A personal log — two hobbies, one tension

Cast a line.
Fret a string.

Fly fishing and acoustic guitar don't look related, until you notice both are just about learning to read tension — in water, in wire — and knowing exactly when to let it go.

drag the line — it's strung between a rod tip and a tuning peg

On the Water

Freshwater / Dry Fly & Nymph
  • Water
    Home riverSmall freestone streams, early morning, before the wind picks up.
  • Method
    Dry fly, upstream driftReading a seam, matching the hatch, and getting a drag-free float over a rising fish.
  • Go-to flies
    Elk Hair Caddis · Adams · Woolly BuggerThree patterns that cover most days on the water.
  • Still learning
    The double haulCasting further into wind without spooking everything downstream.

field note

The take is never when you expect it. You spend twenty minutes reading the current, mending line, watching the fly ride the seam — and then it just disappears. No warning. It's the same quiet attention a good song needs before the one note that matters.

Tie your own flies if you can. A size 16 Adams tied at 11pm at the kitchen table teaches you more about proportion than any fly shop bin will.

In the Room

Fingerstyle / Steel String
  • Guitar
    Dreadnought, spruce topWarm enough for fingerstyle, still has bite for strumming.
  • Style
    Travis picking, open tuningsAlternating bass with a melody woven on top — DADGAD most often.
  • On the stand
    A slow instrumental, still unnamedWorking out a bridge that keeps resolving somewhere unexpected.
  • Still learning
    Clean barre chords past the 7th fretMy hand cramps before my ear does.

practice log

Twenty minutes a day beats two hours on Sunday. Same as tying flies, same as reading water — the small, repeated attention is what actually builds the skill, not the occasional heroic session.

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