January 2015

It was eight years ago this week, on a warm January day, that I landed the Bowfin in the photo below. I was recently arrived to the North Carolina Piedmont, and if you look closely, you will see that I’m wearing a hat from Lock 3 Bait & Tackle. It’s my favorite tackle shop on the lower Allegheny River, just down the road from where Rachel Carson was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania, and a little reminder of how anglers cling to the superstitions of their old haunts. That hat didn’t last much longer after I landed that Bowfin. It wasn’t because I gave up on the Allegheny – I still fish it about once every year – but because this fish marks a break in my life: there is before the Bowfin Era, and after. Continue reading →