That time when rivers and streams are at their lowest, when fish- for the most part- are done spawning and growing for the year. When the leaves start falling in temperate climates, kicking off the base of the food chain in headwater streams. When we can look forward to spring rains.

I took a break from writing back in the spring. Work and life got busy, and it was shaping up to be a bad year- no snow, no rain, my favorite places lower than I’d ever seen them. Something had to give. I didn’t get out much- not at all for trout, a couple times for smallmouth and farm pond bass and bluegill. And when temperatures climbed into the triple digits, I bagged the flatlands and headed up to the mountains.

I wanted to take a step back and think about where this project fits in life. I’ve been writing this, in one version or another, since 2009. Back then, pre-Instagram, it was a way of writing dispatches on road trips to assure friends back home I hadn’t been eaten by a grizzly or gored by a moose. Since then, this space has been a collection of fishing trips and dispatches from the road, dotted with articles bringing the importance of science and ecology and policy to the fore.

I’m not done yet.