On Writing

The other morning I was sitting in a coffee shop when my friend Sam walked in. He asked how my writing was going, and I told him that I was putting in the time without much to show for it. He replied that he’d just read a research article that suggested that writers...

Jack’s Fish

Yesterday my friend Jack called at the last minute to ask if I wanted to go fishing. Family was passing through town, and he wanted to take a young nephew out on the river. When a friend with a boat says that he is going fishing, it’s unusual for me not to jump at the...

Mercury in Fish

July and August are the most pleasant months to fish on the Upper Mississippi. They also are the months I tend not to bring home any fish.  I know that it is partly my imagination, but I don’t think the fish taste as good in the middle of the summer. The water is warm...

Renting a Boat

As I mentioned two blogs ago, our annual group of four fishermen to Lake of the Woods had expanded to seven. As a result, we needed a third boat before we motored off for our weeklong backcountry fishing trip.  Jack dropped Tom and me off at Paradise Cove, a small...

Fish That Get Away

“Get a picture! Get a picture!” Ken yelled as he played the big fish and Clint reached out over the water to net it. I had neither a phone nor a camera, so I scrambled around the boat’s steering column looking for either Ken’s or Clint’s camera.  The fish rose to the...

Back to Deadbroke

Two years ago I wrote an essay titled “Goodbye Deadbroke.” It was written as a farewell to one of the best backcountry sites I’ve ever known.  Now that I think about it, it might be the only campsite anywhere that I’ve ever intentionally returned to. The site is a...
Steven Simpson