Panamanian Devils

By O. Victor Miller                               “She loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them.”—Othello  Today is for being alive. Sprawled naked in a bright hammock strung between mast and mainstay, I’m rocked by northerly swells beneath Caribbean breezes that cool the sting and natural shocks the [...]

Icthus

O.Victor Miller       Too drunk to sit in church, I kayak up a spring fed stream near Tallahassee to seek some solitude, sojourning with the spawning schools of mullet. Ichthus, is Greek for them, this holiest of fishes. Before there was a church, lion-wary Christians scratched mullet pictographs on Roman aqueducts and inside caves among [...]

Ideals

 By O.Victor Miller Scouting the aisles of K-Mart between blue light specials, I sniffed out a clearance sale on hand tied flies and offered the clerk $200 for the whole enchilada. The manager sent her back with a counter of a nickel apiece. “Tell him take or leave it, honey. I don’t want you counting [...]

Our Fathers Had Fly Rods

By O.Victor Miller Inspired by idyllic covers of outdoor sports magazines, our fathers acquired fly rods thinking incorrectly they’d know how to cast them. How hard can it be? The covers depicted happily mature men, briar pipe clenched into sublime grins, hooked up to an equally blissful rainbow with bright wet flies in the corners [...]