readying

Main Entry:  leave
Part of Speech:  verb
Definition:  depart, abandon physically
Synonyms:  abscond, beat it, break away, clear out, come away, cut out, decamp, defect, desert, disappear, ditch, elope, embark, emigrate, escape, exit, flee, flit, fly, forsake, fuck off, give the slip, go, go away, go forth, head out, issue, migrate, move, move out, part, pull out, push off, quit, relinquish, remove oneself, retire, ride off, run along, sally, say goodbye, scram, set out, slip out, split, start, step down, take a hike, take leave, take off, vacate, vamoose, vanish, walk out, withdraw

Lets go already.

Seriously.

Ferry Stuffs no.3 - Grill Pro Tip: Fire Placement.

Build the fire in your Weber to one side. This allows you to move your grill subjects around from direct to indirect heat, or hold done items to the side while you take care of other grilling. Use the addition of the top to "bake" when needed.

These T-Bones are just taking a little rest before dinner. Since the fire is still pretty hot, rest them bone-side toward the heat.

Tenderloins, marked over the heat then moved, finish up as the asparagus grill.

-Alex who wants to help you deliver the delicious.

Ferry Stuffs no.2 - those awesome carabiners.

Use them on your battle belts or waste packs while on the water to temporarily hold important things while you play with fishes, take photos, open beers, light things, do tai chi, or whatever it is you need both hands to accomplish. 

They are awesome and make you look cool and efficient and hardcore.

-Alex who who always wants to help.

Ferry Stuffs no.1 - The Video

-Alex white feet.

MI Ender

Kevin worked the oars, making slight adjustments.  A white-fuel Coleman sat in a small wooden box at my feet and hissed warmth at my hands. The sun had made a break for it, had come pretty close to getting free but the clouds had caught him and now celebrated with a confetti party of snowflakes that drifted down at slight angles. I watched them fall on the back of my hand as I poured coffee from a thermos into a green plastic cup. When I turned and asked Kevin if he had had any sugar and he told me it was below freezing and we were on a river, in Michigan, in March, for fun, and I should grow a dick. I sipped my unsweetened beverage in silence and tried my best to follow his advice.

Michigan in March is still how I remember it: Cold and hard, desaturated and a little dirty around the edges but strong willed and with a guarded warmth that you feel most while laughing in a drift boat or smiling down the bar, lifting beers and surrounded by people you don't really know but could easily be confused for old friends.

Steve Martinez opened his house to me and made me feel at home and for that I am thankful. He stood in rubber boots and pushed wood into his outdoor furnace, answering all my cold-weather ignorant questions about wood furnaces, central boilers, and heat exchangers. A snowless path ran from the burner to the house where the water lines are buried. Earlier that day he had eased his boat to a log jam and picked a half-dozen bobbers from among the fishing flotsam while we talked about the TV show Hoarders.

I feel that the PM has been nothing but fair to me, but Kevin said after spending two weeks in March on the river, one last year, and one this year, I should have had at least one double-digit day. I don't feel slighted, though. Steelhead were caught and I believe I must be building fish karma for some future adventure, which will surely be otherworldly in its epicness.

On the last day Kevin pushed us toward the sunset and we talked about sled dogs. "The only reason you can stop those dogs," he said, "is because they believe you can stop them." I think some people live like sled dogs. Don't live like sled dogs.

-Alex who won't take whoa for an answer and is also apologetic for the lameness of that pun.

I am never sorry I brought slippers.

Between Waters

I started writing a closing post for the MI trip. It's tasty, but not ready. I am going to Lee's Ferry... just like Michigan, but with 5X instead of 12lb floro. And 40 degrees warmer. And rainbows. And cactus. Whatever. Soft set soft set soft set.

-Alex who thinks Kirkland Signature spiced rum has a little more caramel flavor than most.

MI Notes, P3

Felt soles are bad in snow. Nobody told me. It is good that I am graceful like a dancer.

It seems I have, for the most part, shuffled off my sickness-induced infirmity. I believe the continued frolicking in sub-freezing temperatures has caused some symptoms to linger longer than normal, however. My nose-blows are record breaking. A buff makes an excellent extended-use snot rag. My toes are often in a state of panic while outside.

Saw a living possum eating a dead possum on top of the trash can at the Wahalla take-out. Kevin said that possums live pretty hard lives and when they die they usually have broken bones and frost bite injuries. They move very slow. I have been a little empathetic lately, but am getting better and I think soon I will be able to get back to a standard level of sympathy for such critter.

Steelhead were caught yesterday.

-Alex bobber-ninja.

MI Notes, Pt2

I have a sore throat. My nose is blown out. Stained. Swung today and had no love. I think Kevin is disappointed by my performance.

...

I am worse. No fishing today.

MI Notes, Pt1

My phone alarm went off at 3:40am and that is strange because it was set for 4:40am, and the phone knew that. It even had a happy little message telling me that my 4:40am alarm was ringing, but the clock on the phone told me it was an hour early. So did the ancient black-plastic battleship of a lamp/clock from my middle school years that is still keeping the dust away from its rectangular footprint on my headboard. I am a little disturbed by this. Second guessing your technology's sanity leads to problems. (Open the pod bay doors, HAL)

...

I bought a travel pillow at the airport. It was $15. I wish I could eat it, because it is pretty much useless and I am super hungry.

...

If you get butthurt when people on planes sitting in front of you recline their seat, you can lick it till you get to the tootsie roll center. Your seat reclines, too. Airplane seats are uncomfortable pieces of shit, and if there is something I can do to make it even the tineyest bit better, you better believe that I am going to recline that shit so hard. Everybody is doing it. Get with the program, dude.

...

I think the woman sitting next to me is a hypochondriac. Since I have been next to her, I have totaled two sneezes and one super gurgly nose blow. I am suffering from a supreme lack of sleep and I am probably giving off a pretty heavy sick vibe. I want to blow my nose again, but I think the sound alone would be enough to send her over the edge. She was doing Sudoku  but now she has a laptop on her tray table and appears to be reading, but she has been on the same page for almost 20 minutes. I can feel her covert glances like pin pricks. All is not well.

...

Plane bathrooms are a pretty intimate setting. I think a crime was recently committed here which will go unsolved. I have more hair in my nose than previously suspected.

...

Cameron Mortensen is now moving with speed and efficiency; a bullet of hope cutting across the darkening Michigan landscape. GRR is ground zero and the ETA has the consistency of warm jello.

-Alex who prefers liquid gels to candy coated with his wheat beer.

State of a Fat Guy

I sit at this computer like a loaded gun with no target. Emotion without thought.  I need an adventure, I think. I need fresh substance. Fiction for the sake of fiction is fine but I need a spark, something real, some little piece like the grain of sand at the end of the movie The Never Ending Story. With that one little grain Bastian was able to rebuild the entirety of Fantastica. Shit, I just want to write about fishing.

But before I can begin, there is something else that I need to get out of the way. Something many of you already know, but I will not feel right until officially brought to light here.  I am almost afraid to say it, and that's silly because I know it was never about being overweight. Not really, anyways. Was it?

It was about an attitude. An unconventional viewpoint about a sport that seemed somewhat participant-pigeonholed. It was not about ignoring the rules as much as denying their existence. Being silly. Spouting nonsense. Living and fishing and wrapping things in bacon and kicking ass all over the place. And it is still about that.

But over the last year and a half I have, on purpose, lost a little more than one hundred pounds and have been told I no longer have the required mass to be classified as a fat guy. (At least by standard American society standards, I suppose)

What does this mean?

This year I am going to turn 30, and I am happy to say that now more than ever I feel I have the capacity to kick record amounts of ass. Which is pretty cool.

People ask me what I am going to do in regards to this site, being that I apparently don't seem to fit the criteria any longer. I think this is simultaneously silly and a good question. It's not like I am some skinny fucker now, all bones and floppy skin. I still exist in the orange slice of fatness which falls above the recommended numbers on the doctor's height vs. weight chart, I still wrap things in bacon, drink beer, go outside with fly rods in search of stories-which I will be doing more than ever this coming year. Is that enough? Have I now somehow excluded myself and fall outside some imaginary guidelines apparently set by my former self? Like the height ruler at the end of the line for the roller coaster, but a horizontal version?-you must be this fat to post-and I step up to the ticket taker sticking out my gut as far as I can, hoping I will make the cut and be allowed on the ride while at the same time working to remove that same access-granting feature? That is some silly shit.

It's not like if April Vokey decided that she had had enough with being a woman and decided to have a sex change and become a dude... She probably couldn't keep writing at FlyGal, right? That would be weird. Probably drive the hits through the roof, though. Anyways I hope you can see my point through the mental image of Ms. Vokey with man-parts. Sorry for that. Yup, really sorry. You can stop thinking about it now. Seriously. Stop.

But really, what now? I don't know.

I think the real question is do I want to continue here? I know I don't want to stop writing and sharing photography. I do know that. Maybe it is time to step up both games. Maybe it is time to start pushing for some more published work. Quality not quantity. Maybe I should quit worrying about it and stop being such a pussy. I have never been good at change.

Matt Dunn Photo

I am going back to Michigan on Sunday. Getting picked up from Grand Rapids by Mr. Mortensen. Going to go think about things and wiggle my man-parts in the Pere Marquette with Kevin Morlock for a week, try not to be too cold, maybe catch a steelhead on the swing if I am lucky.

I have an excitement about this trip, an expectation of some good thing on the horizon that I am moving toward but can't quite see yet. Like holding a grain of sand that contains the potential of the world. I do wish that Matt Dunn was still in Michigan, though. Maybe we could have tracked down those dirty cake-fibbers and brought them to moist, chocolaty justice. Could have happened.

-Alex who will always be living large in some form.