by Merle Ann Loman | Apr 17, 2009 | Bitterroot, Friends, i Spring
Last week I got a call from an old guide friend, Jeff Levert.
He wanted to fish with me. It is always good to get on the water with incredible casters, professional oarsmen and genuinely good people. For a decade, mid-80s to 90s, Jeff and I were part of a team of about 6 other guides at the Complete Fly fisher on the Big Hole River. We all shared the resource, the clients, the expertise, and the fun. This was a really good time in our lives.
Jeff has since gotten out of guiding and works in the oil fields of Wyoming. He and his wife, Lisa, and their two beautiful young daughters live in Butte.
As you can see by these photos in the slideshow below, his passion for angling has not diminished.
Jeff came to fish today with his close friend, Patrick Botzet, now from Missoula, but raised on the Front Range near Cutbank, MT. Patrick and Jeff were extraordinary river companions and I learned a lot about the energy development in Wyoming. See Patrick’s website at Teton Exploration.
by Merle Ann Loman | Mar 20, 2009 | Bitterroot, Friends
Terry Nobles has been fishing with Jack for “I don’t know how long.” He is a good friend and has contributed to the Bitterroot area as a conservationist for longer than I have know him. We went to visit Terry yesterday.
I was amazed at two of his collections. One is of model airplanes. He has many and as a pilot, flew every kind of plane in his collection. He also is an avid reader and has walls of books. He said he is slowly downsizing so he gifted two books (not the first time) to Jack. See the photo to the left.
Trout Fishing by Joe Brooks, published in 1972
Trout, the Fisherman’s Bible by Ray Bergman, published in 1970.
Our friend, John Bolton, wrote a story about Terry Nobles called A Bitterroot Morning.
by Merle Ann Loman | Feb 19, 2009 | Flies, Friends, i Spring
Billy Burk sent photos of these flies he tied. Jack thinks he did a good job on them.
Hey Merle! Just a note to say hi, and run my pattern past Jack for this years’ trip. Attached is my attempt at copying a leftover fly from our trip 2 years ago. The hook size is 8, barbless. I think it actually looks pretty good, (considering the source).
take care!!!!….Billy
by Merle Ann Loman | Feb 10, 2009 | Friends
Costa Rica is a trying to preserve a delicate balance between tourism and protection of natural resources. From their deserted beaches to the dry coastal and then misty inland tropical forests, more than 27% of the country’s area is protected. This attracts visitors eager to partake in the pura vida, the “pure life” of Costa Rica.
Visit these links to a travel site on
Lonely Planet.com, the
US Department of State site, or do an internet search of your own. I visited Costa Rica in the 1970’s, too long ago.
I want to go back!
Joe and Betty Graziano traveled there in January. The photos were many and amazing. I pared them down to create the slideshow below.
by Merle Ann Loman | Jan 20, 2009 | Friends
Introducing Alan Pilkington’s newest book!
In this compilation of short stories and poetry centered on rivers, mountains, and wild locations of great natural beauty, novelist and avid outdoors man Alan Pilkington shares the memories of the unforgettable times he spent as a young man on the banks of a mountain river outside of Melbourne, Australia.
Pilkington was born into a family where the men went to the mountains and fished for trout in the tumbling streams of the southern parts of Australia’s Great Dividing Range. Cultivating a lifelong love affair with the outdoors through his many stays in cabins built by successive family generations, he learned about the bush and its creatures while gaining a deep appreciation for the value of wilderness. Pilkington shares the journal entries, stories, and poems he composed while on fly-fishing and hunting adventures in Australia, New Zealand, England, the United States, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania–some serious, some lighthearted–all with a focus on rivers and how they provide inner-peace to all who seek it through them. Rivers of My Memory will touch anyone with a passion for the wilderness and who have rivers happily entwined in their memories.
Note from Alan:
Dear Friends,
Thank you for supporting my writing in the past. Rivers of My Memory is my first published work of short stories and poems. It is now available.
If you’d like to learn more about it, go to my web site http://www.alanpilkington.com/; you’ll find links there to the publisher and to online
book sellers.
Or, simply go to iUniverse, Amazon, or Barnes and Nobles.
Thank you,
Alan Pilkington
Blog note: Alan is a friend of ours. With that being said, I love his novels. I haven’t read this yet…it is just out. I am anxious to open the cover and get started. With his other books, I became immersed and didn’t want them to end. You will want to check them out.
Click this link see another post about Alan’s outdoor adventures.
by Merle Ann Loman | Jan 5, 2009 | Friends
Thanks Joe and Betty for all the good times we have shared. We look forward to many more.
In the slideshow, you will see some of their passions…take a look. They know how to have fun all year-round! The fishing photos are ours, the rest are courtesy of Joe.
For full screen slideshow, click View Album, then choose “Slideshow.”
Last week I got a call from an old guide friend, Jeff Levert.
