Okay – I'm sure you get the flavor of that story too. My motivation in writing it? Well, for one I wanted to talk about the dreams and the lies part of fishing, which I think goes back to the first time that a caveman put a hook at the end of a line and brought in a fish. I'll just bet you that he immediately had visions of a bigger one. And I'll also bet that he went back to his friends and told them about "the one that got away." That's just fishing. It always has been, always will be. Recently I read Izaak Walton's "The Complete Angler." The dreams and the lies are in his book. (I think it's great.) However, and I hesitate to confess to this, but the story was also written, at least in part, as a bit of an attempt at trolling. It wasn't very good – I'm kind of embarrassed by that – and I for sure had no idea that it would catch anybody. I thought that it would be instantly recognized for what it was – a half–assed trolling attempt – and ignored with amused contempt. But apparently, to my surprise, "Dreams and Lies" caught some people. There was another round of at times heated postings on the MI discussion board. However, to my delight a number of people defended the theses of my article. There was also at least one somewhat incoherent letter to the editor of the magazine chewing my ass out. But then it died out and the world moved on to other things. I need to finish, and move on to other things too. Just a few of comments. I've reread the original article a number of times. I could have made very small changes in just a couple of places, to remove the elements (100,000 acres!) that caused the initial controversy. The tone and message would have been fully retained, but it would have been much better technically and journalistically. I'm sorry I didn't do that, but there it is. And Dreams and Lies? Well, no apologies there. I'll stand by that one. Admittedly, it was mean of me to do that bit of trolling with it. But recognize that being branded a blatant liar in front of the community of one's peers can raise the hackles. I think anybody who calls someone else a liar potentially opens themselves up to an awful lot of scrutiny too. But I'm not going there. In any case I'm not sorry. It was fun to watch the bait being taken, although I'm not going to do that again. And finally: Dryberry is everything I said it was. I'm a confessed liar, but I hope you believe me on that one. We went back in 2003, had another wonderful week, and I hope to go back there many times in the future. I truly have "Fallen in Love" with it. Select Another Muskie Adventure?
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