Category: Uncategorized

  • The Godfather Box and the Net of Indra

    I know there is some kind of synchronicity in the universe.  The Hindu concept of the Net of Indra was right about that.  Not far from The Raven Chronicles J29 table I staffed at the AWP Bookfair in Seattle was The Converse College Low-Residency MFA table which runs South 85 Literary Journal, publisher of my…

  • I’ll Be Signing River Walker and The Other History Books at AWP 2014 in Seattle

      The good folks at The Raven Chronicles invited me to sign my books at their J29 table on Thursday, February 27, 2014, from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday, March 1, 2014, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., at the AWP Bookfair in the Washington State Convention Center.   The Saturday Bookfair is…

  • Remembering the 2013 Humpy Invasion

    Brought by the moon and high tide, swarms of pink salmon arrived in July to shouts of men and women up and down the beach casting with joy of sea-abundance like 20 or 30 thousand years ago.  For 2 1/2 months the swarms made some of us forget all that we must forget to feel…

  • Two for the Road

                                                            This steelhead took the first bait.                                          …

  • Dollies and Hen Steelhead

                                             Bobber in the sweet spot (click to enlarge photos).                                          Fish on!                                          Fish in and released.                                                     A keeper hen steelhead. Yesterday, I had more private fishing access, this time from a coastal waitress.  I caught 8 Dolly Varden trout from 14 to 22 inches, and one hen steelhead without seeing other anglers. …

  • January in Oregon

    Thanks to Rain Magazine at Clatsop Cummunity College for permission to reprint my poem, and to artist Kim Taylor for use of her edited photo.  See her Facebook site for more of her excellent art. I caught 7 steelhead and an 18 pound fall chinook in 4 full days of fishing.  Fall chinook season closed…

  • December Coastal Creek Steelhead

    A few days ago, I caught these two hatchery steelhead chromers on a coastal creek. Today, I saw elk, eagles, spawning coho salmon (third photo), and cantaloupe-sized agates.  I hiked 6 miles along the water in old growth forest without seeing one other human.  There was no cell reception so it was easier to think.…

  • John Muir, Melting Sea Stars, Fukushima, and William Stafford

                                               Here is a summer steelhead I caught on one of my days off when                                             I ran The Starfisher in Depoe Bay, Oregon. One close friend recently asked why I dig “into this Fukushima stuff” when it is in a word, “depressing.” For this I have two answers: 1) In mainstream media, reality hasn’t…

  • The Good News, the Bad News, and the Mystery

    The Good News On May 30, 2012, Freelance Health Journalist Harriet Sugar-Miller reported in her article, “Salmon Says: Should you Worry about Radiation in your Wild Pacific Fish?” in Huffpost Living Canada, “With wild Pacific salmon caught off the U.S. and Canadian coasts, you have nothing to worry about, says Dr. David Welch, a world…

  • Fukushima Fish in the Pacific Northwest?

    Suz and I planned to harvest razor clams on the Washington coast until I reflected on the North Pacific Current possibly delivering pockets of Fukushima radioactive iodine-131, cesium-137, and strontium-90 to the Alaska Current, then north to our Washington coastline.  The list of “maybe, maybe-not-related” news events reads like a Hollywood doomsday script: “melting” starfish…