Matt Smythe
FIVE WEIGHT
Not here. You fuckers cannot follow me here. His dad looked over his shoulder from the tailgate at Charlie, standing in the tall grass...
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Matt Smythe
- Sep 4, 2015
BRECKENRIDGE
In just a short couple weeks, I’ll be heading out to Colorado for the 2015 Breckenridge Film Festival. As some of you may already know,...
Matt Smythe
- Jul 25, 2015
HARDWOODS
I unearthed my old grad school poet’s notebook this morning. Cracking the cover, I found a sheaf of paper that held several iterations of...
Matt Smythe
- Apr 17, 2015
THE DISTANCE BETWEEN
They’re like clockwork against the far bank. Two browns holding down the midge-buffet line. Rise…rise. Count three. Rise…rise. I know how...
Matt Smythe
- Apr 1, 2015
HUSH FOR ONE SECOND
hush for one second I said hold still what do you hear I asked geese wind everything then off they went
Matt Smythe
- Dec 31, 2014
PEACE, REGARDLESS
I sing my wisdomless parable to the again changing season. To the birds’ hushed morning selves. To the gathering blanket of snow. To the...
Matt Smythe
- Dec 29, 2014
WEST TO WATER
Midway from Chicago to LA it still hasn’t hit me. Sprawling canyon, salt flat, scrub brown and mountains crawl below. I carried on three...
Matt Smythe
- Dec 9, 2014
THE COURAGE OF HOPE
I have two handwritten quotes on two small pieces of yellow legal paper taped to the wall next to my desk. Each given to me by friends at...
Matt Smythe
- Dec 4, 2014
SHOOTING DARTS IN ALASKA
When the day falls and the thin promise of neon rises, the brown liquor and beer go down easier, and with more truth, and there’s a vague...
Matt Smythe
- Sep 24, 2014
FIVE YEARS
Five years ago today I hit publish on my first post here. I had spend the better part of two months trying to figure out what it was that...
Matt Smythe
- Jul 22, 2014
DISPATCH FROM BEAVER ISLAND
From the Monday I received Kevin Morlock’s email inviting me to fly fish for carp on Beaver Island, to the Wednesday when the wheels of...
Matt Smythe
- Apr 6, 2014
GLORIOUS MAYHEM
Last year we got into fish. Maybe a dozen six-to-ten-pound lake-run soupbones that had a mind to break our ankles before we even took a...
Matt Smythe
- Mar 28, 2014
WHERE THE ROAD NARROWS
When we piled out into the dust and cool of the morning we were barely a quarter-mile from the end of the road. Unlike the sprawling...
Matt Smythe
- Jan 4, 2014
TRACKS IN JANUARY SNOW
I turn to head back inside pressing new steps into the snow different than the ones that brought me here
Matt Smythe
- Nov 26, 2013
THE THINGS WE CARRY
There was not much room for gear. A rod tube or two and small day pack each, plus the 5-gallon survival bucket, shotgun and a waterproof...
Matt Smythe
- Jul 31, 2013
INHALING GIANTNESS
My journal holds a breadcrumb collection from the path I just traveled. Loosely penned notes, dates, times, temps, names. Hopeful...
Matt Smythe
- Jul 15, 2013
OUT OF OFFICE
Electronic communications will stop somewhere short of my location for the next week. I’ll catch up with you when I get back on 7/23. Be...
Matt Smythe
- Jun 14, 2013
THAT IS THE TEMPO
The boys and I and my friend Jason hit opening day of trout season on a reasonably-kept secret Finger Lakes stream again this past April...
Matt Smythe
- Jun 6, 2013
SKIFF FULL-ON RUNNING
Skiff full-on running out of Islamorada open water pounding wave to wave in the backcountry fleeting bottom playing tag rising and...
Matt Smythe
- May 30, 2013
BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS
By the time you read this I’ll be on a plane that’ll deliver me from my northern Point A to a southern connection that’ll then deliver me...
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