Good friend of SCOF, Chris Willen, talks Musky in the latest episode of Streamer Chronicles. Check it out.

Issue No. 25 is here ladies and gentlemen. Read it, love it, share it. Don’t procrastinate, just head on over to our Facebook page to Like, Comment, and Share this post for a shot at winning a sweet SCOF Giveaway Gear package. We will hook the winner up with a new SCOF Glow In The Dark Hoodie, 2 T-shirts of their choice, a new SCOF Monkey Foam Trucker, and a fistful of stickers. We will draw the winner on Monday 11/20.

southerncultureonthefly.com

For your viewing pleasure . . .

Alright, maybe it isn’t a cure. If nothing else, though, this oughta help you lazy bastards pass a little time. Not a new one, but this is one worth watching again.

Word on the skreet is that Providence (by Confluence Films, trailer above) has taken home a few of The Drake Flyfishing Video Awards. The awards are well deserved, but the one that strikes me as most appropriate is that it won Best Story. I think there’s a lesson here.

I’ve followed the fly fishing film phenomenon since the beginning, and we have seen some absolute gems. Running Down the Man felt like one of those adventurous yet attainable ski films that leaves you longing for new destinations. I remember that same sort of feeling I always got watching good climbing films. There was Low and Clear, a film that brought the people to the front of the stage. The fish were just the x-ray glasses that revealed the characters. More recently, A Deliberate Life proved that point to perfection. It was on a steelhead trip to NY that Matt Smythe, a friend of mine and the writer of A Deliberate Life, first showed me the film. I remember not quite being sure how to react and hoping that a smile would give cover to the tear forming in my eye. I think I mustered a simple “well done,” but I know that wasn’t sufficient.

Good films, even those ostensibly about something as trivial as fly fishing, tell a good story. It can be a story about dam removal or personal reflection; the details don’t much matter.

We’ve turned a corner, though, in the films that make it to the top. I have to think that production budgets now exceed those of B-movie horror films, and in many cases the exotic destinations stand in for compelling characters. The good films to me, though, are those that don’t let the scenery overwhelm the tale itself, and Providence does that for me.

Unless you carry gravel in your voice like Jim Harrison or somehow find a way to draw blood with your words like Tom McGuane, leave the four-minute opening pontifications to the side. The dirtbag chronicles are exciting, but they don’t last. The ones that stick, the films that I watch and rewatch, are always the films that are first driven by the story.

(Zane Porter)

The good folks over at Sporting Classics were kind of enough to publish a short piece of mine, The umbellus Apsis, on their blog, Sporting Classics Daily. I was fortunate to have my friend, Zane Porter, sketch a few images to accompany the words. I’d appreciate it if you’d give it a read.

Help raise money to support the Hooch, hang out with everyone’s favorite fisher gal, and drink all the Sweetwater beer you can handle?

Sounds alright to me. 

T minus 3 weeks.

I’m deep in countdown mode again – three weeks until Belize. Three weeks until tropical sun, that familiar salt air, and, if I’m lucky, a few fish.

I need a vacation. A new job has meant less time on the water; it seems funny that the more time you spend in this business, the harder it becomes to actually get out and fish. I suppose that’s just the trade-off that must be made, and I always enjoy the time I do get to spend on the water regardless of the outcome.

If everything goes according to plan, I’ll be in San Pedro by noon and on a bonefish or two that afternoon. There will surely be a few rum drinks in there somewhere, too. Then, we’ll see what the next few days hold.

So, I’ll be counting down the days and making large red X’s on the calendar in my mind. I’ll go through the usual packing and repacking, and I’ll tie more flies that I’ll ever use. After all, the anticipation is second only to the experience.

At least I think that’s what TFM stands for. Anyway, Cam was recently up in the Great White North and made a visit to the folks at Orvis HQ. As a part of that visit, he was able to check out the manufacturing of the new Made in the USA reels, pliers, and nippers. Head over to TFM to check it out.

I don’t suppose we should be surprised, but the finalized population estimates from the Atlantic Salmon Federation for 2016 look even worse than expected. I’ll leave it to you to read the details, but the fact that their estimates indicate 27% fewer fish returned to North American Rivers in 2016 than in 2015 should give you some idea of the peril these populations face.