Monthly Archives: August 2021

My books are mostly small books.  Ted Hughes’ books are small books,  Billy Collins’ books are small books.  A lot of  W. S. Merwin’s books are small ones although many of them are large. Still, I am in good company in the small book category.  Two … Continue reading →

At three-thirty and five o’clock this morning the coyotes sounded off. They were up on the ridge above the neighborhood.  Not barks, but yips.  The yips were lower pitched and then came the lengthy high-pitched keening of the howls, needles that were … Continue reading →

I have been working on a story about Blackbeard Teach who at one time moored his ship in Turneffe Atoll where in June grandson Nathaniel and I fished for bonefish, barracuda, tarpon, snapper, amber jack and other tropical fish.  I compared … Continue reading →

I am  an old man, fire and ice There is a fire above Grizzly Creek television pictures of helicopters dropping water.  flames licking up the canyon walls. Once I stood transfixed as a wall of ladybugs,  a red avalanche rose off … Continue reading →

Zane Grey decribed bonefish as “the wisest, shyest, wariest, strangest fish I have ever studied.”  Personally, I (Mark Kurlansky) doubt they are as wise as salmonids, but they are extremely strong and fast.  The appeal in catching one lies not so much … Continue reading →

In a book, The Unreasonble Virtue of Fly Fishing, the author, Mark Kurlansky writes that there are two rules in fly fishng that are unbreakable:  the first is not to fall into the water. The second is to keep your fly … Continue reading →