Matt Dickerson: Alaska, Advent and thoughts about waiting

My wife Deborah and I had dinner this week with our friends Rich and Jan Warren. We met at the Bobcat Café and Brewery in Bristol, one of our favorite local restaurants and also a convenient meeting place between our home in Middlebury and theirs in Starksboro. It was well worth the drive up, not just for the food but also for the company. Every time we get together with them, Deborah comments, “I love Rich and Jan. They’re such wonderful people.” It was partly by accident, however, that we got to know them … (read more)

I was at a meeting of outdoor writers down in Arkansas at the start of the summer when I met the editor of Backcountry Journal. The journal is a publication of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, a national organization devoted to the conservation of public … (read more)

My wife Deborah and I stood in shorts and t-shirts on a wildlife viewing platform in the midst of Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge near Gulf Shores, Ala. The platform roof shielded us from the heat of mid-afternoon sun on an October day with temps in t … (read more)

Standing on a rocky shore beneath the shadow of a massive dam, I drifted small nymphs in slow-moving water that looked chest deep. A couple fish rose sporadically some distance upriver, mostly against the wooded bank on the far shore. One trout with a sca … (read more)

The end of our hundred-yard walk carrying our canoe from the parking lot to the lake ended in something between disgust and dismay when we looked down into the water. The surface of the lake looked nothing like water. It appeared more like green paint — l … (read more)

I have a complex relationship with fishing gear. It’s like one of the old status question about whether two people are dating, and the answer is, “It’s complicated.”  I’m a big fan of fishing gear. That’s not complex. I’m a big fan of fishing, and at leas … (read more)

It began as just some light-hearted Sunday afternoon relaxation and enjoyment. It ended in the painful crush of defeat. OK, actually the defeat wasn’t that painful or crushing. In fact, it was about as relaxing and light-hearted as the rest of the afterno … (read more)

It was late morning. The fog drifting along the lake surface had mostly burned away, though a few patches still clung to the steep slopes. Replacing the fog was an eerie yellowish haze. The haze filled the bowl formed by the lines of rugged wilderness mou … (read more)

My son Mark and his wife, Ellie, both Middlebury residents and Middlebury College alumni, walked alongside me up the gravelly river shoreline in Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed. Our guide and pilot, Glen Alsworth Jr. of … (read more)

There have been occasional years when, for one reason or another, I didn’t make it down to the fish hatchery off Route 53 in Salisbury. This was not one of those years. The hatchery, more accurately known as a “fish culture station,” has become one of my … (read more)

This is an article about paddling and fishing. Or, to be more alliterative, casting and canoeing. I’ve done much less of both these activities in 2019 than in 2018. So it might also be an article about fires and floods. Last month (as I mentioned in one o … (read more)

My wife, Deborah, likes to angle for beavers. No, not in the same way that I angle for trout. She doesn’t try to catch them. She definitely would not want to hook them, or net them, or get them to try to eat something that looks like food but isn’t. But w … (read more)

ADDISON COUNTY — Do you count yourself an avid Addy Indy reader? Then no doubt you recognize Matthew Dickerson’s name — after all, he’s been writing an outdoor column for the paper for 21 years. You might even know this angler recently published “The Voic … (read more)