Author: Charles Raymond Hills
Jake
By Charles Raymond Hills He was a second-hand dog. A hand-me-down from a previous, anonymous owner. There was an ad in a weekly shopper, in the classifieds, in the back. The copy was straight-forward and simple: RetrieverLarge Chesapeake for sale.Two years old. Fixed. Had all his shots.$35 I called him Jake. I had never owned …...
The Who Fly
By Charles Raymond Hills It was a long time ago . . . . The split wood crackled in the fire. The moon was full above the top of the pines that enclosed our campsite on the edge of Emerald Lake, moonlight danced among the ripples on the dark surface of the water. “Grandpa, tell …...
Winter Steelhead Fishing
By Charles Raymond Hills The old Ford pickup rolled to a slow stop at the spot not too far from a bend in the river where I planned to fish. I lowered the window to look across a broad stretch of river rock which bordered the waterway. Yesterday, Ed, the owner of the local fly …...
Christmas Remembrance – 1948
By Charles Raymond Hills Christmas in my childhood was a simple celebration. My father worked until midday when he closed his gas station and came home. My mother, forever in her apron, spent time in the kitchen fixing our dinner while he cleaned up. Other than Thanksgiving, this was our other ‘big’ holiday meal – …...
Someday
Pigtails and a hat that was too big for her. . . that’s the way I remember it now. “Your grandmother wore this hat when she used to fish with me, that was before you were born,” I told my granddaughter as we walked into a broad meadow lush with summer grass and dotted in …...
Two Big-Hearted Rivers | Fishing with Hemingway
In 1939, Ernest Hemingway eulogized a friend, saying: “Best of all he loved the fall . . . the leaves yellow on the cottonwoods, leaves floating on the trout streams and above the hills the high blue windless skies . . . now he will be a part of them forever.” The author knew about …...
The Best Day I Ever Had Fishing
It wasn’t the best day I ever had fishing because of the size of the fish, or because of the number I caught. It was memorable because it was the first. As I recall I was six, or thereabouts. My dad was working hard to support our little family of him and my mother and …...
A Trout for Christmas
Dear Tommy, Winter came late to the valley this year but now it has set in hard. The banks along the Beaverhead are all lined with sheets of ice as is the water in the shallows. The willows sparkle with crystals and the pines are clotted with snow. The sun came out today and I …...
Veteran’s Day
The trail into Lavazolla Creek is an old miner’s path that runs upstream for several miles to where the small canyon pinches off at a rock wall. There the creek thins out and tumbles down a series of stoney shelves. Above the wall is a series of small pools laced together by thin ribbons of …...
Fly Boxes
They can be metal fitted with springs to hold the flies or plastic boxes, some with foam or simple compartments. They can be a fancy leather wallet lined with lamb wool. Some are only a simple tin thing. The fly boxes we carry are organized, depending on how organized we are. Some by color, or …...
