My love of fly fishing for Brook Trout has led me on some great adventures to wild places including Massachusetts, Maine, and even Labrador.

On top of being lucky enough to meet some beautiful and amazing fish, brook trout have led me to cross paths with many amazing people.

After planning, scheming and saving since 2009 in an attempt to pull off a trip to Labrador, I made it happen when my wife and I had an amazing experience fishing there last August. 

It was not only fun in the usual ways a fishing trip can be, but the experiences of that trip changed each of us for the better in subtle ways that are hard to describe.

After that trip, I resolved in earnest to work on fishing-related writing, something I had not done in the decade or so since having kids.  I set a goal to try and get an article published in a fly fishing magazine.  I was lucky enough to join the this blog’s team after Adam K. introduced me to Jo in January of this year.  I felt that writing for the blog would be a good way to begin to develop some writing skills while I plotted a path in my attempt to “break into” the industry.

I didn’t realize at the time that I would end up meeting great new friends through the blog! I have also met a few established writers, who have been generous with their advice and immensely helpful in putting me on the right track.

Fast forward to almost a year later, when I had the mail day of all mail days when I found the fall issue of The Drake in my mailbox.  You might notice that the cover title alludes to “The Beautiful Brook Trout of Labrador!” (sort of) on page 124.

I nervously flipped to page 124 and got to see my name above a brief article about the McKenzie River and a two-page spread photo of a memorable male brookie I landed on a small caddis emerger.

The best part of this all was that I didn’t know that it was going to run!  I feel the need to point out that the cover shot is not mine (that is way above my level of photography at this point), but it is a stunner of a cover.  You can buy The Drake at any Barnes and Noble or order online; don’t do it on account of my article but for all the great writing they feature.  If you do you won’t be disappointed.

I wanted to share this, since Jo told me I had to mention it here. 😉

Since the original story I submitted was about 1500 words, there is still a lot of text left over that I’ll probably try to re-work into a blog post here at some point.  There are lots of amazing photos from that trip, too.  I had held them all back from social media in case I got them in print.  I’ll bleed those out on my Instagram over time.  So if you like brookies, stay tuned!