Cover Image by Nick Trehearne / Bass Pro Shops SOA
From the Editor’s Bench
This month I felt compelled to share a letter from one of our readers. It sums up perfectly why we publish Strung. We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we did putting it together.
Sammy
Letter to the Editor
I would like to share a story with you if you'll permit me.
I am certainly no writer, so feel free to stop as soon as your eyelids droop, but I love the written word, and I am going to give it a shot here. Please bear with me.
Though I live in the immediate suburbs of a major metropolitan area (Philadelphia, PA), I am blessed to have had the opportunity to escape to, and enjoy Pennsylvania's remote and rural places throughout my life.
I have hunted all my life, but have only "had a cup of coffee" with fishing. A few opening days on stocked streams, a few trips with friends and uncles, usually salt. But I always felt drawn to give flyfishing a try.
I am an avid reader, and I went looking for something to fill the void after running through Gordon MacQuarrie’s Old Duck Hunters Association compilation. I was itching for more exceptional storytelling of that sort.
When I discovered Strung - in a deliberate effort to find exactly what Strung was offering - I couldn't have been more satisfied.
Initially the fishing issues were just a nice browse, but not the ones I waited for eagerly. But a little of MacQuarrie bled through, and exposure to your particular sort of storytelling, and beautiful imagery… and my imagination was stoked, my curiosity of flyfishing rekindled. Months of looking into PA's fishing opportunities only provided more enthusiasm.
In early May 2024 I was tearing apart a closet in my daughters room as part of a home electrical project. The window was open, and I was enjoying the arrival of spring, and literally thinking how I should be fishing.
I reached into the wall cavity to clean out debris, and found the butt section of an old fly rod - research revealed it to be a Horrocks Ibbotson split cane Bamboo rod from the 1920's!
My house was built in the 20's, and this must have fallen down the balloon-framed exterior wall from the attic at some point during previous ownership.
We know the family before us raised eight kids in this four bedroom house, and I've undone countless improvised home “improvement” fixes during my stewardship. I have three daughters, and I can only imagine what this guy's days and nights were like. So I've decided to see the character in his faulty wiring and questionable repairs. When I am several layers into undoing something particularly dodgy I now say to myself: "Way to keep ‘em warm and dry Mr. Carden. Good on you."
At that moment all I could think of was a man raising a family in this house nearly 100 years ago, who would've certainly rather been fishing on a beautiful May day like this. So IF a message CAN be received across the great divide … suffice to say I was feeling pretty receptive at that moment.
Within a week I was the owner of an Orvis click-and-pawl reel and 9' 5 weight rod, and spending after-dinner evenings consuming all Youtube and internet content available on fly fishing.
I took a 101 class, and got in touch with an old friend who never misses a season on the water. My electrical project was back-burnered into another season, where it could be postponed again in the pursuit of ducks, pheasant, or whitetail. So last summer I felt like I was 12 years old again, exploring local creeks and streams.
I have had a fantastic time reinvesting in an old curiosity, an old friendship, and finding a new passion. Strung has played a significant part in that experience, and the greatest miracle of all? My beautiful wife (in true MacQuarrie fashion) shook her head a little and gave the whole endeavor her blessing. I AM a very lucky man.
So thanks again, and please keep up the great work. I'll look forward to your delivery of the art in sharing natural places, relationships and the sense of relief that a little less pressure, and a little more imperfection can bring.
I've attached a picture of the old rod where I found it, and a picture from this year in the Pennsylvania Alleghenies catching brook trout on a class A stream.
Once again, thank you.
Marty B.
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Feature
A Fifteen Year Death
Story and Photos by Erin Woodward
Quiet looms amongst forlorn poplar branches. I know these trees. Thick trunks stand resolute mimicking the King’s Guard. Ancient blood has long stained this land. Remnants of arrowheads pulled from the troves of Earth’s quiet stores of riches. This autumn, like those of my past, I find myself consumed by the richness of color and scenery. I sit atop the aging metal deer stand. Time and strength have morphed tree and metal together. Russet dots of brown denote age as flecks of chipped and weather-beaten green fall at will. Hope once echoed here. Long past has my family hunted this land. Clouds flirt with thinning autumn light, and I am here awaiting death.
Dawn pulls forth morning’s glow. I alone rest quietly on a patch of rolling Missouri goodness. Days pass and hope ebbs away. I am waiting. Methodical is my prize. Quiet he walks, each step with purpose and intent. Our dance culminates each fall with a ritual known to many who seek the solace of the woods. Fifteen years have passed since an unexpected death reverberated through my family. I am now married, my children growing, my beard showing signs of age. The echoes of his .30-30 long since quiet, stored away, along with the haunting discovery of his death. My mind searches for comfort, relief from aged grief and sorrow, and so, as I often do I read Fitzgerald. His words, a respite to the soul. I read and fall into Gatsby’s sullen world. Sadness shrouds me, my mind races back in time. Nearest the decayed rust and knotted barbed wire I found tears not known these past fifteen years.
Dave, my uncle, found his brother dead. A gun lay next to his lifeless hand. Head slouched to one side. Alone my uncle wailed, tears releasing pain, sorrow, and the finality of a life gone. His eldest brother found down the quiet hall of a quiet house. Man has known death from Earth’s formation. Its cloak wraps around us in silence, guiding the ill to places unforeseen. We gather to remember, some dressed in black, others hold half-eaten plates, our aunt’s ambrosia and dried brisket. Comfort found in conversations, memories to harbor us from the angst and pain of tears. To see pain, genuine pain that pulls away the flesh of man and grinds him to dust leaves one witness to feelings of brokenness. There will be no more warm hugs. No more smiles. Death has ushered in a new friend. I think of the dried brisket and quiet laughs, my rifle close to me. A peace comes over me, one that comforts and eases the hardness of deep pain.
Poplar leaves dance to the forest floor in a dutiful fashion. Each racing the other, looping, spinning, but ever falling downward. My eyes concentrate not on the beauty of the falling leaves, but on the chilled breaths of a deer, my deer. The one I pined for. His body rigid, muscles locked in place, he stands as if formed from the very dirt on which he walks. Regal in stature, his eyes fixed on some unknown vision directly east his position. My body bent double, heart beating, I turn with gentle ease. Desperate are my movements. Morning light pulls skyward. A freshness known to those of the early dawn slips through clouds and stretched branches. Stoic he looks. Puffs of steam rise from his body. He moves not, except to blink. I sit some distance away and watch in awe. My finger slips up on the safety. Contorted as if a gymnast tumbling over on a floor routine, my body works to gain position. The aged wooded stock rises to position.
The Remington presses firm into my shoulder. The pattern of autumn's familiar feeling rests in my hands. My cheekbone eases on chilled wood. Time slows, breathing slows, and my sight finds the spot. Death echoes forth. Quiet peace interrupted in fractions of seconds, as the passing sounds lumber across poplar and pine. Life clings to desperate hope, my heart races. Knotted patches of barren brambles welcome the deer. He falls. Back mingling with thorns and briars. He moves, flailing legs emitting his desperate cause. I chamber a second bullet. Readying myself in one motion, sending pain forth once more. His once boundless strength now motionless. A welcomed chill wraps over me. I sit for several minutes contemplating, wondering of life's moments that pass, my eyes focused on the mass of antlered deer eternally resting before me.
Blood stains my knife. My young son screams in excited joy. He yearns to be with me here in this place. “Our deer” as he happily calls it, rests clustered in a clump of barren blackberry brambles. I smile and nod as I recount the story to him. His young youthful hands placed on the hardened muscle of a once great woodland king. Together we work in unison to bring home stores of winter meals to be cooked into cherished memories. I pause to see a life before me filled with joy. “Again please,” he says to me. My hands pulling back hide I recount the story. We smile. Dutifully we work.
My son never met his uncle. Knows little of the man's life or his service in Vietnam. Yet he knows of these woods, his heart filled with memories of a home that rests atop the hill at the end of a curved gravel road. Here we smile. I store the last of my gear in the back of my Kubota, the now empty deer stand silent and empty. Some twenty years have passed since my uncle's hands latched and bolted these bars into place. I think of his desire to fill a deer tag and talk of past glories with his two brothers. My son at my side we drive up and over a bend in the woods, the aging deer stand fades from view. My thoughts bounce back to my long past uncle and the fifteen years of silence since he last fired his rifle in these woods.
Erin Woodward has been weaving together his outdoor adventures for the past eight years. His work has appeared in Gun Dog Magazine, Tail Fly Fishing, Field Ethos, Project Upland Magazine, Upland Almanac and Free Range American. He loathes those orange circus peanut candies and has a vast baseball card collection that is mostly worthless. Erin hunts and lives in Kansas with his family
Feature
A World Away
Story and Photos by Brian Lang
Most people don’t see the gorge from the bottom. During the summer - and especially foliage season - when the leaves become the yellows, reds, and oranges of a land that seems to have been created by Dr. Seuss, mobs of folks gather on the bridge spanning the 165-foot-deep chasm to see the spectacular view. They arrive by car and bicycle. And buses that are so big they look like new buildings erected in the parking lot. With cameras and tour group IDs hanging from their necks, they shuffle back and forth across the busy road to see the scenery. There is a snack bar and gift shop selling T-shirts, souvenirs, and specialty foods, including a line of meat seasonings with clever names like “Bull Shit” and “Chicken Shit.” During peak times, driving through the area as a part of daily life is maddening.
I had heard rumors of big trout in the deep holes of the river at the bottom of the gorge. Hiking trails along the rim stretch down to the bottom at each end of the otherwise inaccessible trench, but on a prior trip with my daughter, we explored another, less used route in the middle. It left us sliding in loose gravel down a pitch so steep I was concerned we wouldn’t be able to climb back out. I did, however, find some promising water and filed away the spot as worthy of a return trip.
The day I returned was bright, and I procrastinated long enough that the sun’s rays had an unobstructed path straight to the bottom of the canyon. Sunlight seeped through the translucent canopy of hardwood leaves at the top of the gorge, and from below it looked like a giant green lantern. With hiking boots laced up tight and fly rod strapped to my pack safely in its tube, I approached the edge. I had brought rope to assist my descent but there was already a rope in place, squashing some of my excitement of fishing water that was rarely visited. Still, I hesitated at the top, wondering if it was smart to do this. I was alone this time and knew that a fall could have big consequences. Gripping the rope, trees, and exposed roots, I carefully made my way down to the river. When I reached the bottom, a crow called loudly, as if welcoming me to his fortress. Flying well overhead but below the rim, it maneuvered between the canyon walls like Maverick in an F-18.
I found the riverbed pristine, with gin-clear water. The sheer rock walls, punctuated with greenery in the cracks deep enough to hold some soil, towered overhead. Flowing glacial melt over the previous 13,000 years had carved out the riverbed, and the bottom was a smooth, flowing pattern of rock, with interesting bowl shapes created by strange hydraulics. They still had standing water in them from the last high flow event.
The first pool was almost directly underneath the bridge, but it seemed to be a world away. Looking straight up at the bridge made me a little dizzy. Despite the clear water, the bottom was invisible. I drifted a nymph with some added weight repeatedly through the pool, trying to bump it along the bottom where I envisioned a big trout would lie. Despite the appearance of great holding water, nothing moved. The next pool downstream looked just as good, and I landed a small but spirited rainbow. I was happy to catch it, but I was starting to doubt the stories of giant trout.
The next run was another deep pool bordered by cliffs preventing any fishing further downstream. I snipped off the nymph and put on a black wooly bugger that I could work effectively from my upstream position. Working it from different angles, varying retrieves fast and slow, I could not move a fish. Not impressed with the fishing, I began to just enjoy the sunny day and dramatic scenery. Since I couldn’t continue further without swimming, I went back upstream to the first pool.
I started swinging the bugger near the surface, noodling it around in the current, enjoying watching the fly swim. Suddenly, as the fly slid over the deepest part of the pool, I watched a monster trout shoot straight off the bottom, eat the fly, and turn back down. The hook set itself, and after a couple of strong head shakes, the big fish swam up and down the whole pool, knowing something was wrong but not sure where to go. When it swam by closely at my feet, I could see its length and realized it was about as big as rainbow trout get in this part of the world. It arced back across the surface toward the center of the pool, its dorsal fin slicing through the surface and giving the impression of a miniature great white shark. It thrashed a few times in the current at the surface, and then the line suddenly went slack. It took a second to sink in that I had lost the fish, then frustration kicked in full force, and I cried out “Aaaagghh!”
All alone in the gorge, I assumed nobody saw or heard what had just happened. Then I remembered the bridge directly above. Had the sightseers heard me yell, perhaps mistaking my scream as a call for help? Did somebody peering over the edge watch me hook—and then lose—the fish? I tilted my head way back, straining my neck, and looked up at the green steel span high over the rocks. I couldn’t make out any faces looking down at me, but I did feel like it was now time to leave, before worlds collided, and someone dropped a camera on my head.
After packing up my gear, I clawed my way back out of the gorge with new enthusiasm and excitement at the idea of discovering new water. Half the fun of fishing is the exploration of our natural world, never knowing what you might find. If you’re lucky, you may stumble upon big trout that many people have—sometimes quite literally—overlooked.
Brian Lang grew up and lives in New England where he pursues his passion on the water and in the woods at every opportunity. He has discovered that every outing can be an adventure, and his stories have appeared in Strung Sporting Journal, The Drake, Tail Fly Fishing magazine, and On The Water.
Hatches
Gear Spotlight:
*Our reviews occasionally include affiliate links. Any purchases you make earn us a small commission and help us keep this newsletter free, but do not change your pricing in any way. Purchases are not required to enter or win our giveaways.
The Ridge Pants by Kings Camo are no-nonsense workhorse pants. I’ve tried pants from several hunting apparel companies. At 5’11” with a 150 lb frame, size 30 waist and 31 inseam, I’ve found it somewhat difficult to find pants that fit me just right. Some are too short, some are too baggy, some are too slim. The Ridge Pants fit my particular build with just the right length and boot cuff width to fit over my muck boots and lace-up hunting boots. They have just the right amount of stretch to be comfortable hiking, kneeling, and accommodate all movement required in the field. They are just roomy enough to allow for an insulating under layer without feeling too snug. They breath well as I can attest to in our overly warm early October here in Georgia. They have ample pockets for storage, without excessive bulk. They slide in to an affordable price point (especially when they are on sale) compared to other apparel companies of their caliber.
A few small personal opinions on what could be changed. Button snaps on cargo pants. They are a bit awkward to get in and out of with one hand, and are also relatively loud when opening and closing. I’ve opted to leave them open for convenience and noise reduction, but worry about losing gear stashed in them. The side zip pocket zipper is oriented vertically - I’d personally love for it to be horizontal so I can slide my phone in without fear of it falling out if I forget to zip it up. Finally, I’d love to see an expansion into Eastern-specific camo patterns (they are a Western based company so I understand why they don’t have them, yet). These are nit-picky criticisms and would not preclude me from purchasing these pants again and again.
Kings Camo is one of the few hunting apparel companies that create family friendly lines to include childrens and womens specific gear. They often offer sales that make them an even more affordable option.
All in all, they are comfortable, every-day early-mid season pants from a solid family-oriented company and I believe they’ll find a great place in your every day kit.
Gear Giveaway: Kings Camo XKG Kit
Kings Camo and Strung Dispatch have partnered to give away a Kings Camo XKG kit. Giveaway includes 1) One pair of XKG Ridge Pants ($139.99 retail), 2) XKG Elevation Hoody ($74.99 retail), 3) XKG Transition Vest ($169.99 retail). Total value $384.97. Purchase is not necessary to enter the giveaway, but you must be subscribed to the Strung Dispatch newsletter to win.
Giveaway ends Friday, October 31th at 11:59 PM, EST.
We will contact you by email if you are selected; winner has 48 hours to respond otherwise another winner will be selected.
Congratulations to Travis N. of Casper Wyoming, the winner of our Wilderness Athlete Hydration bundle from Issue 003.
Partners in Conservation
We strongly believe in paying it forward; we owe it to the species we pursue, the land we are called to steward, and future generations of sportsmen and women to come. We are proud to support these organizations.
Trout Unlimited
National Wild Turkey Foundation
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