I got a package last week in a plain brown wrapper that tripped off the house metal detector. I opened it anyway. What is it? Prison shiv? Brass knuckles for training as a cage fighter? It’s fly tying paraphernalia from the dangerous mind of Keith Barton. Instructions for the proper way to wear, use and buy the sixth finger scissor found here.
The place on the river has been in the family since the 1840s. As good as my brothers and I think we are, being the only ones who really fly fish the area, the best angler in our family’s time had to be Great Great Uncle Frank. We have pictures of him handling several large muskie, stringers of smallmouth, and a human-sized wahoo from Florida, where he also fished. He used bait casters and oiled silk and catgut and wooden lures and plugs. Another Uncle described him as a water genius. In his later days he became legally blind but he still took out the skiff every day and tended to his minnow traps and fished. He’d find his way by shadows based on…
[Alternate Headline: Holy Bastard I wish I still had a boat.]
