The Best Fly Fishing is Everywhere - 12.12.2025
Ramblings & Readings, Creativity & Conservation, Happenings & Hope
My Fishy Friends,
Lots of water these days, in places I’m close to. Nice to see some ‘flushings’ of stale, fall rivers, but too much all at once ain’t good neither. Be safe out there. Sending lots of love to Washington.
Cheers,
Jesse
Banner photo: Looking east across Puget Sound to Seattle and Mt. Rainier.
“The Depth of the Sea”
For years, I’ve subscribed to Jason Anthony’s newsletter/blog/Substack “Field Guide to the Anthropocene,” and I am blown away by each and every installment and the depth of his writing—the insights, the research, the references, the science, and the ability to tie it all together to the now. His most recent essay, “The Depth of the Sea” is no different, and I recommend it to anyone who’s spent time in salty waters. As one example of Anthony’s prose, consider:
One ocean or several? Like all of life, the sea is singular and plural. Arctic and Southern, Indian and Atlantic and Pacific: It’s all one flow but is distinguished by our discriminating map-making minds into separate bodies, each with its own integrity, each with its own role to play, like the cognitive arms of the octopus.
River Permit Season
I was reminded over the weekend that it’s permit season—meaning, the lotteries for multi-day, permitted river trips like the Rogue, Salmon, Smith, Green, Colorado Rivers, among others, are now open! Here’s a handy resource from Down River Equipment, which includes the lottery links as well as brief overvies of the river trips and—new to me—their related “success graphs.” Good luck, and let me know if you win one!
Between the Lines
I fell in love with this film immediately. Featuring Chilean fly fishing and whitewater guide Alex Obregon, “Between the Lines” gives us a glimpse into a lifelong riverruner’s mind and approach on the water. “Basically, anything you can do in a river, I can do,” he says. To top it off, he goes on to mention that, in addition to Chile, he spends time on rivers in Maine and Oregon! “If we focus too hard on the fish, we might lose everything else that is happening around…”
Even More Boats…
I can’t help but share this short Instagram reel, documenting last weekend’s holiday float upriver on the McKenzie with the fine folks at Horse Creek Lodge. We got lucky with our weather for the day, that’s for sure. And, what made it all the better were the countless community members who stepped outside their cabins, or waited on bridges to watch us float by. Happy holidays!
Rewards
The streamside paths are the trampings of the uninspired herd—follow them and your rewards will be commensurate.
~ From Sheridan Anderson’s The Curis Creek Manifesto
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