating the Strange
Some might say the elusive coelacanth, in spite of its primordial ugliness, has attained rock star status in the popular imagination.
