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1 week ago | 
themountainmail.com | Hayden Mellsop
The sound of birds stirring from their rest seeps into my slumber, despite ear plugs. I console myself that there are worse ways to be woken from a jet-lagged state. I boil water, then with cup of tea in hand, step outside and sit on the balcony as dawn comes to the city. Across the street is a park, still dark with the shadowed forms of Mediterranean cypress and Aleppo pine.
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2 weeks ago | 
themountainmail.com | Hayden Mellsop
The trail disappeared beneath a snowdrift. I post-holed my way uphill through the trees where I imagined it lay. After 50 yards I stood on bare ground again, but with no sign of the trail. I looked around and gave a mental shrug. The creek that drained the lake that was my objective flowed unseen down a ravine to my left. If I kept to it, I’d arrive at the lake sooner or later.
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3 weeks ago | 
themountainmail.com | Hayden Mellsop
I came upon the glide in the first softening light of evening, the air calm and comfortably warm for an October in Montana. Standing in the shallows at its tail-out, I looked across to the far bank where the water flowed deep, a narrow concentration of current at the head spreading and dissipating as the glide broadened. Tall timber grew tight to the water’s edge, infusing the depths with a forest hue.
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4 weeks ago | 
themountainmail.com | Hayden Mellsop
“Where’s the secret spot today?” he asked. I raised an eyebrow. “Secret spot?” “You know, Spot X. The place on the river where the fish will be biting.” I thought for a moment how to respond. “If I knew that, I’d be retired already.” There is a perception out there among a certain type of angler, “certain type” meaning those generally but not always relatively new to the game, that fishing guides are initiated into some mysterious, cosmic secret, the illuminati of the piscatorial realm.
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1 month ago | 
themountainmail.com | Hayden Mellsop
Buying a home is, for many people, the largest financial commitment they will take on in their lifetime. The thought of transitioning from being relatively debt free to committing to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars over several decades is a daunting prospect. All the more reason to be sure that, before you take the plunge, the decisions you make are informed and sound. So, where to begin? The first step is to make sure you are standing on a sound financial footing.
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1 month ago | 
themountainmail.com | Hayden Mellsop
The best part of the day was not seeing another soul until, on the long trek back to the truck, a couple of game wardens pulled up next to us as we trudged down the two-track. “How’s the fishing?” the driver said as a way of formality before asking us for our licenses. I’d hoped he’d sense our fatigue and offer us to clamber into the back of the pickup, but he thanked us and drove off with little apparent sympathy. The day had begun with a lovely rainbow in my net at the very first run I’d fished.
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1 month ago | 
themountainmail.com | Hayden Mellsop
We turned off the highway and began the ascent toward the distant trailhead. Immediately a strong zephyr met us head on, and I hoped it would not persist for the duration of the climb. It is said that if women truly recalled the intense pain associated with childbirth, we would only ever have single-offspring families, but time and mind combine to minimize the recall of the experience. I drew a tenuous parallel with the approaching climb.
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2 months ago | 
themountainmail.com | Hayden Mellsop
The rapid emptied into a long straight glide where a bubble line snaked slowly beneath trees whose branches hung bare over the river. From the front of the raft I cast my rig of two small dry flies onto the bubbles then mended the line upstream to maintain a natural drift for as long as possible. Despite several long drifts, no fish were tempted by my offerings, so we eddied out toward the bottom of the glide, dropped anchor and opened a beverage while I mulled options for a different fly rig.
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2 months ago | 
themountainmail.com | Hayden Mellsop
A successful day’s fishing depends on one’s definition of what actually constitutes fishing. The day had begun sitting on the deck of the small cabin as the sun rose above the surrounding treetops. All around the forest awakened with the sound of birdsong. A pair of quail sat stock-still on a rock at the edge of the clearing.
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2 months ago | 
themountainmail.com | Hayden Mellsop
“This ski gear has been about the best investment I’ve made,” she said as she slipped into her boots. All around the parking lot the buzz of excited conversation rose, car doors opening and closing, the crunch of boots on ice and gravel. As I stepped into my own boots I thought of the early years when a trip to Monarch on a Sunday was not met with near the same degree of enthusiasm.
