Matt SmytheApr 26, 20123 minTHE BOYS OF NOT-YET SUMMERThe morning started at 5:30 with a couple sausage, egg and cheese breakfast wraps, coffee and an apple fritter on the ride to a permit-on...
Matt SmytheApr 24, 20121 minRIVER-RIGHTI pull up my chair most mornings and find no words. The sun is up. Traffic is purposefully outbound. I watch. Drink coffee. Listen throug...
Matt SmytheApr 9, 20121 minTHERE’S NO WAY THEY COULD’VE KNOWN10, 9 and 7 years ago. Swaddled and warm in their loving mother’s arms, just hours after their respective births. Brand new in this great...
Matt SmytheApr 5, 20127 minHARD WORK, SON.The Pere Marquette was a lesson in the art of disciplined optimism. This is not sunshine-and-puppies optimism. This is not a-bad-day-on-t...
Matt SmytheMar 26, 20121 minTRIFECTAOne trip. Three videos. All from the same footage. No…not win, place and show. Win, win and win. Big props to the editorial-stylizations ...
Matt SmytheMar 22, 20121 minPRETTIER THAN A CATFISH IN SHALLOW WATERIt’s been a while in the making, but Pulp Fly, Volume 1 is finally here. This eBook anthology of stories written by fly fishing writers i...
Matt SmytheMar 14, 20121 minYOU PAYS YOUR MONEY, YOU TAKES YOUR CHANCESThen all of a sudden, there we were. Straight from the airport. Three of us and a drift boat and a river unhinged and in the trees. Gusts...
Matt SmytheMar 7, 20121 mina.m.Flight, flight, Grand Rapids by 10 a.m. I’ve been told Michigan knows how to welcome a fella. All I can tell you is that I’ve been workin...
Matt SmytheFeb 23, 20121 minHEADING FOR WATERBack in late-April of last year, Grant Taylor, Dean Milliman and I got together to do an advertising/awareness campaign for a local (Upst...
Matt SmytheFeb 22, 20121 minTHE REMINDERIt’s nineteen degrees and still dark. By dawn it’ll be colder. Overnight we were bombed with the season’s first real powder and it’s stil...
Matt SmytheFeb 7, 20121 minWE FISH BIG BECAUSE IT’S THEREUntil 5,500 years ago this river lived a small existence. Long before glacial melt had its way and rammed the sonofabitch clear through t...
Matt SmytheJan 18, 20123 minTHE VIEW FROM MY BOOKSHELVESMy home office has got some hellafied built-in bookshelves. As a matter of fact, those bookshelves and the barn were the two things that ...
Matt SmytheJan 11, 20123 minCOMING BACK FROM ELSEWHEREThe breeze lies on the water. There are two red canoes with four people in blue life-jackets paddling with silver & black paddles. Maples...
Matt SmytheDec 25, 20111 minWHY 2012 WILL BE BIGI was just recently diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome. More specifically full-blown Tourette Syndrome. The full-blown part (which sounds d...
Matt SmytheDec 12, 20111 minAND SOMETIMES THE POETRY AIN’T ABOUT FISHING.A few classics from back in the day, inspired by music and road trips. And women. THE AIR ON BOURBON Her voice was enough to make me walk...
Matt SmytheNov 30, 20112 minWOODPILETo prepare, I’ve started cutting and splitting fuel for the stove. A few weekends now spent with my dad’s old 16″ STIHL chainsaw and seve...
Matt SmytheNov 23, 20111 minLONG HAULAnd sometimes you throw a punch that starts from your toes and finishes with you standing over him saying get up…I’m not done with you yet.
Matt SmytheNov 14, 20113 minHEALING THOSE WHO SERVEDThe weekend of November 4th brought a pretty heavy frost to the Salmon River near Altmar, NY. It also brought over a dozen combat veteran...
Matt SmytheOct 25, 20114 minTRACKING DAD’S DEERI had just walked back from my stand to the truck to meet the kids. Dressed in sweatshirts, jeans, muck boots and still sporting bed-head...
Matt SmytheOct 11, 20111 minBLOODY KNUCKLESIt was a morning like any other morning on the water. Then it wasn’t. Big nasty pike got a whole jaw-full of strip-set-streamer-and-eight...