Warm November weather on the Gallatin is making up for all the days that were blown out this past spring. I was so excited about getting to the river yesterday, I left my soft-weight at home and wound up using a

heavy crayfish thingy to get my Prince down. As you see in the photo, they seemed to like the big thingy about as much as they liked the nymph. I hung my camera around my neck and did a first-person video of catching one on the nymph.  I'm sorry that about a fourth of it is taken up by my frantically reeling hand.

Either falls are getting harder,

or I’m getting softer—or both.

The sun’s angle flat out

chokes me up and I can’t hear

geese without turning away

toward the dark of the backlit forest.

I don’t want to match the flies

above the pools. I just want

to watch them for fear they’ll go

away forever. What used to be

the heart of a yellow leaf

plastered on a wet, black rock

is something else now,

maybe a door into the kitchen

of a dead friend who waits

with a glass of whiskey

refracting the afternoon sun

in a gold burn across the tablecloth.

I’ve taken to wading rapids

too deep and clear for comfort

just to see if I can stay standing.

I spend so much time trying

to thread the eye of a midge

with tippet you’d think I was

reading Greek by the light

from a dying star.

Those trout, swimming

for days, maybe weeks,

with my flies in their mouths,

they’re the ones that got away

with a style of piercing that’s come

more and more into vogue.

When I catch them

wearing the flies of others,

I am tempted to make

simple comparisons,

but punk just doesn’t do it,

nor does shrapnel,

though I lean toward the latter.

Matching the hatch is a dirty trick,

no matter how you play it,

and for the purist,

the dirtier the better.

Without a barb,

the hook goes deeper.

I don’t mean to think these thoughts,

but once thought, they stick,

and I carry them around in my mouth

for days, maybe weeks,

before I spit them out

and keep on fishing.

Get me up there.

I don't care if the deer flies

bite me. I'll catch them and

stick pine needles up

their asses so they fly

straight up till they drop.

Get me up there.

I don't care if I sink

in a bog over my waders.

As long as it's cool and the

brookies flash at a Renegade,

I'll watch from a cloud of gnats.

Get me up there.

I'm starting to think

like the drone of lawn mowers.

Down here, the rivers

are full of tourists. I was

once a tourist. It wasn't any fun.

Get me up there.

Down here, I look like shit

in shorts. My shins are all scars

from fifty years of dodging

deadfall because the stream

up there was worth it.

Get me the up there.

I've had it with sprinklers

and stinky dogs. Stick me

in a pickup shotgun, slap

a G & T in my hand

and get me the hell up there.

In The Who’s Who of the River

If you gather morels by a river, then

they’ll taste like that river. If you eat the morels

with trout, they won’t be redundant. But then again….

spring evenings I’ve watched the deer move themselves

along the margins of cottonwood groves. And mornings

I’ve noticed the nibbled stalks of morels. I must

have a word with these deer, perhaps of warning,

perhaps of advice. But what would it be? Trust?

Share? Shoo? In the who’s who of the river,

I’m afraid I’m rather low on the totem pole.

If you eat morels with deer, you’ll never

hear the end of it. You’ll have swallowed a whole

lexicon. You’ll be a walking refrain.

You’ll become a brain in a brain in a brain.