This River Is Wild was founded in 2008, on a cold October night in my college apartment. Putting off school work, I was on a fly fishing internet binge attempting to feed my need for fly fishing entertainment. Unsatisfied, I decided to start a journal of my life on the water. Since then, TRIW has grown to include my brother Matt, and my best friend, Adam. We aim to share our experiences with others with the hope that you can fish vicariously through us.
-Mark
The Tribe:
Mark
"A chance encounter at an early age with a fly rod changed my life. A birthday present and a tying kit later, an addiction began to slowly take root in my heart. A constant need to feed my soul and enrich my life by being on the water, and in the moment, as much as possible. I have gone, and plan to go, places I never dreamt of going before embracing a fly rod for the first time. I have found my outlet.
I learned the hard way, through trial and error in the backwoods and streams of my youth. I still find the concept of doing it yourself the most fulfilling aspect of the sport and carry it with me no matter where I go. No guides, no lessons, no bought flies, just pure fishing. I started this blog to share our experiences with other like-minded individuals so that they may fish vicariously through us, until the next time they find themselves in the moment."
"The wonders of the natural world are too commonly ignored. Lives are lived totally unaware of the interconnectedness of life all around us. The elegant savagery of natural selection is not witnessed. Birdsong falls on deaf ears.
Fly fishing allows you to become a participant in that system. You are the predator, and at the same time, the prey. If you're committed to DIY, you won't have much success until you truly know your locale. It is the knowledge, the awareness, the connection to the water and its inhabitants that I find the most rewarding aspect of the game. When you've connected, you can be satisfied in the knowledge that the fish you bring to hand are not due to beginner's luck.
I write these stories for the preservation of memories. I write them for friendship. I write them for brotherhood. I write them to learn. I write them fully aware of my failings to put into words the experiences and feelings of being on the water with the sun in your face, fighting the wind. People who work to live, and not the other way around, will understand."
Adam
As a teenager I was on the fast track to a career in professional bass fishing. This all changed on my fourteenth birthday when my father took me to an outdoor show where I purchased my first fly rod…
It’s safe to say that my life truly began when I was fourteen. I enrolled in the fly fishing school of hard knocks and learned through my own failure. Now over a decade later I can say it has been the most rewarding experience of my life.
This mind, body, and soul addiction has consumed every aspect of my life. I can’t make a conscious decision without asking myself “How will this affect my fly fishing?”
"No feeling has ever come close, or has ever felt so right…
As the feeling I get while clutching a wet piece of cork in the pursuit of outsmarting a creature of an alien world with nothing more than a ridiculous combination of dead animal matter that I've assembled upon a hook…”-Adam Hope
