Four days on the San Juan River

I recently joined fellow Heart Of America Fly Fishers Kevin Carril, Steve Hedgstrom and Ron Carruthers for four days of trout fishing on the famous San Juan River in northwest New Mexico. We stayed at the Soaring Eagle Lodge where we enjoyed scrumptious buffet breakfasts and mouth-watering dinners. After daylong guided fishing trips we lounged …

Just for the halibut

My  Colorado friend John Norman caught a big halibut in Alaska recently. Actually I don’t know anything about halibut so maybe, relatively speaking,  this is a SMALL one. I’ve seen John land 26″ rainbow trout on #22 flies. He’s a good fisherman. But I suspect he caught this monster while fishing from a charter boat using a …

Pike on a fly rod

What’s the old saying? Even a blind hog finds an acorn every once in a while? My long-time fishing buddy and fellow Heart Of America Fly Fishers member Bill Lindley boated this 42.5″ northern pike on a 7 weight fly rod recently.   Where? Someplace between Nebraska and Canada. Wish I had been there to slap high fives with …

Heart Of America Fly Fishers

I always look forward to our One Fly Tournament. The last few years it has been held at Lake Of The Forest in Bonner Springs, KS. This is a very old residential lake surrounded by homes and is full of fat, sassy bass and bluegill. This year we were joined by some veterans from Project Healing Waters …

Outdoor Writers Of Kansas Conference

The recent OWK conference gave photographer Jon Blumb and I a chance to explore the Flint Hills area near Emporia, KS and catch a LOT of fish. We spent Monday May 4th with guide Bill Hartman fishing a ranch pond for crappie and bluegills from float tubes. Being a terminal geezer and a rooky float …

It’s Tweener Time

As the sun pulls away from the shore and our boat sinks slowly in the west it’s Tweener Time once again. Remember? A Tweener is a cartoon that is a little too risqué for outdoor publications but too outdoorsy for Playboy. It’s in between. This Tweener is special because it’s about crappie. How many cartoons have you …

Bluffs along the White River

Located just upstream from the confluence of the White and Buffalo rivers in northern Arkansas, these majestic bluffs never cease to amaze me as I boat with guide Miles Riley up toward Buffalo Shoals for some excellent trout fishing. As I look up I used to imagine an Indian standing up there with a bow …