We were floating the Fork at 9,000 cfs and the fishing was primarily limited to people’s lawns—the secret weapon was four different colors of chenille gobbed on a hook.

A blog of adventures can be found at Sleeping in the Dirt, detailing a duel lifestyle split between office-cube-farm-bank-employee and one hundred plus days spent annually on and around the water.

But factors like the ever-changing weather forecasts, hatch intensity, drive times, availability of whiskey, etc. keep my pro/con scale out of whack and prevent me from picking one path over another.

Photo: Paul Johnson with an absolute hawg he hammered out of Lake Bainbridgeokefenoke.

With an aggressive response to our SMOTM contest, the trophy smolts are continuing to come to hand. Got a fish that makes your #14 parachute caddis look huge? Fire it over. A northern pike which could be mistaken for a small pikeminnow? A smallmouth that is more small than mouth? Do share. Winner for this initial contest scores a Cloudveil Run Don't Walk pullover in Polartec, announced July 2.  See more smolts...

Between the tree and a manky beaver carcass, we caught several nice fish, I then sent my friends back down to the big ditch where, fortunately, the Mother’s Day hatch is no longer an issue.

Some fisherman are thinking about jumping tarpon, others are thinking about carp...