Sooner or later most fly fishers begin tying their own flies. There is a certain satisfaction that comes when a fish is caught using a fly of one’s own tying. Turning feathers, fur, and synthetic materials into a fly that catches fish can be a source of pride and accomplishment….

Having a pet means eventually having to say goodbye. We have just done that with our third dog, Rainier – a mini Australian Shepherd. Rainier had been suffering with hemorrhagic gastroenteritis for the past four days. With no improvement, we made the hard but necessary decision to have him put…

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle found the following reviews of Yellowstone National Park in Google and Yelp. It’s difficult to know if anonymous reviews are real – there’s always the possibility that some people think themselves clever (they’re not) with the following reviews. On the other hand, if real, they sound…

Autumn is my favorite season of the year. As I’ve related elsewhere there is something about the season that makes me feel most alive. And as most occurs in most seasonal transitions, the change from summer to autumn takes place over weeks as temperatures drop; at least here in the…

Periodically I like to cast fly rods from different rod companies. It provides an opportunity to learn the differences in action and performance between rods of a similar class. That then requires me to adjust my casting stroke to obtain the best performance from an individual rod. I consider both…

I had my six-month echocardiogram in July. As feared, but intuitively expected, there was no improvement in my ejection fraction. My cardiologist then had me get a scan using a nuclear Rubidium-82 tracer to get a detailed mapping of the heart. That confirmed what the previous tests had indicated –…

Between yesterday and early this morning there were two more mass shootings, with at least 29 dead and dozens more wounded. The shooter surrendered in El Paso, while he was among the dead in Dayton. In both instances, it appears the shooter was an angry young white man who used…

The political appointees in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week withdrew proposed Clean Water Act safeguards for Bristol Bay. This action reverses years-long efforts by the EPA that began with the start of a study in 2010 and culminated with proposed standards in 2014 that would have protected Bristol…

The St. Louis I grew up in was always a baseball town – still is.  But there were other professional teams in football and basketball – though in neither sport was the team history as long in St. Louis or as storied as the baseball Cardinals. The Cardinals football team…

I’ve written about my heart attack in January and my journey to recovery. This is another report on that journey, but one that is brighter and marks what feels like a personal accomplishment. My wife and I joined a group of our friends yesterday for the Sound to Narrows race;…