Photography: Adam P. Summers

Photographs by Adam P. Summers of specially treated marine subjects.

Bonnethead 

Butterfly Skate

Carp 

Clingfish 

Electric Ray 

Greenling 

Little Skate 

Little Skate 2 

Lumpsucker 

Scalyhead 

 Sculpin

Shark

"The Quiet Season" by Rene Harrop

Photo by Bonnie Harrop

It has been many years since the stream of visitors to the Henry’s Fork would generally be ended by Labor Day weekend. Today, rather than having the entire fall season to ourselves, we residents must accept that September will be nearly as busy as any month of the year, and if the weather is even remotely favorable there will be competition for the best water through much of October.

By November hollow eyed fly shop owners and staff are more than ready for relief from the daily details of getting dozens of urgent customers to the water, whether in the company of a guide or fishing on their own.

Read More.

"Makings" by Gary Snyder

I watched my father’s friends

Roll cigarettes, when I was young

Leaning against our black tarpaper shack.

The wheatstraw grimy in their hands

Talking of cars and tools and jobs

Everybody out of work.

the quick flip back

And thin lick stick of the tongue,

And a twist, and a fingernail flare of match.

I watched and wished my overalls

Had hammer-slings like theirs.

The war and after the war

With jobs and money came,

My father lives in a big suburban home.

It seems like since the thirties

I’m the only one stayed poor.

It’s good to sit in the

Window of my shack,

Roll tan wheatstraw and tobacco

Round and smoke.

"Makings" by Gary Snyder from No Nature. © Pantheon Books 1992. 

"The Trout" by Amy Lowell

Naughty little speckled trout,

Can’t I coax you to come out?
Is it such great fun to play
In the water every day?
Do you pull the Naiads’ hair
Hiding in the lilies there?
Do you hunt for fishes’ eggs,
Or watch tadpoles grow their legs?
Do the little trouts have school
In some deep sun-glinted pool,
And in recess play at tag
Round that bed of purple flag?
I have tried so hard to catch you,
Hours and hours I’ve sat to watch you;
But you never will come out,
Naughty little speckled trout!

Winter Comes To the Tetons

Forebears: Wish She Had Been My Grandma

The high Sierras, possibly Yosemite, sometime in the 1930's. Can't see the reel, but I'm guessing fly fishing. Can also see the bait box on her belt. Makes me think she'll be catching grasshoppers on the trail to the lake. Not much better than that.

Scandanavie 2015

Go north, young man, go north.

Scandinavie 2015 from Thias on Vimeo.
Une semaine de pêche à la mouche entre Suède et Norvège - Juin 2015 / A fly fishing week in Sweden and Norway - Juin 2015

Patagonia 8K

Full screen alert. This was shot in 8K resolution*, and you can see the difference. Mesmerizing.

PATAGONIA 8K from Martin Heck | Timestorm Films on Vimeo.

*From Wikipedia:

8K resolution or Full Ultra HD (FUHD) is the highest ultra high definition television (UHDTV) resolution to exist in digital television and digital cinematography. 8K refers to the horizontal resolution of these formats, which all are on the order of 8,000 pixels, forming the total image dimensions (7680×4320). 8K FUHD has four times the horizontal and vertical resolution of the 1080p HDTV format, with sixteen times as many pixels overall.

2015 Fly of the Year: The Moddler

The 2015 Fly of the Year is the Moddler. What is a "moddler?" It's one of the various versions of my modifications of the classic Muddler Minnow. The modifications are in the tail (deer hair rather than turkey quill,) the body (a variety of dubbings rather than gold tinsel,) and the underwing (primarily antron yarn in a variety of colors rather than turkey quill.) The classic muddler began as a wet pattern; I fish the moddler high and dry.

These six that I tied up for the last week of the 2015 season are representative of the flies that have consistently brought fish to the net from early Spring to late Fall. Here's to you, Moddler.

This Is Fly, October/November 2015

Get it HERE.

"The Night Migrations" by Louise Gluck

"Night Reflections" Robert Kipness 1969

This is the moment when you see again

the red berries of the mountain ash

and in the dark sky

the birds’ night migrations.

It grieves me to think

the dead won’t see them-

these things we depend on,

they disappear.

What will the soul do for solace then?

I tell myself maybe it won’t need

these pleasures anymore;

maybe just not being is simply enough,

hard as that is to imagine.

"The Night Migrations" by Louise Glück from Averno. © Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.

Trout Lake Report: So Long, Lake

I head up the road for the last time this year.

The south end will be the setting for this final day of the season. Stellar's jays are making a racket all around the lake. Two rise up, land in the golden willows in front of me, flit away. Their midnight-blue iridescence is stunning.

I will work up along the eastern shoreline, cross over, and work back down the western side.

Around the first bend, and right against the waterline, a brown comes to the Halloween Muddler.

A little farther along another brown comes to the fly.

They are inside the weeds, patrolling the little patches of open water along the waterline.

I pass the beaver house and see that they are thinking about the change of seasons and the coming winter, as I am. Much on our minds is the question of what will sustain us during the cold months ahead.

I will find sustenance in stored memories of the multi-layered beauty of a season of days like this one.

I cast and the resting fly gets a nose bump. I raise up and miss the fish. Must be a rainbow. I go ahead and cast back to the spot and wait. I have time. I'm a little surprised when the fish comes back and takes the fly. Well done, Rainbow. It will be the last rainbow of the season.

Down the shoreline I go, finding release in the familiar rhythms of casting. It's good to see that I have not yet reached the dead end of perfection.

I cross over to the other side.

A brown comes out of the rocks.

I pass the Tiger's Lair, but raise nothing there this time. Maybe it will be the first place I try next Spring.

I come around to the far south end.

It still seems impossible that a good-sized fish would be up along the waterline here where the depth five feet out can be measured in inches. But there he is.

Inside the back channel, now too low to navigate in a float tube, I see a fish working. I crabwalk in along the weedy bottom to get close enough for a reasonable cast. The fish comes right to the fly and I raise too soon and miss.

I cast the fly in again. Wait a beat. The fish takes again. I time it right. Another brown.

I make a full circle and come to the take out, but I'm not ready to call it a day--or a season. I go on around the bend again.

There's one more fish for me there. The last fish of the season. A sleek little brown, shining like the dreams of days to come.

Now it's time. I kick back and step out of the water, drag the tube onto the shore. The ripples of my presence are soon gone. Time for rest.

So long, lake.

"What's Found" by Sheila Packa

in the tangle of trees

in twigs

from branches

and trunks and roots

in the ephemeral

tenderness of green

leaves that last a season

in the trembling and wind

the blue of sky and lake

in clouds resounding

from a place of emptiness

a chamber that answers

in vibration, string and wind

a trembling, brimming and falling

in the place opposite of grief

the place opposite of dark

in the body of lost

in water and air

a star whose light

has ended but travels

toward us

rising and falling

in a cascade of notes

which is not endless

but aching and sweet

like iridescent feathers

of wings that rise and fall

in the circle of migration

in each flight

music that we breathe

"What's Found" by Sheila Packa from Echo & Lighting. © Wildwood River Press, 2010.