Visitors From Colorado

Our son Tony, Kari and the grandkids in Kilgali Rwanda from whence Leonard was adopted.Later, having there picture taken in Colorado. Earlier this summer they all came to Minnesota to visit. A great time was had by all. Here are a few highlights:
Visiting Dick & Sharons farm for 4 wheeling.

Tony, Troutbirder, Tensae & Ethan overlooking The Father Of Waters near the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota
We also took a fishingboat ride on the backwaters of the Mississippi looking for alligators. None were spotted (perhaps a little to far north from there usual habitat), however, numerous snapping turtles soon appeared. Here Tensae is getting ready for our lunch stop at Slipperys, the famous restaurant movie home of the "Grumpy Old Men." As I recall Ann Margaret was a professor at nearby Winona State University. Not in my time though.

Home Waters

I just started reading Home Waters edited by Gary Soucie. It's a fly-fishing anthology. Home waters would be that place or places which the flyfisherman considers his own. Not in the literal sense, of course, but in the sense of being at home there. The place with which he is most familiar and most comfortable. A place to which he returns most often in body and spirit.

For me, it is the spring fed limestone creeks and rivers of Bluff Country, the karst region of southeastern Minnesota. There are several rivers and innumerable streams and tiny brooks in this unglaciated countryside. Over a forty year period I have fished most of them. The South Branch of the Root River is closest to my home and heart. It is the place to which I now return in my retirement years.

This is where I first learned how to entice the wily brown trout with the fly. Then taught my two sons the same art. Later, as they grew up, we wandered far afield to the fabulous waters of Montana and Yellowstone National Park. The Boulder, the Gallatin, the West Fork of the Madison, The Big Hole, The Lamar, Slough Creek and countless others became part of our vocabulary.
Here son Ted and I standing confidently above the Lamar having caught and released our share of giant cutthroat trout.Those days of memory are long gone now.

Son Tony lives with his family in Colorado and only rarely are we able to find the time and place to share our common interest in fishing for trout. Grandson Ethan, though, is learning to love the outdoors and perhaps someday.....
My "Home Waters" the South Branch of the Root River.