In 1987, Sting released Englishman in New York, which included the lyrics:

I’m an alien, I’m a legal alien
I’m an Englishman in New York

I changed New York to New Hampshire and it became something of an anthem for me for many years. Even today, when I hear that song, it sends goosebumps down my spine. It takes me straight back to those early days in a new land.

While I was indeed legal, the term alien always rubbed me the wrong way. Every time I heard it, it seemed to send a small, slightly hostile message to my brain: you’re not really welcome here.

In the UK, the equivalent would be referred to as a foreign national. At the time, at least, that seemed a little less negative to me.

Regardless of being called an alien, I was incredibly happy to be in America. Within six weeks of arriving I knew this was my new home and the UK was now my past.

Much as I wanted it, though, there was no guarantee I’d get to stay. So I played by the rules, renewing my visa every two years until, after around five years, I finally got a Green Card.

With that in hand, I knew for sure America was now my home. I could leave and enter as I wished, and when coming back through airports I could use the same immigration line as US citizens—always the faster option and important for me as I was traveling back and forth to Europe multiple times a year for work.

Still, even with this significant upgrade, every time I went through immigration I was very aware that I wasn’t doing so on a US passport. A little knot of anxiety would always develop.

For many years I was perfectly happy being a Green Card holder. It got me through my daily needs, both in the country and while traveling.

But as time went by, and I began traveling with my kids, who were both American citizens, I became increasingly aware that at immigration I was handing over a maroon British passport while they handed over blue American ones.

I didn’t want to be different from my kids. If they were American, I wanted to be American.

A Green Card is indeed a magic ticket, and many people stay with that option and never take the next step. But I had a growing feeling that becoming a citizen was the right thing for me to do.

There were practical reasons. Citizenship gave me deeper protection - a citizen cannot be deported. I would be able to vote, something I increasingly wanted to do. I could leave the country for as long as I wished and know I could come home. And perhaps most importantly, nothing ever had to be renewed again, I’d just be an American.

I’d spent years renewing visas and then Green Cards. I was ready to be done with that.

So, after being in the country for almost 20 years, I started the process of becoming an American citizen.

It wasn’t a particularly fun journey initially. There was a mountain of paperwork, and every trip I’d taken out of the country for, I think, the previous five years had to be logged. I traveled a lot, so that was some tedious work.

But eventually it was all done, and one day I drove up to the immigration office in St. Albans, took a number and handed in my application.

Weeks went by and then I was summoned for my interview.

I had absolutely nothing to be afraid of. I wasn’t hiding anything. I’d played by the rules for nearly two decades. But I still walked into that office a very nervous individual.

There was a lot on the line.

I sat down in front of my immigration officer. He opened my inch-thick file, looked through it for a moment, then looked up at me with a big grin.

“So you’re a climber, I see.”

He went on to explain that although he didn’t climb himself, he was a big armchair mountaineer.

That was it.

We spent the next 45 minutes talking about climbing—who I’d climbed with, places I’d been and climbs I’d done. As we wound things up he suddenly seemed to remember the actual reason I was there.

“Oh, I just need you to say this phrase and write this sentence.”

Which I did, one in a thick English accent and the other in my usual chicken-scratch handwriting.

There were a few questions on the Constitution and then I was done.

My immigration officer stood up, shook my hand and told me the next swearing-in ceremony would be in about six weeks and I’d be informed of the date in writing.

I’d passed.

I was on the final stretch to becoming an American.

The knot of nerves in my stomach was immediately replaced by one of excitement and relief.

I went back to my daily routine and gave surprisingly little thought to the upcoming ceremony. My letter arrived telling me to report to the Burlington courthouse on a given date in February.

I saw the ceremony as basically a formality. No big deal. Nothing in my life was really going to change. I’d take a couple of hours off work, get sworn in and be back at it as normal.

I half thought about pulling my kids out of middle school to come and watch me, but decided against it.

Why disrupt their day?

The day arrived and I headed into the courthouse and then the courtroom where the ceremony was to take place. I was slightly embarrassed because I had a big black eye from a chunk of falling ice hitting me in the face while climbing a few days earlier.

I shook hands with my immigration officer, who was happy to see me. I explained what had happened and, being the avid armchair mountaineer he was, he lapped it up and wanted the full blow-by-blow account.

He then introduced me to the judge who would swear us in. She initially gave my battered face a disapproving look, but soon smiled once my immigration officer filled her in on events - no I had not been in a bar fight.

I handed in my Green Card and final questionnaire and went to sit in my seat while things were prepared.

And then it began to hit me what was actually happening.

I looked around at the other six or so people about to be sworn in. There was another Brit who worked at the local IBM plant, a couple from Peru, three people from China and a guy from Germany.

We chatted quietly among ourselves.

I think all of us were becoming a little emotional at the enormity of what was about to happen.

The judge made a short speech. The “call of countries” was given and then suddenly we were being asked to stand.

Together, we recited the Oath of Allegiance.

And just like that, we were Americans.

We were congratulated as a group and welcomed as citizens, then filed up one by one to shake hands with the judge and receive our Certificates of Naturalization.

As we left the courtroom we were met by the smiling faces of a group of elderly women from the American Legion Auxiliary. They shook our hands, congratulated us, helped us register to vote and then sent us on our way with small American flags as a parting gift.

I walked across to Church Street in something of a daze. I walked for hours that afternoon letting what had just happened sink in. I never did go back to work that afternoon.

I could not believe how emotional the whole thing had been.

It had completely caught me off guard.

I had tears in my eyes and this deep feeling of warmth and calm in my chest. After nearly 20 years of visas, Green Cards, immigration lines, renewals and that tiny lingering feeling of being an outsider, I was finally, officially, American and no longer an alien.

My only regret—and one I still have to this day—is that I didn’t take my kids out of school to share the experience with me.

I wish they had seen it.

This year marks my 40th year in America and my 21st as a citizen.

I think of myself as an American now, although apparently when I open my mouth most people still hear a Brit. My bad Brit humor still survives and when asked where I’m from I always rely, “ Vermont” and then add, “I'm as American as you according to my passport”.

In casual conversations, particularly in these turbulent times, people often ask me if I miss Britain and whether I’d rather be living back over there. Somehow expecting it to be better over there, and I to have a yearning to be there.

The question always surprises me.

I made a very conscious choice to be here and not there.

I don’t miss Britain and I wouldn’t want to move back there. Sure, I enjoy a few days’ holiday there now and again, but anything longer than a week starts feeling a little too long.

Certainly, I miss the pub.

And a proper pot of tea.

But I’ll take those little setbacks any day in exchange for the open spaces, opportunities, public access fishing, amazing ice climbs, friendships and warmth I’ve enjoyed from living in the USA. Forty years after arriving here, I’m very happy to simply call it home.

I used to work for the U.S. division of Julbo, a third-generation, family-owned French sunglass company based in the Jura Alps, about an hour and a half from Chamonix. Julbo came from the world of mountaineering and skiing, and Chamonix was its spiritual home, so becoming an early sponsor of the UTMB was an easy decision.

Back then, the UTMB barely registered in America. Western States and Hardrock were the pinnacle for American ultrarunners, and the notion of required kit seemed almost laughable to some. Mostly, Americans simply didn’t know much about the race. There was no live coverage, no wall-to-wall commentary and certainly no staying up all night watching trackers. It was just this slightly mad race around Mont Blanc.

I was lucky enough to get involved when it was still finding its feet.

In 2008 Julbo held its annual sales meeting during UTMB week and asked if I wanted to run one of the races. I knew a good opportunity when I saw one.

I lined up for the CCC, 100 kilometers from Courmayeur to Chamonix. Other than a couple of Brits, I don’t remember hearing a word of English the entire race. Certainly not another American.

For me, it was also a reunion with my former life. I’d spent a good chunk of my younger years climbing in the Alps, and every time I looked over my left shoulder while we ran, toward the Mont Blanc Range, I’d get goosebumps. I could pick out climbs I’d done and the Gervasutti hut (fancier new version now) behind the Jorasses where I’d once slept.

I was moving around the mountains I loved, only now in running shoes rather than climbing boots and without the concern of rockfall or whether I’d make it back to the valley in one piece. I loved this new relationship with the Mont Blanc massif.

Running through three countries, the crowds in little mountain villages ringing cowbells, and eventually dropping into Chamonix was unlike anything I’d experienced in American ultrarunning. I was hooked.

I returned in 2010 for the UTMB itself. We started at six in the evening from downtown Chamonix. The streets were packed, the music was booming in a way only the UTMB can do, and grown men were crying before we’d even taken a step. It was the most emotional start to any race I’ve ever experienced.

Then it started raining.

By Les Contamines—19 miles and about 5,000 feet of climbing into the race—we were soaked and half frozen. Then came the announcement: race canceled.

The weather had made the route toward the Refuge de la Croix du Bonhomme too dangerous. Canceling was absolutely the right decision. Getting eighteen hundred cold, wet runners back to Chamonix was another matter.

I eventually made it back around 11 p.m. that night, thanks to the train, and ended up in Le Choucas, a local bar, still wearing soaking race kit and commiserating with other drowned race rats over a beer. At about two in the morning, a text let us know that the race would, in fact, resume later that morning in a shortened version (110 km) from Courmayeur. The new race start time was ten o’clock that morning. My bus left at six.

I drained my beer, headed back to the hotel, turned the heat up and spread my soaked kit across the radiator. A few hours later I was trudging through heavy rain toward the buses, wondering about some of my life choices. We drove through the Mont Blanc Tunnel and emerged into Italian sunshine.

I slept on the floor of the sports center at Courmayeur until the start and, for the second time in less than 24 hours, watched grown men cry on the UTMB start line. Then off we went again.

I felt fantastic climbing out of Courmayeur until suddenly I didn’t. No legs. No power. Then I realized that since the previous evening I’d run 19 miles, climbed 5,000 feet, drunk three beers, barely slept and hadn’t eaten dinner or breakfast. Not the best nutrition plan.

Luckily, UTMB aid stations are basically well-stocked mountain cafés. I attacked the food at Refuge Bertone and left burping, slightly bloated and considerably happier.

From there everything clicked. Bonatti. Arnouvas. The Grand Col Ferret. Trient. La Flégère. After the rain, cancellation, beers, wet clothes, buses and second start, I was just happy to be running through one of my favorite places on earth and getting to experience this legendary race firsthand.

The next day I crossed the finish line in Chamonix to find my Julbo friends waiting. In proper French tradition, they rehydrated me with champagne. It remains one of my favorite memories from all my years running.

I kept going back. I toed the line at 2 more UTMB’s, another CCC and eventually added the OCC.

There was just something about UTMB week that kept pulling me back. Part of it was the race, obviously, but a bigger part for me was the infectious enthusiasm of the whole event and those associated with it, all in one of my favorite places on earth.

The true joy of what this week could offer hit me hardest, though, when my son Ben, who had witnessed the race while on assignment for work, decided he just had to follow in his dad’s footsteps and run the UTMB himself. In 2021 he ran the CCC, then in 2022 once he had the points, he ran the full UTMB in remarkable style and in a great time.

Crewing him through both of those races meant far more to me than actually doing them myself. While I’m sure there must be a few other father-and-son duos who have run the UTMB, there can’t be many. We now share a deep respect and understanding of why a little suffering is good for the soul. A special bond indeed.

I still get psyched when UTMB week rolls around. I still follow the racing and there’s still something about watching runners leave Chamonix and head around Mont Blanc that gets me.

But when I look at UTMB today, I see something very different from the event I knew. It has become a global series and a huge commercial success. More than 10,000 runners now take part across the week’s races, and UTMB week has become the busiest week of the entire year in Chamonix.

Perhaps the clearest indication of how much things have changed came this summer. Chamonix’s newly elected mayor, François-Xavier Laffin, has made it clear that he believes UTMB has become too big. Residents increasingly feel pushed out of their own town during race week, and he wants to reduce the event’s footprint and bring it back into better balance with the valley.

To give a little perspective, the town of Chamonix has around 10,000 residents. During race week, 100,000 runners, family members, supporters and media descend on the town. As a side note, what I always find remarkable is that even with those numbers, it’s never hard to find a table at an outside restaurant!

It’s been wild to witness the growth of this quirky mountain race that I remember most Americans barely knew existed, and even kind of looked down on, into something now so successful that the town where it was born is trying to work out how to contain it. Quite the full circle.

I’m certainly not complaining. I was lucky enough to be along for part of the ride. I’m still psyched for UTMB and probably always will be. I can’t wait to see how runners like 3 time winner Courtney Dauwalter, current champion Ruth Croft and emerging stand out Rachel Entrekin do going head to head, a lot can happen in 106 miles. On the men’s side I’m sad to see Killian Jornet and Jim Wallmsley have had to drop out due to injury, however I know others will make it an exciting race to follow. There is always plenty of drama and surprises.

But I’m also very glad that my time there was when it was—smaller, a little raw around the edges and occasionally completely chaotic. When most Americans still didn’t quite know what it was and I could find myself sitting in a climbers’ bar at two in the morning, soaking wet, drinking beer, excitedly hoping the race was going to start again.

It was the tail end of 1986, the end of a year that had already taken me from the Alps to the Himalaya. Fresh out of college, I’d spent the summer climbing in Chamonix and the fall in Nepal. But the biggest twist came when I got home to England in early December: an H1 work permit had been granted. In less than a week, I was off to America.

In my final year at college, I’d eagerly—and then desperately—written letters to U.S. guide services listed in the back pages of Mountain magazine. Each envelope dropped into the post box was an act of blind faith. My friends thought I was chasing a unicorn, certain I’d never land a job guiding in the States. But two offers arrived. One, from Mike Covington in Colorado, dangled the chance of under-the-table work if I happened to swing through. The other was from Paul Ross, who, against the odds, was determined to bring over a full-time British guide to New Hampshire—legally.

My last conversation with Paul on ye olde landline in June had been an expensive phone call for me. It was followed by silence for months. I soon dropped all thoughts of the American opportunity and resigned myself to a wet British winter—until, upon returning from Nepal, my father met me at Manchester airport and handed me the papers. I had less than a week to hit the U.S. embassy in London and catch a flight to Boston. To all the doubters, I silently raised a “V,” which most Americas to this day don’t realize means “fuck off” and not victory if the back of the hand is facing away from its owner. As mine very much was.

American Beginnings

The bus dropped me in North Conway, New Hampshire, into a wall of cold like I had never felt before. Snowbanks towered overhead. Waiting with a grin was Paul Ross, my new boss at International Mountain Climbing School. Everything I owned was stuffed into two backpacks. I’d never even heard of North Conway until a few months before, but as a Brit eager to escape Thatcher-era gloom, I was ready to make its acquaintance.

I arrived on December 16 and my first scheduled day of guiding was on the 19th. I squeezed in a day soloing at Frankenstein, a cliff band home to some of the best ice cragging in North America, on the 18th. Such thick and plentiful ice, but oh so cold! No scratching around on snowy rock like I was used to in North Wales. Prior to leaving the UK, I’d spent the last of my savings at Centersport in Leeds on a pair of Simond ice tools, a Chacal Ice Hammer and a Barracuda with an adze. State of the art steep ice tools of the day. I unleashed them for the first time at Frankenstein. After using Clog Curvers, these things felt like cheating. I giggled up ice flow after ice flow, fortified by the immortality of youth and my first reverse-curved picks. My knuckles, however, suffered a sound beating; curved shafts were still a couple of years away from saving us all such indignities.

When the 19th dawned, I met my first American client, a beautiful woman who worked as a lawyer in Boston. As a skinny Brit who, though 21, looked like he was only 16, I was immediately in love and a bag of embarrassed nerves. My baby face turned bright red when, after kitting her out in boots and crampons, she asked, “Could you help me buy a fanny pack?” I was floored. In Britain, “fanny” means something very different than in the States. A sales clerk who worked in the International Mountain Equipment store came to my rescue and pointed us to a rack of what I called bum bags.

That first winter was a blur of arctic cold, broken crampons, snapped ice picks, and endless learning. Every guiding day was equal parts confidence and bluff. “Lake Willoughby? Sure, you’ll love it!” I’d say cheerily to a client, hiding the fact I’d never been. With directions scribbled on my wrist, we’d head up north in the client’s car, me confidently giving directions as I peeked beneath my sleeve at every turn. Google Maps wasn’t a thing; improvisation was. Stepping out of the car in the parking lot I’d point up and say aloud, “Yeah, that’s our climb,” and to myself, At least I hope so.

I also learned the magic of ski-town happy hour. Beers were a dollar, food was free, and after long frigid days on the ice, they were like manna from on high. One night, after a particularly bone-numbing day at Frankenstein, I set what I believe was (and for all I know still is) the town taco-eating record: 18 tacos demolished in an hour.

By summer, I was living at the infamous Hangdog Hostel on Kearsarge street— “living” being a mattress in the corner of the communal living room. I was climbing rock, guiding, enduring clouds of flesh-eating black flies, and sweltering in the New England humidity—the latter of which had a strange charm for a guy from the windswept moors of Brontë country. I loved it. I soon splurged on my first car: a rusted-out ’76 Toyota Celica for $450. I learned to drive by pointing it toward Rumney and trusting my climbing partner to double as driving instructor.

Rumney then was barely developed: a handful of routes, a dirt pull-off, and a surprise if you saw another car. But the few routes that did exist, scattered far and wide across the hillside and mostly established by Tom Bowker and Brad White, were excellent. Popular crags of today like Waimea hadn’t even been found yet. The first big wave of Rumney development, spearheaded by locals like Scott Stevenson, Ted Hammond, and Alan Cattabriga, was just starting, and we out-of-towner North Conwegians were lucky to be part of it.

This was the time when sport climbing was just beginning to hit the U.S., and we were all trying to work out style and ethics as much as what trousers to wear, painter pants or lycra tights. I went with lycra. We marauders from over the Kangamangus Highway were partial to fewer bolts and a little more excitement in our climbing, as was custom on many of North Conway’s Cathedral Ledge routes. The forward-looking Rumney locals, fortunately, saw the sense in more ample use of bolts, and thus less ruined underwear. Some of our bolder routes of the era like Captain Fingers and Flesh for Lulu, among many others, later saw the addition of more bolts; no longer are nuts and tiny cams required.

The Road West

By October, I’d saved enough for the trip every young British climber dreamed of: a road trip across America. Jerry Moffatt’s article, “What We Did on Our Holidays,” in Mountain Magazine, had a massive impact on my generation of countrymen and women. Jerry told of his and Chris Gores’ rampage through America’s hardest routes, with Jerry onsighting or repeating virtually all of the testpieces of the day. His descriptions of climbing in the Gunks in New York and Eldorado Canyon in Colorado mesmerized me, for the climbing but also for the atmosphere of the places and their people. These two spots had to be on our list, no questions asked. (While Joshua Tree and Yosemite also beckoned, time and the rusted Celica wouldn’t allow for that.)

My partners were Stevie Damboise, a strong New Englander with endless rock psych, and Rich (last name lost to time), another Brit who was on a short-term work permit having spent the summer at a local camp as a counselor. Rich wasn’t overly psyched on climbing, but was happy to split gas in exchange for an adventure before he flew home. That worked for Stevie and me. Cramming three of us into the tiny Toyota for six weeks meant that we had to pack light. Just the bare essentials (plus a couple of knives that Rich, a Brit who’d watched too many American films, insisted upon—“For protection,” he said.)

On the way out of town, we pulled over at a burger chain that in those days had an all-you-could-eat salad bar. As long as you had the special plastic bowl furnished by the cashier, you could feast indefinitely. We each purchased a bowl and then discreetly stowed them in the Celica to be brought out again each time we stopped at one of the burger joints. We ate like kings while only purchasing sodas on the way in.

The Gunks and the New

We started at the Gunks, crashing in a dilapidated, mouse-ridden hut near the cliffs. Stevie and I, rabid for rock, climbed every day the sun shone—rest days hadn’t yet been invented. (Rich had escapades all his own thanks to a sizable bag of weed he’d brought along.) Sky Top was still open to the public then, even to dirtbag climbers like us. Classics like Foops, Open Cockpit, and Mellow Yellow were all ours to play on and wiggle small nuts into.

While North Conway climbers indulged in the full spectrum of climbing, from mountains to ice and even skiing, the Gunks climbers seemingly had eyes only for rock. And they excelled at it. What with their proximity to New York City, they were a more sophisticated lot than us, driving around in souped-up little sports cars. But there was nary a whiff of superiority; guys like Al Diamond and Jordan Mills gave us the lay of the land, and shared top-rope sessions with us on classics like the Sting. Come evening, we’d head into New Paltz, stopping in at Rock and Snow to ooh and aah at all the great climbing gear the store carried. We never spent any money, but Rich Gottlieb, the owner, saw the spark in our eye and treated us well. We’d then walk over to Bacchus, the local pub, and, well, my memory fades fast at this point.

When rain finally forced us onward, we drove south to the New River Gorge. Back then it really was “new,” its sandstone walls only just beginning to see development. At the Bridge Buttress, our location of choice to unfurl our sleeping bags at night, we stumbled into Rick Thompson and Eric Hörst, the main new route developers of the day. Their laughter echoed off the cliff as yet another non-PC tale was shared under the sanctuary of the bridge. They pointed us toward the best lines, which we ticked eagerly. A rainy day had us killing time at the mall getting our ears pierced. When the forecast soured for a second day, we pointed the Celica west.

Across the Plains

Kansas floored me. Coming from the twisty and steep narrow lanes of Yorkshire, the endless horizon and ocean of cornfields seemed unreal. Relief came, quite literally, when the Rockies reared up before us. Our target was Boulder —the epicenter of American climbing cool.

Surrounded by beautiful people and fashionable climbers, we felt like scruffy outsiders. At the time I was modeling $3.00 Kmart maternity pants, baggy in the waist, tight at the ankle. Ideal for climbing. Pearl Street offered a refuge for us shabby vagabonds: a bar where you could drink “around the world,” one continent at a time. We obliged, capping the night at an expat’s apartment with bottles of brown liquor.

Morning hit hard. On the way to Eldorado Canyon, I decided milk might cure my hangover. Instead, leaning out of the Celica’s open door in the Eldo parking lot, I projectile vomited said milk onto a semicircle of flip-flopped feet. Unbeknownst to me, those feet belonged to some of Boulder’s climbing royalty who’d come to check out these Easterners. Not my finest first impression.

Still, we rallied. With the peanut gallery dispersed in disgust, the pressure was off. As our hangovers subsided, we had a stellar day on the sandstone, the smell of last night’s beer and spirits wafting up the wall with us as we climbed. By nightfall, snow was falling hard. We took the hint, packed the Celica, and fled south, leaving Boulder’s well-tanned gods and goddesses behind. Stevie must have secretly been more enamored with the town than I; not long after we finished this trip, he moved out to Boulder for good. He still lives happily there today.

Thanksgiving in Hueco

Hueco Tanks was a revelation. It was my first time in the desert, and the yawning landscapes of orange rock and blue sky seemed infinite. Climbers gathered at Pete’s, a barn run by a kindhearted Mexican family who charged little for a bunk and twice a week cooked communal burrito feasts. After weeks of roadside food, it was heaven. As was Pete’s smile when he saw you finish off your plate of food. Perhaps because I was so far from my own family, I appreciated the warmth that Pete’s family shared with the nomadic tribe of climbers.

As Thanksgiving neared, homesickness hung heavily over the ragtag bunch of American climbers calling Pete’s home for that moment in time. I’d never experienced it, but everyone insisted it was the holiday. Expecting a raucous party after which I’d be laid up for days, I dragged a reluctant Coloradan out climbing that morning before the night’s debauchery. He lit a joint and prattled away as we hiked up toward the wall, talking in a twang that I couldn’t really understand. Inhaling and then exhaling great clouds of smoke, he racked up to lead the first pitch of a two-pitch classic. Up he went in silence. The smoke lingered. He promptly took a huge fall, narrowly avoiding the ground. Shaken and very much shaking, he untied, said he was done with climbing, and left to call his parents.

With the crag to myself (I figured everyone else was already partying hard back at Pete’s), I soloed the day away on sparsely bolted classics. The conservative nature of the bolting at the time meant that the difference between soloing and leading wasn’t always enormous. I remember finding my flow on classics like Malice in Bucketland and Cake Walk Direct on the Frontside, and finally wrapping up the day on the Mushroom boulder—a spicy proposition sans pads. Even now, it remains one of the most transcendent days of climbing I’ve had. At peace with the world, I returned to Pete’s expecting chaos. Instead I found climbers slouched in sleeping bags, eyes fixed on a football game flickering on an old TV. Quiet yearning for family and home-cooked turkey shone from their faces in the pale light as they waited their turns on the one payphone outside. Thanksgiving never quite resonated with me after that.

Back East

By early December, it was time to head home. Trouble came at an immigration checkpoint, miles inland from the Mexican border. I hadn’t packed my visa, not knowing I had to always have it on me, even if not leaving the country. Under my seat was a very large bag of Rich’s weed and his two very large knives, one of which had a passing resemblance to a machete. I braced for disaster. We were sequestered, each interviewed separately by officers in mirrored sunglasses. I laid the British charm on thick, spinning tales of the climbing road trip of a lifetime. The ropes and rack on the backseat lent credibility. By sheer luck, they never searched the car. We were waved on with a warning that I could be expelled immediately for traveling without my visa.

From there, it was a long, cold sprint. The Celica’s lights had failed, and foil gum-wrapper repairs weren’t cutting it as fuses anymore. We drove until dark, camped in mall parking lots, and set off again at dawn. Four days later, we rolled back into New Hampshire

Even now, nearly 40 years and a U.S. passport later, a father to two wonderful grown American children, a grandfather to a one-year old, and having built a career in the outdoor industry, I shudder to think how differently it could have gone had those border patrol agents looked beneath the seat. Much as I love where I come from, returning to the rain-soaked streets of Halifax would have been a poor substitute for the life I’ve built here.

That December in 1987, nearly a year after first arriving in the U.S., I drove into North Conway knowing the ice at Willoughby, Cannon, and Frankenstein nearly as well as the crags I’d grown up climbing on in the UK. I’d become addicted to Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, with a pint per night habit. I’d been eaten alive by swarms of black flies. I’d tasted the vastness of the West and the warmth of the South. More than that, I knew I wasn’t just passing through. I had found my new home—one of endless frozen waterfalls, humid summers, and, at last, my very own room at the Hangdog Hostel, complete with a lock on the door.

He had always been a trout nut. Over the years he fished extensively in Montana, the Adirondacks and wherever else trout and circumstance happened to take him. But Atlantic salmon came much later.

In the early 1990s, recently retired, Earl and his wife Linda loaded up their bicycles and rode around the Gaspé Peninsula. They came back changed.

They had fallen for the place—the small towns, the mountains, the people—but above all they had fallen for those beautiful salmon rivers pouring out of the Chic-Chocs and running clear toward the sea.

Earl had never caught an Atlantic salmon. In fact, he had never even fished for one.

Nor was he the sort of man likely to solve that problem by staying at a lodge and hiring a guide. The Depression had left its mark. Still, those rivers had gotten into him.

That winter he read everything about Atlantic salmon he could get his hands on. Hugh Falkus, Lee Wulff, Gary Anderson, Joseph Bates—he devoured the lot. But Earl had recently retired from General Electric after a career as an engineer, so he wasn’t particularly inclined to accept any of it simply because somebody with far more actual experience had written it down.

He dissected everything with an engineer’s mind.

By spring he had developed an impressive collection of theories about how to catch Atlantic salmon, despite the minor inconvenience that he had yet to cast a fly to one.

Of all the writers, I think he gravitated toward Hugh Falkus the most. That seemed appropriate. Falkus was never particularly interested in marching in step with conventional wisdom, and neither was Earl.

The following summer Earl and Linda gave up their rented apartment in North Conway and headed north to the Gaspé. The Fort Ramsay Motel and campground in the town of Gaspé became their summer home that year, and would remain so for the the next fifteen.

From there they had the York, Dartmouth and St-Jean rivers at their doorstep.

And they explored the hell out of them.

Both were incredibly fit and armed with a winter’s worth of theories they were eager to test. Over the following years they terrorized the salmon of the Gaspé and came to know those three rivers the way most of us know our local stream. Many of Earl’s original theories didn’t survive contact with actual salmon. That didn’t bother him in the slightest.

Bad theories were discarded, good ones modified, and new ones developed from actual experience. Earl had no emotional attachment to being right or wrong. He was interested in finding out what worked. And over the years the salmon provided him with an unfair amount of feedback.

I began visiting Earl and Linda at their invitation, usually sometime in June or July when work and kids allowed. I remain enormously grateful for that first invitation because, all these years later, the waters of the Gaspé feel like the blood running through my veins.

For me those trips became a sacred escape, a little pocket of calm amid the hectic nature of the rest of my life.

I’d pull into Fort Ramsay, pitch my tent somewhere near their trailer and wander over for dinner—often freshly caught sea-run trout and cold Canadian beer.

That first dinner of every trip was always entertaining.

Earl and Linda would bicker and talk over one another in their rush to bring me up to speed on everything that had happened since the season opened: who had caught what, which pools were holding fish, what the water had been doing and, inevitably, whatever new theory Earl was working on.

I mostly sat there laughing and waited for them to run out of energy.

I knew those were special moments even then.

Sitting here now, tapping away at a computer with Earl gone and those summers long behind me, I understand just how special they really were.

Earl was a man of efficiency and thrift. His rods—all single-handers back then—came largely from the seconds bin at L.L.Bean. The vise on which he tied salmon flies was the same vise he’d used as a kid. There were certainly no expensive jungle cock capes tucked away in his tying box.

He respected the traditions surrounding Atlantic salmon flies, but his engineer’s brain couldn’t leave them alone.

He would look at a traditional pattern and start asking questions.

Why is that there?

A tag and a butt behind the tail—really?

Is that catching the salmon, or catching the angler?

Eventually Earl disappeared down the rabbit hole of reinventing the salmon fly.

And, to be fair, he sort of did.

He wasn’t interested in producing another beautifully dressed hairwing with five precise turns of tinsel, a beard hackle and three carefully stacked layers of hair. He went the other direction.

He stripped flies down.

Then he stripped them down some more.

What remained were the things he believed actually mattered. Then he fished the flies hard and let the salmon tell him whether he was right.

Earl developed several very good patterns around that basic idea of less being more, but one eventually separated itself from the others. It began turning up in other people’s boxes and being passed from angler to angler on the benches at the heads of pools along the York.

Giving one away was hardly a great sacrifice. You could tie another in less than five minutes.

Thirty years later, long after Earl’s passing, I can still sit on one of those benches, open my fly box and have the angler beside me lean over, point toward a certain row and say:

“Earl’s Fly.”

I never get tired of that.

Solving a Problem

Earl wasn’t tying flies because he wanted something cool looking in his box.

He was solving problems.

One particular problem bothered him on the York.

In skinny water, the small flies he often used—eights and tens—weren’t getting down quickly enough during the short swings he liked to fish. They also presented more silhouette than he wanted in the York’s ridiculously clear water.

Weighted flies weren’t and still aren’t legal, so a few wraps of lead around the hook shank weren’t an option. He needed another solution.

Any Gaspé angler knows there is something about the color green. Green is a magical color up there, and olive-green seems to disappear particularly well into the York.

Earl wanted a very slim profile so the fly would break the surface immediately and sink quickly. But with flies this small he also wanted enough flash to catch the attention of a salmon during a short swing.

Out of that came a remarkably simple fly.

It cast easily.

It went subsurface almost immediately.

It had very little bulk and didn’t trap air.

And even tied small, it had enough flash to get noticed.

All that remained was a name.

Earl wasn’t interested.

Linda apparently asked him for weeks what he intended to call the thing. Earl kept avoiding the question, possibly because he genuinely didn’t care and possibly because he knew it was annoying her.

Eventually Linda had enough.

“Fine. We’ll call it Earl’s Fly.”

And so it became Earl’s Fly.

Not exactly the sexiest name in the history of Atlantic salmon fishing, but thirty years later we’re still calling it that, so Linda had the last laugh.

Tying Earl’s Fly

Tying one is so embarrassingly simple that whenever I land a salmon on it I’m reasonably certain Kelson (author of The Salmon Fly: How To Dress It And Use It. 1895), turns over in his grave. I can live with that.

Hook: A standard black, up-eyed salmon hook, generally from size 2 down to size 10. I fish 4s and 6s most often.

Tail: Four to eight strands of olive-green Crystal Flash extending just beyond the bend of the hook.

Body: Build a slim underbody of white tying thread. Tie in between four and twelve strands of olive-green Crystal Flash—roughly four strands on a size 10 or 12, increasing to around a dozen on a size 4.

Wind the white thread forward to about two hook-eye lengths behind the eye. Apply just a smidgen of super glue to the white thread body, then wind the Crystal Flash forward over it. Tie it down securely, whip finish and cut away the white thread.

Attach black thread for the wing and head.

Wing: Earl originally used black bear hair, as is common on many Atlantic salmon patterns. But once again his engineer’s mind began worrying at the problem.

Black bear hair is slightly crinkled and traps air and so slows the sink rate.

Out went the bear.

In came black squirrel.

Tie in a sparse clump extending just beyond the bend of the hook. Form a small black head, whip finish and you’re done.

That’s it.

Five minutes, even if you pet the dog, grab a beer and check the weather while tying. The lack of a throat hackle is one of the most obvious features of this fly as I sit here I can only think of one other Salmon fly that doesn’t have one - Lee Wulf’s Surface Stone Fly.

The Magic Part

Why is Earl’s Fly so good? Well, it catches salmon.

But there’s an important caveat whenever fishermen start talking about magical salmon flies.

I fish Earl’s Fly hard. I fish it often. Therefore I catch fish on it. The law of probability suggests that the fly spending the most time in the water on the end of your line has a considerably better chance of catching a salmon than the fly sitting in your fly box regardless of what that fly is. So it’s debatable if it’s magical or just well used.

I’m fairly certain Earl’s engineer brain would approve of that logic.

I’m not an engineer, though, so I still prefer to believe it’s magical.

I do stray these days and rotate through a few favorites, if I’m being truthful—but Earl’s Fly remains the one I trust the most.

And trust is an important thing in salmon fishing. You can go a long time between moments when anything actually happens.

I know this is how Earl tied his fly because we tied plenty of them together during those winters. There isn’t much room for ambiguity.

Which is why I’ve been amused over the years to see Earl’s Fly appear in the occasional book or article. Almost invariably the author or tier seems unable to leave it alone. Perhaps the simplicity is painful. A throat hackle appears. Then a ribbed body. Jungle cock eyes. An underwing.

Something apparently has to be added to make a fly this simple respectable. And yes I do it as well at times.

I’m sure those additions make it more attractive to the angler. They certainly make make it cooler in a photograph.

But every addition takes Earl’s Fly one small step away from the problem it was designed to solve.

It was designed to get underwater quickly in the clear, skinny water of the York River, present almost no bulk and, even in a very small size, give a big Atlantic salmon just enough reason to move. Nothing more.

Thirty years later I still tie them the same way - mostly.

Sometimes I’ll sit on a bench beside the York and another angler will look into my box and recognize one. Earl has been gone a long time now, but there is something wonderfully comforting about hearing his name spoken on that river.

John Gierach’s Trout Bum captures the spirit of building a life around rivers—not because every day promises great fishing, but because rivers have a habit of putting everything else back into perspective. René Harrop’s Trout Hunter, by contrast, is the work of someone who has spent a lifetime studying trout on one of the world’s most demanding rivers. It reminds us that good fly fishing begins long before the cast. It begins with learning to see.

Trout Bum

The Book That Gave American Fly Fishing Its Soul

When Trout Bum appeared in 1986, I was just arriving in America, trying to work out what this new chapter of life might look like. One of the first books I bought was Trout Bum, I read it cover to cover one wintery night in my tiny apartment in North Conway. It was unlike anything I’d ever read.

John Gierach wasn’t writing instruction manuals. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone with impossible catches or technical brilliance. Instead, he wrote about ordinary fishing days (Ok he was using cane rods - but well fished ones) — BWO’s, road warrior hours, camp coffee, old friends and trout that got away. Somehow those ordinary days became extraordinary, simply because he paid attention to them and I could relate to the detail.

Growing up in England, fly fishing had always felt wrapped in tradition. it was all private waters, tweed jackets, waxed cotton, careful etiquette and centuries of history. I respected it, but was stifled by it. It never completely felt like my world.

Then I arrived in America and read Trout Bum.

Here was a Minnesotan hippy transplant, living in Colorado, driving an old pickup, fishing public water within easy reach of his log cabin and writing about it with warmth, dry humour and complete honesty. It was American fly fishing stripped back to its essentials. No pretence. No exclusivity. Just rivers, trout and good company, and a little self -deprecation. The later any Brit can relate to.

It was a genuine light-bulb moment.

This was the American fly fishing that I could relate to and wanted to be part of.

Forty years later I still feel the same way - thank you John.

Gierach deliberately built a life where work fitted around fishing rather than the other way round. Over the next four decades he wrote more than twenty books, becoming perhaps the most recognisable voice in American fly-fishing literature without ever sounding as though he was trying to become one.

His books resonated with me because he wasn’t chasing Patagonia, Kamchatka or expensive destination lodges. He simply fished the rivers close to home. Places he could reach after breakfast. Places that became familiar through seasons rather than bucket lists.

That was hugely influential.

He showed me that some of the finest fishing in America could be found within an hour or two of home and that living a rich fishing life didn’t require a rich bank account. And guess what he was right.

His essays captured something many anglers felt but few had ever managed to put into words. Fly fishing wasn’t simply about catching trout. It was a way of looking at the world and living your life. Success wasn’t measured by the biggest fish but by mornings that began before sunrise, conversations around a tailgate and the freedom to follow a river simply because it seemed like the right thing to do.

Today, when so much of fly fishing seems driven by destination travel and social media, Trout Bum still feels wonderfully grounded. It reminds us that the best days often happen on ordinary rivers with ordinary friends, where nobody is keeping score.

Trout Hunter

Learning to See What Trout See

If Gierach taught me why we fish, René Harrop helped me understand how to hunt trout.

One of my favourite memories is being invited into René’s modest home in Island Park a few years ago. We sat drinking coffee around the kitchen table, talking about the Henry’s Fork, discussing what the trout were feeding on and how the river had been changing.

There was no self-promotion.

No stories about being one of the world’s great fly fishers.

No talk about the famous flies that now carry his name.

Just a genuinely thoughtful man who had spent more than fifty years living beside one river and was still fascinated by what it could teach him.

That conversation explained Trout Hunter better than any review ever could.

René has spent the better part of six decades guiding, tying flies and fishing Idaho’s Henry’s Fork, arguably one of the most technical dry-fly rivers anywhere. Every pattern he developed and every lesson in this book grew out of thousands upon thousands of hours watching trout feed—not from a vice or a flash of inspiration. The book is a collection of his best articles shared through magazines like Fly Fisherman and Fly Tyer. Each was rewritten for the book and is a nugget of wisdom on it’s own but combined with the rest, it’s part of a think tank of trout hunting wisdom.

Kelly Galloup has frequently described watching René stalk a single rising trout on the far bank of the Henry’s Fork.

Kelly simply sat and watched.

Over the next half hour René moved only a few yards, reading every current seam, every rise and every drift before finally making one short cast of no more than twenty-five feet.

Fish on.

Kelly said it remains one of the finest pieces of fly fishing he has ever witnessed.

That story tells you almost everything you need to know about René.

His flies have become classics of technical dry-fly fishing, but they aren’t clever for clever’s sake. They’re remarkably simple. Their brilliance comes from observation rather than invention.

That’s exactly what Trout Hunter is about.

Although the book covers fly patterns, insects, presentation and technique, it never reads like a manual. It’s written through stories and personal experiences, each one quietly building another layer of understanding. Like René himself, the book teaches without ever preaching.

The lesson running through every chapter is beautifully simple.

Slow down.

Watch first.

Fish second.

Rather than looking for secret flies or magical techniques, Harrop encourages us to study currents, aquatic insects and trout behaviour until the answers begin to reveal themselves.

That philosophy has stayed with me wherever I’ve fished.

Whether standing on the Henry’s Fork, a Yorkshire freestone or a tiny brook trout stream high in the White Mountains, the order never changes.

Observation comes before imitation.

Understanding comes before technique.

Patience comes before success.

Become part of your surroundings rather than simply standing in them.

That, more than any individual fly pattern, is René Harrop’s real legacy.

Gierach reminds us never to lose the simple joy that first drew us to rivers.

Harrop reminds us to slow down and pay attention.

Between them lies a way of thinking about fly fishing that has shaped my own far more than any rod, reel or fly ever has. One taught me to appreciate the life that fishing makes possible. The other taught me to look more closely at the river itself.

By the time autumn rolls around, most of us have reached a comfortable level of fishing saturation. We’re still eager to fish, but we’re finally ready to slow down a little, look around, and soak it all in before winter takes over.

I’m still hoping for one last good fish, but I’m no longer chasing it with the same urgency. The trout season fades into the background and my attention turns to landlocked salmon. I spend my time swinging flies on the tributaries that feed the larger lakes, fishing until the season closes—or, on the rivers that remain open year round, until chunks of ice drifting downstream start thumping into the backs of my legs.

I’ve always liked swinging a fly in the fall. It’s an unhurried way of fishing that encourages you to slow down and cover water methodically. Somewhere between each cast and each step downstream, your mind settles. It’s time to reflect on another summer gone by and quietly prepare for the cold months ahead.

With two-handed rods now widely accepted, and some rivers prohibiting weighted flies or added weight during the fall, swinging has become the natural way to fish. Just as importantly, the culture has changed. On these rivers anglers now rotate through the pools as an accepted practice. Instead of snarling while guarding a favorite rock, people are happy to sit on a nearby bench, drink a coffee, and wait their turn.

For most of the year I’m a solitary angler. I enjoy the quiet and rarely go looking for company. But every fall I find myself making a few long drives to a thoroughly unglamorous urban river to swing for landlocks, and I genuinely look forward to seeing the same familiar faces.

Many of them are members of the local Trout Unlimited chapter—the people who spent years fighting to protect this fishery and push for sensible regulations. They’ve succeeded. I’ve fished this little river for nearly thirty years, and the fishing has never been better. Neither has the craic.

Truth be told, I hardly know many of these people beyond a first name. We cross paths for a few days each autumn, catch up on what the year has brought, celebrate another season past, and gather around whenever someone hooks a good fish. Everyone wants to see it landed.

It could easily be a circus, like some of the Great Lakes tributaries become this time of year. Instead, it’s relaxed, welcoming, and surprisingly social. That’s no accident. It’s the culture that local anglers—and particularly the TU chapter—have worked hard to build.

I’m not finished with summer just yet. There are still mountain streams to wander and trout to chase. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t already looking forward to those cold autumn mornings, numb fingers wrapped around a Spey rod, waiting my turn on the bench, and enjoying the craic.

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Up in the high drainages I don’t give fly selection much thought.

Fly hatches matter little. These fish are eager to fatten up during their short growing season on what ever they can put in their mouths. They’re living where they’ve always lived—in the cold, broken water high in the mountains—and come July, that’s exactly where I want to be.

If you opened my fly box at this time of year, you might wonder why I carry so few patterns. The answer is simple. After years of wandering the small streams of the White Mountains, I keep reaching for the same fly, so why bother with the rest?

After thousands of casts in the sort of water I love to fish, I simply came to trust it more than any other fly.

BLT stands for Brookies Love This, and although I still carry a few other flies, this is the one that’s usually tied to the end of my leader. It wasn’t designed to imitate anything in particular. It simply suggests life, it could be a caddis a terrestrial or something else, who really cares, the fish don’t seem to. It floats well in broken water and, more importantly, it’s the fly I have the most confidence in. If there’s a brook trout willing to rise, I never feel I’m at a disadvantage with a BLT tied on.

Those mountain streams have shaped far more than the flies I fish. They’ve shaped the way I approach a day on the water. I carry very little—a two-weight rod, a small fly box, tippet, forceps and not much else. The older I get, the more I appreciate travelling light. It lets me cover more ground, climb a little farther and spend my time watching the water instead of rummaging through pockets looking for another fly.

In many ways, the BLT has come to define the way I fish.

There isn’t anything particularly clever about the pattern. No secret ingredient or revolutionary tying technique. Like many good patterns, it evolved slowly over several seasons. Hundreds of brook trout helped refine it until eventually I stopped changing it. It had become what I wanted it to be.

Brook trout living in fast mountain streams don’t have much time to inspect a fly. They have a split second to decide whether to eat it before it disappears downstream. I think shape, the ability to see the fly on the water and confidence in the fly matter far more than exact imitation in this sort of water. The BLT gives me all three.

If the BLT has taught me anything, it’s that fly fishing doesn’t have to be complicated. Find good water. Carry less than you think you need. Fish with confidence and enjoy wherever the day takes you.

The brook trout seem perfectly happy with that arrangement.

So am I.

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Tying the BLT

For those who have asked how the fly is tied, there really isn’t much mystery to it. the pattern is built on simplicity and being a quick tie.

Hook: Size 12 barbless dry fly hook

Underbody: Tactical Microflash dubbing - Peacock (used regardless of foam color)

Overbody: 2mm foam strip, approximately one hook-gap wide, trimmed to a rounded point at the rear. I tie it primarily in black, olive and tan. A Chernobyl Ant foam cutter works great here.

Sighter: Thin strip of orange foam (no need for floatant!).

Hackle: Two to three turns of grizzly hackle, trimmed flat on the underside so the fly sits low in the surface film while still floating confidently in broken water.

Finish: A light touch of super glue on the trimmed underside of the hackle and a tiny dab at the head seals the fly and dramatically improves its durability.

That’s the whole pattern. Nothing particularly clever, but after thousands of casts in mountain streams, I’ve yet to find a reason to complicate it.

They flowed through the outskirts of Halifax in West Yorkshire, winding between the dark, soot-blackened mills that powered England’s textile industry. Depending on what colour cloth was being dyed that day, the water might run blue, green or crimson. Shopping trolleys made as good a cover for trout, as the shadows beneath rubbish-strewn banks. The wild brown trout that survived were certainly chemically enhanced. I didn’t know any better, and I didn’t care. The fish were there, and that was enough.

I started by tickling trout from beneath rocks in the tiny stream in the woods behind my home before graduating to worms, then wet flies, and eventually dry flies whenever enough insects survived the dye long enough to hatch. Every spare hour outside school was spent wandering those neglected rivers with a fishing rod in hand. Looking back, I realize most sensible anglers had escaped to cleaner water long before. I simply didn’t have the bus fare to follow them. What felt like bad luck at the time turned out to be one of life’s unexpected gifts. Those forgotten rivers taught me to observe, to explore and, perhaps most importantly, to enjoy my own company.

When I was twelve my parents drove us north into the Yorkshire Dales for a family hike. The air felt cleaner, the sheep wore white instead of black soot, and the River Wharfe slid through the valley as though it had nothing to apologize for.

Years later I would learn about the history that surrounded it. T. E. Pritt had wandered these same banks as a boy before publishing North Country Flies in 1886. Edmonds and Lee would later preserve the traditions of the Yorkshire soft hackles in Brook and River Trouting. The Wharfe wasn’t simply another trout river; it was one of the birthplaces of a style of fly fishing that has quietly endured for generations. At twelve years old, however, I knew none of that. I only knew it was the most beautiful river I had ever seen.

We parked at Bolton Abbey and walked upstream toward Barden Bridge. Long gravel runs slipped into broken riffles that looked as though they had been designed for trout. The water was wonderfully clear with a peaty brown hue, and there wasn’t a shopping trolley in sight. Something shifted that afternoon. It wasn’t simply that I wanted to fish there. Looking back, I suspect that was the day I truly fell in love with rivers.

The following week I drove my father nuts, asking every day if we could go back. Eventually he relented - it was my birthday after all.

The next Saturday morning I stood outside the estate office before it opened with five pounds (all my savings and then some) in one pocket for a day license and a fistful of loose change in the other for a few flies. Earlier in the week I’d gone through my little tobacco tin, removing every fly larger than the estate’s size twelve limit and leaving myself with a rather tired collection of Butchers, Black Pennells and Invictas.

The gentleman behind the counter slid open a tray.

Inside were flies unlike anything I’d ever seen.

North Country Spiders.

They were slim, sparse and wonderfully understated. They looked almost unfinished compared to the flies I knew, yet somehow they also looked exactly right. I didn’t ask which patterns worked best. I simply counted my pennies and bought the ones that caught my eye—Partridge and Orange, Snipe and Purple, and Partridge and Crimson. Only years later did I realize I was carrying flies identical to those fished on this same river more than a century before.

I started at the top of the estate and slowly worked my way downstream, stopping halfway at the Pavilion Café for a cup of tea and an Eccles cake before heading back to the river. By the end of the afternoon I’d caught my limit of trout, every one of them on those little spiders, I was hooked.

I’ve carried North Country Spiders with me ever since.

They crossed an ocean with me and found a home on other rivers. Vermont’s Winooski has always reminded me a little of the Wharfe if I squint and let my mind wander. The broad, shallow runs and broken currents seem made for swinging soft hackles, and the spiders have continued to work their quiet magic. They’ve fooled, wild fish throughout New England and trout on western rivers such as the Green and Madison much farther from Yorkshire than I could ever have imagined as a boy.

Fly patterns have become more sophisticated over the years. Materials are more exotic. Fly boxes are certainly more crowded. Yet those wonderfully simple spiders continue to catch trout with remarkable consistency. Perhaps that’s because they suggest so much while imitating so little. Or perhaps some ideas simply don’t need improving. Certainly I seem to be the only one fishing them most places I go, a point in my favor I believe.

I’ve now lived in America for two thirds of my life. The rivers that shape my seasons today lie in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, yet every time I tie on a Partridge and Orange or a Snipe and Purple I’m connected to Yorkshire. Not simply to a place, but to generations of anglers who understood that a handful of silk and feather was often all you needed.

Some fly patterns catch fish.

The best ones catch years, places and people. Long after the trout have slipped back into the current, they continue connecting us to where it all began.

If it interests folks I’ll do a post on how I tie my spiders in the near future - let m know in the comments if that interests you.

Many of you will know Joe Goodspeed. He’s about the fishiest dude that has ever stepped into a river. He developed some of the first Euro rods while working at Cortland, was the rod designer at Thomas & Thomas and is now the brains behind the Diamondback Fly Rod Company.

He fishes more than anyone I know and how he makes it all work I still have no idea. If you’re a large brown trout, an albie or a muskie, he’s pretty much your worst nightmare.

However, until about three years ago Joe had never put any effort into chasing Atlantic salmon. A trip with a couple of good friends gave him a glimpse into the world of Atlantic salmon. While he didn’t catch one, he did see his friend land one and he was a changed man.

I think one of the things that had kept Joe from chasing salmon up to that point was a thought that many people have—that Atlantic salmon fishing is an expensive sport requiring guides, private water and posh lodges

His trip to the Matapedia opened his eyes to the reality of what the Gaspé rivers offer the average angler. Car camping and miles of public access water holding good fish are available to anyone willing to give it a go.

As someone who could never afford to fish the salmon rivers of my home country, and who landed his first Atlantic salmon from the very public Eddington Pool on the Penobscot, I could relate.

And that public water? On rivers like the Bonaventure and the York it’s world class. Your chances of landing a good fish are no less because you’re fishing public water. In fact, every one of my biggest salmon has come from public water.

Then there’s the confusion surrounding the November draw, the 48-hour draw and the night-before draws. To outsiders it all sounds hopelessly complicated. In reality it’s a remarkably simple and democratic system. Once I, and others, explained how it all worked, Joe fully embraced it and became a true working man’s salmon angler

What I enjoyed so much watching over the past few years was how Joe approached a completely new species and a completely new way of fishing. It was obvious from the start that he was going to do it on his own terms. That meant learning from scratch to fish for a species he had no real experience with. His usual fish of choice are big predators. Heck, Atlantic salmon don’t even feed in freshwater.

Scandi lines, traditional salmon flies and a whole new language that was unfamiliar to many people, Joe included. But he dived in. He fished hard, learned from the rivers, from friends and from the anglers he met on the bank and shared a bench with. It was a long journey of countless hours on the water, slowly piecing it all together. There were setbacks along the way—warm water, trout setting on big fish amongst others.

The last couple of years I was lucky enough to spend some time on the water with Joe. Those days were special. We both fish hard when we’re chasing salmon, and Joe wasn’t just going through the motions like so many people do. He was always asking questions, always looking for answers and, in the process, his respect for the fish, the rivers and the whole culture of life surrounding those magnificent rivers continued to grow.

Somewhere along the way the salmon almost became secondary.

He had fallen in love with the rivers. He’d come to appreciate the people who dedicate so much of their lives to these fish and the traditions that surround them. He’d become part of a culture that values patience, persistence and optimism above almost everything else.

A few days ago it all came together.

He his first big salmon, and finally got the feedback from the fish that had been missing. It was the last piece of the puzzle.

Joe worked incredibly hard for that moment—harder than anyone will ever really know. But it was never just about catching a salmon. It was about understanding the species and appreciating what it means to the soul of those of us who love the rivers of the Gaspé. This was a deeply personal journey for Joe, While he sent me a pic of his fish he hasn’t to this point shared it on social media. While I’m sure he will at some point for now the experience is deeply personal, one he’s not quite ready to share.

As Joe said while we were happily texting after his big fish came to hand—from the wrong side of the river, no less—you can short cut the process and kinda buy a salmon with guides and lodges. What you can’t buy is the hard graft of learning the process, learning the culture and building it all from the ground up on your own terms so that it becomes part of your DNA.

Joe is happy to have caught his fish. But I believe he’s even happier to have become part of the culture and lore that surrounds Atlantic salmon fishing. I know he deeply appreciates and respects the whole process. In some small way I know chasing Salar has changed his life.

Last I heard Joe had gone feral again, sleeping in his car along the banks f the Bonaventure and out of cell service. Now armed with his degree in Atlantic salmon fishing I can’t wait to hear from him again when he emerges with tales of silver, it may be a couple of days it may be a couple of weeks, I have no idea. But I do know he’s at one with the river and thinking like a fish and that makes me smile.

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The first few times I hiked up there I remember thinking, What a perfect place to launch a paraglider.

I wasn’t the first to have that thought.

On later hikes I discovered it was already a popular launch site. These days I often arrive to find a gaggle of friendly and passionate pilots laying out wings, checking weather, clipping into harnesses and then, one by one, disappearing silently into the sky. They soar for what seems like hours.

I usually sit on my favourite rock for a while and chat with a few of the regulars I’ve come to know. Eventually the conversation turns to how we used to do things back in North Conway in the late 1980s, when John Bouchard came back from Chamonix completely fired up about paragliding.

John’s vision wasn’t simply to fly for the fun of it. His goal was to use paragliders as a climbing tool. Climb the route, reach the summit, then fly off and avoid the long, difficult, crevasse and avalanche-ridden descents that could take hours, sometimes even days. To that end he established Feral Corp alongside Wild Things, started manufacturing paragliders in the USA and importing others from France.

As I sit on my designated rock at Ascutney today, I marvel at how different the sport has become from my brief time in Bouchard’s “Scare Force” back in the late ‘80s.

Today’s harnesses look like reclining chairs. Everyone carries a radio. Variometers chirp quietly from chest straps. Cell phones are checked for the latest weather, GPS units track every flight, and friends and family can follow pilots in real time. Virtually every recreational pilot carries a certified reserve parachute, every wing is EN certified, and every pilot works their way through the USHPA ratings from P1 Beginner to P5 Master. Nobody flies alone. There are always at least two pilots at launch.

The biggest difference I notice, though, has nothing to do with the equipment.

Today’s pilots fly because they simply love flying.

Back then almost every pilot was a climber. We’d all drunk the Kool-Aid John was serving and genuinely believed that one day lightweight paragliders would become another tool in the alpine climbing kit. Looking back, it sounds a little far-fetched. At the time it seemed perfectly logical.

John was constantly tinkering with new wing designs, which meant the rest of us could buy “seconds” from Feral Corp at a fraction of the retail price—the only way dirtbag climbers like us could afford to get into the sport.

From a distance the wings of yesterday don’t look all that different from today’s, but the reality is they’re worlds apart. Our wings had seven to nine cells. Today’s have fifty to seventy. Glide ratios back then were around 4:1 or 5:1 and felt more like 3:1. Today’s wings have 9:1 or 11:1.

Definitely more about flying than plummeting.

I bought one of John’s seconds and headed over to King Pine Ski Area in Madison to meet a few of the more experienced fliers of the day—they’d all bought their wings a couple of weeks before me.

Under the watchful eye of Rick Wilcox and a few others I hiked up the ski slope, laid out my wing, clipped it to my climbing harness and ran downhill as fast as I could while pulling the wing overhead.

As if by magic my feet left the ground.

The flight probably lasted less than ten seconds and I was only a few feet off the ground.

I was completely hooked.

Early the next morning I packed the wing into my climbing pack and drove to the base of Whitehorse Ledge.

I told nobody where I was going.

I slipped on my climbing shoes and soloed Sliding Board to the summit. Once on top I swapped rock shoes for sneakers, clipped into my climbing harness and laid out the wing. I connected the risers via a couple of locking carabiners to a pair of shoulder length climbing slings girth hitched to the belay loop of my harness.

That was the system of the day - no foam backed recliner seats here.

With a whole ten seconds of flying experience under my belt, I waited for what I thought was the right moment, pulled the wing overhead and started running.

Luck gave me a perfect upslope breeze.

Before I really knew what had happened I was soaring out over Whitehorse with a thousand feet of granite hanging beneath my sneakers.

This was definitely in the days when “plummeting” described the experience better than “flying.” That became increasingly obvious as the treetops below started getting closer and closer.

Beginner’s luck stayed with me.

I managed to clear the trees, drift out over Echo Lake, make a gentle turn, flare the risers and land remarkably smoothly on the sandy beach.

I scared the hell out of a couple walking their dog.

I was useless for the rest of the day. Completely wired. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. It was the most incredible feeling I’d ever experienced.

I knew immediately this could become a very serious addiction.

The next couple of years were wonderfully chaotic, and our little group definitely lived up to the nickname “The Scare Force.”

Unofficial members like Joe Lentini, Dave Karl, Andy Tibbets, Jim Ewing, Mark Twight, Rich Baker, Jimmy Surette and others suffered broken bones and spectacular tree rescues.

It all seemed to come to a head on what became known as “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” when so many pilots crashed into Echo Lake that the lifeguards begged everyone to stop flying

That probably should have told us something.

It didn’t take long for me to see the writing on the wall.

Truthfully, I missed after-work climbing with my buddies Andy Ross, Chris Gill and Jerry Handren more than I loved flying.

I sold my wing to Dave Karl for $400 and returned to climbing full time.

Not long afterwards, Dave broke both ankles flying off Whitehorse.

One afternoon while guiding on Whitehorse I happened to look up just in time to see John Bouchard auger into the slabs while testing a new prototype that had been rigged with the wrong lines. I left my bewildered client standing where he was, ran up the slabs and helped John down. Bruised and battered, he was still able to drive himself to the emergency room, so I got a full day of guiding in, but the sight of John hitting hard had me shuddering all day.

It was a wild and chaotic time, one most of us are very glad we survived.

But amidst all the mayhem there is one remarkable story that perhaps justifies the madness.

In 1989 Charlie Townsend and Dave Auble established a difficult new route on the 5,000-foot east face of Mount Russell in Alaska. After reaching the summit they were pinned down by a violent storm for five days, having already spent as long climbing the route. Food was running low, energy even lower, and a normal descent would have meant hours or even days of wading through fresh snow in serious avalanche conditions.

Both had packed lightweight paragliders - an unheard of decision at the time and even today.

Before leaving for Alaska they had spent the winter around North Conway practising launches, landings and, perhaps most importantly, learning how to kick off their crampons just before landing so they wouldn’t break an ankle.

When the weather finally cleared, Auble launched first and, as Townsend later wrote in the American Alpine Journal, he simply disappeared off the ridge, becoming “a diminishing blip” above the immense Kahiltna Glacier.

Townsend launched moments later.

Unfortunately, all their New Hampshire practice had been done without expedition packs.

As soon as he became airborne the heavy pack flipped him upside down.

He somehow regained control, landed safely beside Dave and later summed up the entire expedition with one wonderful sentence:

“Ten days on the hill. Eight minutes in the air.”

It was a remarkable adventure born from a cutting-edge idea that John Bouchard had been advocating for several years: climb light, then eliminate the dangerous descent by flying.

Every time I sit on my rock at Ascutney and watch today’s pilots effortlessly circling overhead I can’t help but smile. The sport has grown up. It’s organized, regulated and, thankfully, vastly safer than it was when we were members of the Scare Force.

My new friends on Ascutney keep telling me I should give it another go.

“It’s so much safer now,” they say.

I believe them.

But so far I’ve politely declined.

January through March is all about hunkering down at the vise. Filling fly boxes. Tying patterns you’ll probably lose in trees by July. Daydreaming about warm days on the water while snow piles against the windows and the wind howls outside.

Come April, we’re back out there, freezing our toes in eternal hope that the tug on the line turns out to be a fish rather than a submerged log. Every now and then a little magic happens. A nice landlocked salmon swung from a run. A big brown trout nymphed out of a deep hole. More often than not, though, we’re just building karma points and practicing our casts.

It’s also the time of year for a destination fix. Bonefish under a tropical sun in Belize or Mexico. Trout in Montana, Colorado, or Utah. This year, for me, it was big steelhead in British Columbia. We chase these fish partly because they’re beautiful and challenging, but also because there’s something satisfying about putting a few memorable fish in the memory bank and reminding ourselves why we love this game.

Then May and June arrive and the wheels come off.

At least they do in my case.

The water warms. Fish become active. Wet wading even becomes possible. Here in New England, hatches become reliablish and suddenly every outing carries the possibility of the fish of your dreams. A giant brown. A trophy bass. A striped bass in the salt. Whatever species occupies your imagination, May and June offer a legitimate chance.

It’s the golden window we’ve spent all winter waiting for.

It’s easy to get drunk on the abundance.

And no June feels complete without a few sixteen-hour days wandering the rivers of the Gaspé, chasing Atlantic salmon and believing that the next cast might change everything.

Then July arrives.

Temperatures climb. Humidity soars. Trout rivers warm beyond what are considered responsible fishing temperatures. Brown trout become off-limits. Bass remain willing participants, and pond fishing can still be excellent, but for me this all becomes a hot, sticky affair that this transplanted Brit has never entirely embraced.

For many New England anglers, July and August are a time to slow down. Family cookouts replace dawn alarms. Fishing takes a back seat while everyone waits for the cool promise of autumn.

For me, though, July and August are the highlight of the entire year.

July 4th marks the unofficial start of my high-drainage brook trout season in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As an Englishman, I’ve always thought it a convenient time to disappear into the mountains and avoid speaking with anyone who might notice my accent.

Friends—and even other anglers—often seem confused by my obsession with small mountain brook trout.

After all, I’ve spent the spring chasing fish worthy of photographs and bragging rights. Fish measured in pounds rather than inches. So how can a six-inch brook trout possibly compete?

The answer is simple.

They’re the most beautiful fish of all and they live in a place that is very dear to me.

Steelhead are beautiful. Atlantic salmon are beautiful. Big brown trout are beautiful.

But in my eyes, nothing matches the color and sass of a wild mountain brook trout.

Even now, after catching thousands of them, I still find myself staring longer than I should at each fish before releasing it. The impossible orange fins. The blue halos around crimson spots. The way they seem almost too vibrant to belong in the cold, dark streams they inhabit. I never quite get used to it.

Mountain brook trout aren’t big, and for many anglers that ends the conversation right there.

They want a fish that bends a rod deeply and lets them glimpse their backing.

That’s fair enough.

But brook trout demand a different mindset.

If you chase them with a standard nine-foot five-weight rod you’re massively over-gunning things and missing the point entirely.

A seven-and-a-half-foot two-weight changes everything.

Suddenly the rod loads with a foot of line beyond the tip. Accuracy improves in tight quarters. A modest fish puts a satisfying bend in the rod. The scale of the tackle matches the scale of the water and the fish, and the entire experience becomes more enjoyable.

To get the most from this style of fishing, I like to relate to my alpine climbing roots of a past life.

Light is right.

Leave the vest at home. Leave the net at home. Most of the gear that works wonderfully on valley-bottom rivers simply becomes dead weight in mountain drainages. Worse, it gets caught on every spruce branch within reach.

A pair of hiking shoes with sticky rubber soles, a small backpack with food and water, a spool of tippet, and a fly box are usually all that’s required.

Travel light and suddenly entire watersheds can be explored to their source.

And that’s really what keeps drawing me back.

The fish are wonderful, but the exploration is equally important.

The White Mountains contain hundreds of miles of streams hidden in deep valleys and remote drainages. Some are well known. Most are not. Every season I revisit a few old favorites, but I spend far more time searching for new water. New tributaries. New dribbles. New stretches that might hold a handful of wild fish and a sense of discovery. Rarely do I ever see another angler.

I’ve been playing this game for a long time now, and the list of places I still want to explore somehow keeps getting longer rather than shorter.

Which is a good thing.

Because in the end, the exotic trips, the steelhead, the Atlantic salmon, and the big spring trout are all wonderful. I love every one of them.

But if I’m honest, they’re mostly preparing me for what I enjoy most.

A small dry fly.

A cold mountain stream.

A little two-weight rod.

And a brightly colored brook trout willing to rise in water so clear and cold it feels untouched by summer.

Far from the crowds, high in the White Mountains, on the hottest days of the year, that’s where I most want to be.

I can’t wait for July 4th.

As winter loosened its grip and the first hints of spring arrived, the breakfast scene migrated across town to the Pastry Works, tucked down the alley opposite IME. Neil and Cathy owned the place and made the best baked goods in town. More importantly, they had a soft spot for dirtbag climbers and guides.

Spring in North Conway meant everybody suddenly became obsessed with going “light is right.” The massive winter breakfasts disappeared overnight, replaced by a blueberry muffin and coffee because apparently that was going to help us climb 5.12.

Most mornings a handful of us would wander in before guiding or climbing. There was always the same mix of banter — who had done what, who had fallen off what, and endless speculation about unclimbed lines tucked away somewhere in the black fly infested hills.

As idyllic as that sounds, my first few weeks at the Pastry Works were deeply unsettling.

The first morning I walked in with Jerry, Andy, Chris and the crew, I was hanging at the back of the line figuring out what I wanted while watching the beautiful woman behind the counter laugh and flirt effortlessly with all my friends.

Then it was my turn.

I rolled up smiling, fully prepared to deploy what little British charm I possessed, and was met with absolute Arctic hostility. No smile. No warmth. Just a look so cold it genuinely rattled me. She stared straight through me like I’d ruined her life.

I paid quickly and retreated to the table completely confused.

The next day was the same.

And the next.

For two solid weeks, every interaction with her felt like I’d somehow personally betrayed her in a previous life. Meanwhile she remained perfectly cheerful with everybody else. It honestly started messing with my head. I had no clue what I’d done, but apparently whatever it was had been severe.

Eventually I recruited Andy to do some discreet investigative work.

A few days later, sitting in Horsefeathers with a massive grin on his face, he finally filled me in.

The previous fall — before I’d even set foot in America — this woman, who we’ll call Mary, had come up from Boston and signed up for a four-day beginner climbing course at IMCS. It was late foliage season, midweek, and business was slow enough that she ended up with a private guide.

Her guide was another Brit.

We’ll call him John.

John was apparently tall, skinny, blond, awkward-looking and sporting a British accent. In other words… basically me.

At the end of the four days, after climbing at Whitehorse, the two of them apparently wrapped up the course with a hot and heavy romantic session in the Bouchard cabin before parting ways rather abruptly as Mary had to catch a ride back to Boston.

John, meanwhile, returned to the UK shortly afterward when his visa expired.

This was long before social media, cell phones or any practical way of tracking someone down. People just vanished back then.

But clearly John had made an impression.

Over the winter Mary quit her job in Boston and moved to North Conway, perhaps hoping to reconnect with him. Then one spring morning I walked into the Pastry Works where she worked, tall, skinny, blond British climber — she assumed I was John.

The problem was, from my side of things, I’d never seen this woman before in my life.

So when I failed to show immediate excitement and recognition upon ordering my blueberry muffin and coffee, she concluded I was deliberately giving her the cold shoulder after our supposed romantic climbing fling.

Apparently after closing that first day she had informed Neil and Cathy she was absolutely furious with me.

To make matters worse, several locals had already mistaken me for John in bars around town, so the confusion wasn’t completely unreasonable.

Once the full story emerged, I assured Neil and Cathy I was definitely not that guy. Andy tried to explain the situation to Mary. But by then the whole thing had become so awkward and ridiculous that neither of us could really recover from it.

I was far too shy to walk over and explain face to face that I was not, in fact, the mysterious British climbing Romeo she may have relocated her life for.

So we just continued awkwardly orbiting each other for another few weeks.

To this day I’m not entirely convinced she ever fully believed I was not John.

Eventually she left the Pastry Works and got a job at one of the local restaurants so she could climb during the day. The last time I saw her she was cruising up North End classics in fine style with some handsome local rock star belaying her — definitely not a skinny Brit.

Not long afterward I heard they’d moved out west together in search of dry rock and fewer black flies.

I really did hope she found exactly what she was looking for and was happy..

And I was certainly happy to finally return to my morning blueberry muffin and coffee without existential dread.

As I left the UK, sport climbing was just beginning to creep in—or at least a British version of it. Living in North Wales, I spent plenty of days at Pen Trwyn, on the coast near Llandudno. A limestone crag overlooking a scenic drive around a headland. It was one of the early venues for bolted routes in the UK.

But they were generally nothing like what we now call sport climbs. The bolts were spaced—generously so—and carrying a few wires and slings (for threads) was required.

Amusingly over in the Llanberis slate quarries just a short drive away things were moving just as quickly, but in the opposite direction. Routes were going up everywhere, but if bolts were placed, they were often so far apart they barely counted. You needed RP’s, skyhooks, and a desire to be scared. It was bold, wild, and completely compelling in a very different way.

Then I arrived in New Hampshire.

There was no sport climbing to speak of. North Conway was firmly trad. It was home to a generation of climbers who defined that style, including Henry Barber—about as pure a trad climber as you could find.

I stepped straight into it and loved it.

Cathedral Ledge was the center of it for me. The crack climbing on Cathedral was on another level compared to anything I’d done before. If you’d grown up placing nuts, fiddling them into place and trusting them it was the safest form of climbing there was.

Between the cracks were long sections of blank granite. Beautiful rock, just off vertical, with enough holds to make things go—but protection could be sparse. Confidence mattered. Pegs and the occasional bolt did appear, and sometimes disappeared again, but the general rule was simple: if it was a good line, and protected—wisely, meaning sparsely—it would be accepted. It was still a long way from sport climbing.

Spring in New England is wet, and back then there were no indoor walls. So we hunted out crags with roofs—places you could climb in the rain. Sundown, off the Passaconway Road, fit the bill perfectly. A handful of hard trad routes and aid lines waiting to be freed, all tucked under steep rock.

We spent a lot of time there, wiggling small nuts into climbs like Police and Thieves (5.12c), Vultures (5.10b), End of the Tether (5.11d), Toothless Grin (5.12a), and the aid project Razor Crack. Walking in and out, we’d pass these blank walls and think nothing of them. No cracks, no obvious holds—nothing to draw you in.

Then one day, Stevie Damboise rapped down the buttress that would become home to Romper Room.

From above, he could see what we couldn’t from below—there were holds. Good holds. Enough to make apparent blank walls become climbs. It was a proper lightbulb moment for us all. After that, we started looking at the cliff differently. Suddenly, as if by magic, all sorts of options appeared in our minds.

And what routes they turned out to be.

Romper Room (5.12a), The Pastry Works (5.13b), Yellow Matter Custard (5.13a), Confederacy of Dunces (5.12d), and the iconic Eyeless in Gaza (5.12b) put up by Jerry Handren. All of these, along with many others came into play in the spring and summer of 1988. The steepness of the rock and lack of natural protection meant they became some of the first sport routes in the area—and at the time, certainly the biggest concentration of them.

That said, they weren’t always immediately seen as sport climbs.

Some were tried as trad lines. I remember attempting Eyeless in Gaza with Chris Gill, placing cams and resetting a peg at the crux every time we fell. It was exciting—but not really practical. Or wise.

Even newly established, routes like Romper Room and Eyeless In Gaza still required a cam low down. They were good placements—so why not? Stevie and Jerry weren’t exactly flush with cash, and bolts weren’t cheap. But it didn’t take long before bolts were added and the cams became unnecessary. True sport routes—some of the first in New Hampshire, and still some of the best.

At the same time, Rumney was exploding. We quickly learned that schist was terrible for gear—but brilliant for climbing. We, the North Conway crowd, held onto our traditions a bit too long—spacing bolts, fiddling in wires and small cams wherever we could. The locals were quicker to adapt, embracing a more fully bolted approach, and that shift gave rise to many of the great routes that define the place today.

None of this transition was clean or obvious. We were figuring it out as we went.

There was a whole generation of us climbing both trad and sport at roughly the same grade. If you climbed 5.12, you climbed 5.12—whether it was trad or sport. In many cases, you might even do better on the trad route, simply because it was less steep and less pumpy. We trusted gear and could place it efficiently. We’d grown up with it.

Then came a moment that stuck with me.

I was guiding at the North End and watched two young guys struggling up They Died Laughing, a classic 5.9. It was clearly beyond them. They had a hard time placing gear, harder time trusting it, and pieces popped as they fell. Eventually they backed off, leaving behind a couple of pieces—which I may or may not have claimed.

The next day, I had off and headed to Sundown. I was surprised to see the same two guys on Eyeless in Gaza, one hanging from a bolt, both clearly having a great time. They weren’t getting anywhere—but they weren’t scared either. That’s what struck me. They seemed far less intimidated on a 5.12 than they had been on a 5.9 the day before. It made no sense to me. It would have been the very opposite for me. For my generation it was the grade not the style that limited our progress.

Later that night, I was in Horsefeathers with friends, talking climbing as usual and making a single beer last hours. The same two guys were there with some buddies, talking about their day on Eyeless in Gaza - I listened in. “5.12” came up a lot. Their buddies were impressed. No mention at all of the struggle and fear on the much easier 5.9 the day before.

That was one of those moments when I thought “wow” and had a sudden peek in to the future.

It became clear that sport and trad would start to diverge—not just in style, but in how people measured themselves. Sport climbing was fun. The learning curve was quicker. And, frankly, it sounded a lot cooler to be “working” a 5.12 sport route than “failing” on a 5.9 trad climb. even though neither route was actually climbed.

No judgment in that—just an interesting moment to witness. A shift.

I still love both. These days I’m more likely to spend a day at Rumney than on a thin crack at Cathedral. But I’m glad I came up when the line between the two was blurred—when 5.12 just meant 5.12, regardless of how you got up it.

The title, by the way, was was a well-worn phrase favored by some particularly grumpy old guys at the time.

In the world of fly fishing, three influences in particular helped shape how I came to understand the sport in this country: the wisdom of Lefty Kreh, the writing of John Gierach, and the photography of Barry and Cathy Beck.

Those three things made me feel, early on, that I wanted to be part of American fly fishing and that it was very different than the fishing I knew at the time.

But of them all, it was Barry and Cathy Beck’s photography that hit me hardest.

A Different Vision of Fly Fishing

I came from the UK, where most fishing photography looked much the same: tweed, waxed cotton, grim smiles, and a dead fish. The American magazines of the day weren’t much more imaginative—swap the tweed for cowboy hats and ball caps and the dead fish for a grip and grin, but the general aesthetic remained equally uninspiring.

Neither version did much for a slightly punkish young Brit looking for adventure in a far away land.

Then one day I picked up a copy of Fly Fisherman magazine in a local bookstore.

And I stopped.

On the cover was a woman with long blonde hair in a bright red jacket, standing in a river so beautiful it hardly seemed real—Patagonia, if memory serves. There was no fish in the shot. No grin. No hero pose. Just perfect composition, dramatic color contrast, and atmosphere unlike anything I had ever seen in fly fishing media.

It made me stare.

It made me want to know more.

The photographer was Barry Beck.
The angler was his wife, Cathy.

From then on, I actively searched magazine racks for their work.

They Helped Sell the Dream

It didn’t take long to learn just how influential they were.

Barry and Cathy hosted countless trips for Frontiers International and played a major role in popularizing destination fly fishing for American anglers—Patagonia, New Zealand, the saltwater flats, and beyond. Their photography sold not just trips, but dreams. They made anglers want to go. Want to see. Want to fish.

Cathy was a superb photographer in her own right. Together, they created some of the most aspirational imagery the sport has ever seen. They were both early adopters of the new digital wave, while many of their contemporaries clung to film.

Meeting Your Heroes

Years later, while working Fly Fishing Shows, I had the opportunity to meet Barry and Cathy several times. We got on well, and eventually they invited me to visit them at their home in Benton, Pennsylvania.

In the spring of 2022, as the world was finally crawling out of Covid, I made the trip.

They put me and a colleague up in the beautiful lodge-like building across from their home—the base of their renowned fly fishing school, overlooking a pair of instructional ponds.

The next morning we piled into their in meticulously maintained, thoroughly pimped-out Range Rover, and headed into town for breakfast. I got the feeling both liked a little rally driving on the side.

After breakfast Cathy returned to the office to finish some work in prep for an up coming trip, and Barry took us out to fish their local water.

Only he didn’t fish.

He carried a camera.

And for that, I’ll always be grateful.

Because over those two days Barry took some of the finest fishing photographs of me that I have. I felt deeply privileged to be his subject, and as anyone who has seen his work would expect, he approached photographing his home stream with exactly the same professionalism and artistry he brought to the far corners of the world.

The Mop Fly Revelation

During the day I talked Barry into opening his fly box, which he had on him even though he had no rod.

I expected Catskill classics.

Instead?

Brightly colored mop flies.

I absolutely loved that.

There was something deeply satisfying in discovering that a man whose work had shaped the visual identity of modern fly fishing wasn’t precious about what caught fish. It made me like him even more.

Cathy’s Legacy

At dinner I wanted to know all about Cathy and her career.

She spoke about her work as one of fly fishing’s most respected casting instructors and her close relationship with Lefty Kreh, who had mentored her extensively. It was obvious Lefty saw something special in her and did everything he could to help her flourish—almost as if preparing a successor. She took particular pride in the work she had done to bring other women in to the sport.

Both Barry and Cathy were serious fly tiers with commercial patterns to their names.

I had seen photos of their tying stations before, but standing in that room—seeing their desks side by side, imagining the flies tied there over the decades—felt special in a way only fly anglers will truly understand.

Fishing in the Rain, Standing in History

The next day we fished in a cold rain on water they had shared with Lefty and countless others legends over the years.

As Barry and Cathy told stories of the anglers who had stood where I stood, I felt acutely aware that I was occupying a small place in a much larger story—one stretching back through the modern history of American fly fishing.

Barry photographed.
Cathy fished.

And at one point, the two of us shared a frame from Barry’s camera—cold, soaked, grinning ear to ear, each holding fish.

It remains a powerful memory.

A Lasting Memory

When I drove home, I carried with me a head full of stories, memories of fish, and excitement to see the photos Barry would send.

They were every bit as wonderful as I hoped.

Photographs I’ll treasure forever.

We spoke about fishing again soon after that.

Then, in 2024, Cathy passed away quietly in her sleep while hosting a trip with Barry in South America.

And just like that, one of the brightest lights in fly fishing—and one of the people who had most shaped my understanding of the sport in America—was gone.

But what a life she lived.

If You Don’t Know Their Story

If Barry and Cathy Beck’s names are unfamiliar to you, check out:
Legacy: The Cathy and Barry Beck Story (You Tube)

It tells the story of an extraordinary couple whose impact on fly fishing extends far beyond photographs and magazine covers.

For me, they didn’t just help define my idea of American fly fishing.

They helped me fall in love with it.

.

That’s Rick Wilcox.

Rick’s been greeting folks as they come through the door since 1979, when he bought the store from Paul Ross, Frank Simon, and Bill Aughton for $13,000.

Forty-seven years as the owner of an independent outdoor shop. That’s a remarkable run.

If you were at the 2026 Mount Washington Ice Festival and found yourself in line buying an ice screw or hand warmers, you already know—IME is still thriving. In a world of online retail, Prolink deals, REI, and EMS, that’s no small thing. IME isn’t just a climbing store—it’s the climbing hub of New England. And Rick? He’s the wizard people come to for wisdom and maybe a little enlightenment.

With over 60 expeditions under his belt, Rick has a depth of experience that few can match. And people seek it out. I’ve stood in the shop while someone who drove up from DC waited patiently just to be helped by Rick—and Rick alone. No one else would do. It’s part of their journey into the mountains as they see it. He outfits them for a guided expedition, smiles, takes $3,000 from their wallet, and sends them out the door with their gear, a few nuggets of wisdom and a smile on their face.

When I first arrived in North Conway, IMCS was based out of IME, though Rick didn’t own it at the time—Paul Ross did. I wasn’t working for Rick yet, but that would change soon enough. Paul sold the school to him not long after I arrived.

I’ll admit, I was a bit nervous about what that meant for me. New owner, new direction—you never quite know.

Turns out, I had nothing to worry about

We hit it off immediately, and like so many before and since, Rick became a mentor to me.

To understand how he operates, here’s a small example.

At the time, I was living in the hangdog hostile—loud, chaotic, not exactly clean, and definitely not private. I’d just started dating a woman who worked behind the counter at IME, and I was about to leave for a trip to Peru.

Rick decided that was no way to start a relationship.

So, the weekend before I left, he handed us the keys to his guest house. Told us to go enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. When I opened the fridge, it was stocked with bacon, eggs and champagne.

I hadn’t asked. He just did it.

That’s Rick.

Over the years, countless people have stories just like that—small, generous acts, offered quietly, with no expectation of anything in return.

Rick was at the forefront of New England rock and ice climbing in the 1970s—he was part of an early all star repeat of the Black Dike with John Bouchard, John Bragg and Henry Barber, and the did first ascent of Repentance with Bragg.

But big mountains were always his real love.

He climbed multiple 7,000-meter peaks, and in 1991 led the first New England Everest expedition—long before Everest became what it is today. Back then, if you stood on the summit, you did so as a climber.

Rick did.

He became the 260th person to reach the top.

While he was away, I managed both the store and the climbing school. At first, there wasn’t much media interest. But as word got out that the team might summit, the phone started ringing. And when news broke that Rick and three teammates had made it?

It didn’t stop.

I fielded most of those calls.

One that stuck with me was from the Boston Globe.

“Can you tell me how Rick trained for Everest? And what he eats?”

What the reporter didn’t know—and what I wasn’t about to share—was that Rick had everything on the line just to make the trip happen. He left the U.S. stressed and scraping together money. A structured training plan and nutrition program weren’t exactly part of the deal.

So I told the truth:

“Well, he hiked Kearsarge a couple of times before he left and he’s pretty partial to a good cheeseburger.”

The reporter thought I was taking the piss and hung up.

But it was all true.

What they missed and I would have shared is that Rick has an almost ridiculous ability to acclimatize. That, combined with his knack for not sweating the small stuff, means that as he goes higher, he gets stronger—while others fall apart.

More than one young, super-fit guide has gone to Nepal thinking they’d be the one leading the charge, with Rick bringing up the rear.

It never worked out that way.

Rick would just keep moving, smiling, pulling his weight and then some… while the hot shot always puked and faded

Guiding with Rick was a blast.

Nothing fazed him. Bureaucracy, logistics, red tape—things that would leave most people tearing their hair out—he handled with ease.

On one trip to the Langtang Valley with a large group of clients, I got to see just how much gravity he carried. In the dining tent each night, people would gather around him, completely absorbed in his stories—rescues on Mount Washington, life in the mountains. It was like turning on a TV.

Which suited me and the other guides just fine—we could sit back and enjoy the show.

That trip had a bit of everything. I got avalanched 1,000 feet down Langtang Lirung and dug out by Rick (long story, too long for here). We summited Naya Kanga with the entire team. And I shared a smaller summit with the late Henry Kendall while he shot incredible large-format photos.

For many of us, Rick is best known as the longtime president of Mountain Rescue—something like 40 years in the role ( Rick did step down a few years ago)

You don’t hold that position that long unless you have the complete respect of both the climbing community and Fish and Game.

Rick had it.

He was calm, direct, and unfazed by drama—a rare thing in rescue circles at times. When things got heated, we deferred to him. He made the calls. He worked closely with Fish and Game. He was the one who spoke to distraught family members at trailheads.

Which left the rest of us to get on with the job and sneak away after.

One phrase of his from those years has stuck with me ever since:

“No one’s dead, so how bad can it be?”

Not a bad line to remember when you start stressing the small stuff.

In the early ’90s, Rick and I grew the school and launched the Mount Washington Valley Ice Festival. It was a fun time—business was good, a strong all star cadre of guides, everything clicking.

But life shifts.

I had a young family, and I was offered a job at Climb High in Vermont. Better money, better opportunities for the family, a new challenge.

On paper, it was a no-brainer.

But I stalled for weeks.

Not because I didn’t want the job—but because I didn’t want to tell Rick.

When I finally did, I saw it—a brief flash of sadness cross his face. Then it was gone. Just like that, replaced by encouragement and genuine excitement for me.

I’ve changed jobs a few times since.

Telling Rick was the only one that hurt and it haunted me for months after.

I moved to Vermont, raised a family—but IME never stopped feeling like home.

There’s something about walking through that door and seeing Rick still doing what he does so well—holding court, selling gear, sharing stories. The best salesman you’ll ever see, with a completely captive audience.

These days, we try to get out once each winter and climb an ice route on a sunny day. Rick’s in his late 70’s now, and those days feel like gifts.

As far as I know, I’m the only person he’s climbed ice with in the past 30 years.

I don’t take that honor lightly.

I’m already looking forward to our next sunny day out next winter.

In the late Spring of 1987 Jerry Handren and Chris Gill wandered up the Arethusa Falls trail— in an anti-clockwise direction—to investigate a band of rock perched high above the Frankenstein ice climb Chia.

I suspect Jerry had been eyeing that cliff for years, driving past it all winter while guiding the area’s classic ice routes. There was even a mention in an old guidebook of a 5.8 called Dark Lord somewhere up there, perhaps that’s where Chris got his itch for checking it out.

At the time as climbers, we had a pretty firm philosophy on hiking: the less, the better.
The walk to Sundown felt long. Cathedral Ledge was perfect. If we were hiking, it was only because we’d been called out for a rescue by Fish and Game—or we were guiding Mount Washington in winter.

So for Jerry and Chris to commit to a 45-minute uphill slog with ropes and gear. That was a serious investment in suffering.

It paid off.

They came back to the hangdog hostile on Kearsarge Street in North Conway buzzing—all fired up—with stories of incredible rock. The first route they put up was Salamander Days, a spicy 5.11d trad line. That was enough to pull the rest of us in.

Andy Ross, Rich Baker, Mark Wilson, and I swallowed our dread of hiking and joined them the next day.

The hike sucked, as expected.
The rock absolutely did not.

A New Cliff Revealed

Jerry and Chris had stumbled onto something special.

A broad ledge—reached by a scramble—sat below a deeply featured band of cliff: cracks, corners, blunt aretes. Clean for the most part, with just a bit of brushing required, though there was some serious trundling needed up high to make things safe.

Andy quickly became the team’s trundling specialist—arguably more interested in launching boulders through the trees than climbing routes.

There was no shortage of lines, so we all picked projects, cleaned them up, and started working them.

Jerry eventually sent what was to be the hardest line on the cliff: Rocky Horror Show (5.12b), a stunning corner protected mostly with small wires. He’d hike up solo after work, evening after evening, cleaning and figuring it out.

What none of us realized at the time was that Jerry had a deep seated fear of bears.

Coming down at dusk, he’d sing loudly and bang cans together on the trail—something we found endlessly entertaining.

Attila the Nun

I had my eye on a blunt arete between Rocky Horror Show and Salamander Days.

I’d equipped it with a couple of well spaced hand-drilled bolts and a peg, in addition it required a few nuts— it finished at a two-peg anchor just below the top of the cliff.

The climbing was excellent or at least that’s what my memory tells me: airy, pumpy face climbing up to a crux bulge, then a long reach to a good hold on the final headwall.

This was still the old school era of style. No rehearsing on top rope was allowed. You’d hike up, tie in, climb until you fell, get lowered, maybe gain a move next go… and that was about it.

A lot of sweaty hiking for maybe 20 minutes of climbing.

But the line was too good to ignore—I wanted the first ascent. Still, that hike was getting old.

Hurricane, Surf, and Beer

We were deep in the Upper Frankenstein frenzy when a hurricane rolled in, bringing heavy rain for the weekend.

Some of us were gutted. Jerry and Rich however were thrilled.

They surfed, and Higgins Beach was going to be good.

Rich took pity on the rest of us and offered to drop Andy, Mark, and me off at Three Dollar Dewey’s in Portland while they surfed. Chris was more mature and had a girlfriend so stayed at home.

Five of us and two surfboards squeezed in to a Honda Civic and headed east.

We got dropped with a vague “we’ll pick you up later.”

Later turned into much later.

Being dirtbag climbers, we invested in beer—not food. Many hours at the bar proved you can drink quite a lot of it.

Eventually Jerry and Rich returned, and in the process of regrouping, we threw Rich into a fountain for his troubles.

Why he still drove us home after that says everything about the guy.

The Send

The next morning I woke up with a pounding head and sunlight pouring through the window.

We had to go back up to the cliff.

Andy and I dragged ourselves up the trail, sweating beer the entire way and gulping Gatorade. Expectations were low, but as is often the case when they are, something magical happened. I sent the route first try with a gently throbbing head and a tail wind of beer fumes.

Clipping the anchor, I was psyched to have the made the first ascent of Attila the Nun (5.12a), but even more psyched to know I’d never have to hike up there again.

Lost to Time

All of this happened just as Ed Webster was finalizing his guidebook—so none of these routes made it in.

They appeared in a Climbing magazine “New Routes” piece I wrote, which—rumor has it—was enough to lure Scot Stevenson and Base up there. I never confirmed that, but I’d love to know what they thought.

After that, the cliff faded.

Occasional photos surfaced of Jerry in his yellow tights on Rocky Horror Show—but the hike kept people away. The article disappeared. Guidebooks skipped the routes. Where the cliff actually was became myth. If Mountain Project had nothing on the routes, did they even really exsist?

At one point I got a call from John Sykes. I’d helped a bit with his Cannon guidebook, and he was calling all excited to tell me his new book The Notches was out, I asked if he’d included the Upper Frankenstein routes.

“What routes?” He groaned loudly, “All I can say is… second edition,” he replied, sounding gutted that he’d missed some routes.

What’s Left

I’ve no idea what those routes are like now.

I imagine a few eternal rock explorers like Ray Rice may have been up there, but I don’t really know. Maybe they’ve been reclaimed by the woods. Maybe they’re still just as good as my memories tell me. What I do know is that none of us ever walked back up their after doing the first ascents.

I hope someone’s climbing them.

Because they were certainly worth it.

Even if that hike up there is a bitch!

Upper Frankenstein — Route List

• Salamanda Days — 5.11d — Jerry Handren, Chris Gill

• Whispering Forest — 5.11c — Jerry Handren, Nick Yardley

• Attila The Nun — 5.12a — Nick Yardley, Andy Ross

• Rocky Horror Show — 5.12b — Jerry Handren

• Stem Like A Bar Stand — 5.11a — Mark Wilson, Rich Baker

• Shaking Up Orange Street — 5.11a — Andy Ross, Mark Wilson

But the better way—the proper way—is to link it from the base and climb the full 450 feet of the cliff. There are a handful of options, but the classic is Fun House (5.7) into Upper Refuse. It’s a full-value moderate: fun climbing the whole way, and a final pitch that delivers a surprising amount of exposure and “wow factor” for such a friendly grade.

Back when I was guiding, this link-up was bread and butter. It always delivered—happy clients, high-fives at the top, and usually a small audience waiting at the fenced overlook to share in their accomplishment. It was also a go-to for quick solos or the occasional moonlight lap. The climbing flows, the belays are comfortable, and the views are worth every step.

Over the years, I must have climbed it hundreds of times. I’ve taken my kids up it, then later watched them lead me up it. I’ve dragged countless friends up it who just had to experience Cathedral Ledge.

The finish is always the same: you pop out unexpectedly at the fenced-in viewpoint. If it’s daytime, odds are you’ll be greeted by a crowd of tourists—often from Massachusetts—phones in hand, ready to document your heroic arrival. Back in the day, they’d point their cameras at you. Now it’s all cell phones, but the ritual remains.

You’re roped to your partner far below, so there’s no escaping the interaction.

And then the questions begin.

Tourist: “Is there someone else at the end of the rope?”
Me:
“I hope so.”
“There was when I left the ledge.”
“Not anymore.”
“There were two… we lost one.”

Tourist: “How long did it take you?”
Me:
“Days.”
“Too long—we ran out of food.”

We prided ourselves on delivering answers just sharp enough that people weren’t quite sure if we were joking.

Eventually your partner tops out—often their first time—and walks straight into applause, confusion, and more photos. Depending on the personality, they’re either mortified or absolutely buzzing. I’d always have a quiet bet with myself on which way it would go.

One lap stands out above all the others.

I was guiding a four-day private with a guy I’ll call Bob. Late 40s, successful Boston business, kids off to college, recently separated—classic “find myself, maybe climb Everest” phase. Not uncommon in those days.

Bob was fit, picked things up quickly, and more importantly, he was good company. We’d climbed Standard Route on Whitehorse the day before and spent some time at the North End on Child’s Play and Kiddie Crack that morning. Now it was time for the Fun House / Upper Refuse link-up.

As expected, he cruised Fun House and then floated up Upper Refuse. Near the top, I gave my usual reminder:

“Take a look over your shoulder here.”

He did. Pause. Then the mandatory:

“Wow.”

Once he was secured at the final belay, I scrambled up to the true top—and the crowd I knew would be waiting.

Except this time, the crowd wasn’t paying attention to me.

They were gathered about 20 feet to the side, quiet, focused. Something was going on.

I clipped into the fence, pulled up rope, and yelled, “Climb when you’re ready, Bob.”

As I started taking in slack, it became clear: this was a memorial. Family and friends saying goodbye. Tears, laughter, final words. Then a tall gentleman stepped forward, tipped a vase over the edge…

…and the ashes caught the wind.

Instead of drifting cleanly down, a significant cloud arced—down and right.

Directly towards where I knew Bob was climbing, just out of sight.

Two minutes later, Bob popped over the lip, blinking rapidly… lightly dusted in a fine gray coating.

He hadn’t seen a thing. Just wide-eyed, blinking, trying to process whatever had just hit him in the face.

I leaned in and advised with a grin:

“Keep your mouth shut Bob.”

That two-minute window spared the family and friends from witnessing their dearly departed unceremoniously coating a climber as he pulled over the top. By the time Bob reached the fence, they were already back at their cars.

Bob, however, quickly pieced it together.

A string of thick Massachusetts-accented profanity cut through the afternoon air. I had to turn away, shoulders shaking, trying not to laugh.

To his credit, Bob caught on, saw me losing it, and decided that was the only reasonable response. He joined in.

We brushed him off as best we could. By the time we started down, he was mostly ash-free.

We both walked away with a story worth telling. And if the dearly departed had ever tied in during their time alive, I like to think their ghost had a good laugh right along with us.

If you’re chasing this fish, you need this rod, this line, these tips—it’s almost plug and play. Whether it’s trout, steelhead, bass, salmon, or stripers, there’s now a huge range of well-balanced setups that will have a newcomer shooting lasers in less than an afternoon.

It wasn’t always that way……….

The Early Itch

I became Spey curious back in the mid-’90s. At the time, there was a real groundswell of innovation on the West Coast, but the East Coast was still firmly rooted in the single-handed rod world. A few folks on the Great Lakes tribs and in Eastern Canada were experimenting, but that was about it.

If you wanted to swing flies for trout or bass with a two-hander, the tools just didn’t exist—unless you made them yourself. And a few of us did. Cutting down lines, cobbling together shooting heads, even adding lower handles to old 5-weights just to see what might work.

I’m not entirely sure why I was so drawn to it. Most of the fish I was chasing were too small for the gear that did exist. But the itch was there, and I kept scratching.

Then one day, opportunity slapped me in the face.

A used G Loomis 12’6” 8wt Spey rod sat on the rack at my local fly shop—basically new, clearly an unwanted gift. I picked it up for a steal.

Of course, what I didn’t realize at the time is that an 8wt Spey rod is essentially a 10/11wt in single-hand terms. Clueless, I strung it up with an 8wt forward taper line… and was completely underwhelmed.

Back to single-hand rods I went.

But I knew I was missing something.

The Problem with Trees

I fished a lot of rivers where a single-handed rod felt limiting. I wanted reach. I wanted control over the swing. Most of all, I wanted to be able to send a cast anywhere I liked without worrying about what was behind me.

Living in New England, there’s always something behind you. Usually a poorly placed tree.

I got by with roll casts, and they worked—to a point. But not well enough.

For years, I mucked around—flailed might be more accurate—with different setups. Everything was too beefy for what I needed, which was mostly swinging flies for landlocked salmon on the Lake Champlain tribs near where I lived at the time.

The Shift: Enter the Switch Rod

Then in 2011, Echo introduced the Echo SR rod range.

These rods ranged from 10’3” to 10’8”, in weights from 3wt to 8wt—finally, tools that made sense for my everyday fishing situations. “SR” stood for Switch Rod, meaning you could cast them single- or two-handed.

At $330, they were priced right too. Worst case, I figured, I’d end up with a solid nymphing rod for the Salmon River.

So I picked up a 4wt that fall and went chasing landlocked salmon.

At that point, true Scandi or Skagit lines for rods under 5wt barely existed. But by then I’d done enough trial and error to know how to piece something together. I cut down an old 7wt line into a homemade shooting head, paired it with some trusty Amnesia running line, and got to work.

And immediately—I knew.

This was it.

Finding the Sweet Spot

A tight, compact stroke would send that line sailing across the river in a way I’d been chasing for years. Efficient. Repeatable. Controlled.

A total game changer.

I could now step down a long run with a measured, consistent cast. And when a 3–5 lb salmon grabbed, it was perfect—I had control, but it didn’t feel like overkill.

It was just… fun.

That SR rod saw hard use for years. I never once cast it single-handed—it was, for me, a true micro Spey rod before that was really a category. Even now, with all the advancements in lighter two-handers, it still casts beautifully.

Watching It Catch On

Around that time, I started noticing others dipping a toe into the world of the two hander.

On local rivers. On the Great Lakes tribs. Up on the Gaspé.

At first, it was a bit rough and painful to witness. Anglers were thrashing the water, lines were splashing down hard only 30 feet out—not pretty and surely sending every self respecting fish running.

But things changed quickly.

I remember standing on the Baillargeon Bridge over the York River in June, just watching anglers rotate through the pool. Beautiful Scandi casts, one after another. Smooth, efficient, dialed.

Even back on the Champlain tribs, the shift was obvious. People moved away from single-hand rods, moved away from the early “cannons,” and into modern setups matched to the actual fish and water.

Now, on some of those rivers, it’s rare to see a single-handed rod at all. And the average casting level? Night and day from just a few years ago.

It’s actually a pleasure to watch now—not the cringe fest it once was.

Where We Are Now

Two-handed angling has matured into something incredibly accessible. The information is there. The gear is there. And where you take it is really only limited by your imagination.

My own lineup runs from a 1wt for swinging small spiders in the height of summer, all the way up to a 13’4” 8wt for big salmon rivers. Each rod is matched with the right heads and tips, and regardless of size, they all deliver the same thing:

That tug on the reel as the line straightens out - it’s own little drug.

Effectiveness vs Enjoyment

Is it the most effective way to fish?

Sometimes, absolutely. Most of the time? Maybe not.

Is it the most enjoyable?

For me, quite often—yes.

And at the end of the day, that’s what matters.

The Bonus

One of the nice side effects of spending your days throwing Snap-Ts, Double Speys, and Snake Rolls is what it does for your single-handed casting.

Those skills transfer.

You pick up a single-hander again, and suddenly it feels far more versatile than you remember.

A win all around.

As a kid back in Yorkshire, I could generally fish pretty cheaply on my home waters. As an under-16, prices were manageable, and for those very desirable bits of water that sat just out of reach financially, perhaps a little late-night poaching occasionally occurred. I could fish—but I had to navigate a quiet, complicated world of access. There was no internet to lay it all out for you

My local angling club, for example, had access to three nearby rivers, but only in short sections—different lengths on each. I also fished a local lake run by a separate club that operated just that water. If I took a 30-minute bus ride, I could reach a few more stretches, each requiring a different license. Some offered day tickets; others required full membership. And for those clubs, you often needed references from existing members—and even then, there might be a waiting list

The bottom line was: I fished a lot, but never freely. There was no jumping on a bus for an hour, hopping off, and casting into whatever water caught your eye.

As I got older and read about better waters further afield in Angling Times or Trout & Salmon, it became clear that access to good fishing was very much tied to your finances, which as a teen I had none. A day ticket on an average stillwater like Rutland Water, for a bank angler, might run £6–£10 back then—roughly $35–$60 in today’s terms. That’s about the cost of a full-year state fishing license in the U.S

For a teenager, that made a single day’s fishing a real commitment. A full weekend was rarely an option. And these were the blue-collar, everyman fisheries. A day on an average southern chalk stream could easily cost five times that—or more.

When I arrived in the U.S., it was December, and I landed in North Conway during a particularly cold winter. Fishing didn’t cross my mind—everything was frozen solid, and it was hard to even tell where the rivers were beneath the snow.

But come spring, things changed.

I found myself frequently crossing First Bridge over the Saco River just out of town. One day, I looked over the side and saw rising trout. That was it—my fishing instincts kicked in, and I had to fish

I raced up to North Country Angler, eager to buy a license.

What happened over the counter that day was a genuine lightbulb moment for me—a story I’ve told many times, so apologies if you’ve heard it before, but it really was a defining “wow” moment.

I asked the clerk for a fishing license, specifically one that would allow me to fish that stretch of river by the bridge. I braced myself for the usual responses:
“I’ll check with the club secretary.”
“You’ll need to join.”
“There’s a waiting list.”
“It’s private.”
“It’s $50 a day.”

Instead, with barely a glance up and a slight yawn, the clerk said, “That’ll be $12.50—cash or card?

“Okay,” I thought, slightly confused. Then I followed up: “How much of the river above the bridge does that allow me to fish—and is that per day?”

The clerk looked puzzled. My friend chimed in, “He’s English.”

The clerk laughed. “No,” he said, “that’s for the whole state of New Hampshire—all its rivers and lakes.”

An area roughly the size of Wales, back home.

That simple interaction changed my perspective entirely. It made me realize just how special it was to be in America—and how lucky I was to have access to so much water for what amounts to pennies a day.

These days, I usually carry season licenses for New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. All in, they cost me around $225 a year and give me near-unlimited access to an area the size of Wales, England, and Scotland combined.

It’s easy to take that for granted if you grew up here, but this level of access really is remarkable—especially considering that most of these waters are managed, stocked, and policed for the benefit of the general public.

Of course, there are pressures. Disagreements about how certain waters should be managed. But compared to the restrictions and intensity of access back in the UK an most of Europe, there’s really no comparison.

Most summer weekends, I find myself somewhere on a river—and even now, I can spend an entire day without seeing another person unless I go looking for one

I bring this all up because, as I sit here renewing my Vermont resident fishing license for $28, I still find myself marveling—shaking my head, really—that it works out to about seven cents a day to fish such a vast range of waters whenever I please.

With all the wackiness in the world today, I appreciate this little constant more than ever.

The Grouse and Flash was never meant to be anything special. It began sometime in the early nineties — just a simple tweak to my beloved North Country spiders I’d grown up fishing back in Yorkshire. A little less tradition, a little more curiosity. A whisper of Krystal Flash where thread once lived.

That was it.

Or so I thought.

When I moved to Burlington, Vermont, I was lucky enough to fall straight into a great friendship with Bob Olsen. Bob was one of those guys Vermont seems particularly good at producing — climber, backcountry skier, wanderer, eternal outdoor enthusiast. Back in the seventies he’d helped pioneer ice and rock climbs up in Smugglers’ Notch, but when I met him his energy had settled squarely onto trout rivers.

We recognized each other immediately. Dirtbag climbing histories tend to do that. Our fishing trips were rarely elegant — tents, drafty cabins, cheap motels but they were rich in the only currency that matters: time outside and a friendship forged.

Bob didn’t tie flies.

I handed him a few Grouse and Flash patterns early on. That was all it took. Soon came the familiar refrain:

“Hey Nick… you wouldn’t happen to have a few more of those, would you?”

I happily obliged. What gave me the greatest pleasure wasn’t fishing the fly myself, but listening to Bob recount how it had saved another difficult evening. Another slow pool turned generous. Another last-light trout convinced.

In 2018 I moved south to Brownsville and began working with Fulling Mill in nearby Claremont. I suddenly found myself surrounded by millions of professionally tied flies moving through my warehouse each year — yet most evenings I still returned to my own vise, filling boxes with personal patterns.

Bob and I now lived nearly two hours apart. Fishing together became less frequent, though the requests never stopped.

“Nick… any chance of some more G&Fs?”

I always meant to tie them.

Life, as it does, kept intervening.

Then one day a small envelope appeared in the mail. Inside was a watercolor — delicate and quiet — a painting of the Grouse and Flash, with me casting behind it. No note. No explanation.

Just the picture.

I laughed, stuck it to the fridge, and went straight to the vise.

Message received.

The following week Deb called. Bob was in hospital. It wasn’t good. He couldn’t speak or have visitors, but we texted right up to the end — mostly about fishing, old trips, and inevitably, the Grouse and Flash.

Only later did I understand that painting for what it was. His quiet farewell and thank you to me his old fishing friend.

I still miss my best fishing partner. Some evenings I almost reach for my phone to text him how the river fished

But there’s comfort in knowing something so small — a hook dressed in feather and flash — brought him genuine joy. That it traveled waters I wasn’t present for. That it kept fishing long after it left my hands.

The last time Bob and I fished together, He drove down form Burlington to fish my new home stream and be sure my cabin in the woods met his standard - it did.

The Grouse and Flash

Hook: Wet fly hook, sizes 8–18
Abdomen: Pearl or olive Krystal Flash wrapped over a thin smear of super glue — keep it sparse and translucent
Thorax: Hare’s ear or grey squirrel dubbing
Hackle: Grouse, woodcock, partridge, or any suitably sized soft hackle

Origins

I grew up in the long shadow of T.E. Pritt and the North Country spider tradition along Yorkshire’s River Wharfe, swinging teams of soft hackles through shallow runs. When I arrived in Vermont, stretches of the Winooski felt uncannily familiar, and I returned instinctively to fishing wets.

What surprised me was how few anglers here fished spiders at all.

Replacing the traditional thread body with Krystal Flash created a thin, translucent abdomen that glows beneath the hackle — remarkably suggestive of emerging caddis or ascending insects. Since then, the fly has traveled widely, proving itself from small Vermont rivers to trout spey swings on the Connecticut River and even landlocked salmon water.

• Sizes 12–16: Caddis emergers

• Sizes 16–18: Blue-winged olive hatches

• Sizes 8–10: Pin fry and searching pattern

Two Grouse and Flash flies remain my default trout spey pairing today.

The pattern has appeared in Tom Ames’ Hatch Guide to New England Streams, Fly Rod & Reel, and Drew Price’s Favorite Flies for Vermont.

But truthfully, its finest credential lives on my fridge — in watercolor — reminding me that the best flies are measured not in fish caught, but in friendships carried downstream.