Flies Only!

Along the Penobscot the average bobber and beer fisherman is not aloud. It is fly against fish on the Upper West Branch. So our only recourse was to drink and watch the fine art the angler employs in deceiving trout with a deliciously swooping artificial fly....from shore.

The white Hips Of White Water

Theres something about the white, the crumple of flesh in the hip, where water decides to fold itself, attack whatever object its white fists engage. Something ultimately feminine that draws men towards it. Some seduction only understood when you touch it, walk through it or are finally engulfed by its power. Something that makes you feel triumphant when you emerge from its persuasion.

wha?

photos by rick beaty

Crooked, Stuttering and somewhat Bored

The boredom, the slowness of time the river affords creaks in the trees, foams in eddys, crackles and taps it's wings against the surface of the water and removes all concerns one might have about their "aliveness". Fluvial you make your way, as if through the arteries of some great spiritual body, crooked, stuttering, quiet and somewhat bored, in the slowness of things you make it, thoughtfully.

As The Campfire Wanes

As the campfire wanes, ceases to illuminate the underskirts of trees, turns to more smoke than flame and you lean back to the left or right dodging its moonlit spiral, no more perfect a time arises that the post smoke rondevous with the moon.

Clogged Highway of Peacock Feathers

The water of the Penobscot, on the upper west branch, wove flamboyant gowns full of color through the banners of rising heat. The sun near Throreau Island turned the river into a clogged highway of peacock feathers. The swarms of bugs allowed only a handful of jerky, a couple cigarettes and a can of Coors, if such can be considered measurements of time. We plunged back into the color, and the next few hours dissapeared into a finely rolled, mid-river-float, which turned conversation, bow and stern like the arms of a clock.