Joseph Monninger

“Biologists have determined brookies to be indicators of ecosystem health and have been recently campaigning to get the word out. If brookies inhabit a stream, the odds are good that the waterway is in excellent condition.”

“I'd love to do more woodworking, and maybe will someday, but I wasn't brought up in that environment. My wife is better at woodworking, and most around-the-house skills, than I am.”

“I've never liked the moment of seeing something beautiful - a sunset, a moose, an elephant - and then raising a camera and trying to capture it for some future moment. That's always struck me as strange.”

“Fishing the small streams of New Hampshire is a pastime that combines hiking, map reading, and bushwhacking - plenty of it.”

“Bears are extremely human, even down to their footprints. But I am also a fly fisherman, so I have fished beside brown bears in Alaska and was once charged by a black bear. I love bears.”

“As someone who has moved around a fair amount, I wondered what it would be like to stay rooted to one place, one community.”

“I actually believe in simplicity as a way of life. My wife and I are considering moving into a yurt!”

“I live in a beautiful part of the world - western New Hampshire along the Baker River - and my family and I spend a lot of time outdoors.”

“I usually fish a Hornberg or a Muddler Minnow, a deer-haired streamer that comes in a variety of sizes and colors but replicates a sculpin minnow or a grasshopper. Even if a trout doesn't take the larger streamers, it can usually be counted on to come up and give a look, revealing its location.”

“I once owned a home on an island off the coast of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.”

“When a trout rises to a fly, it does not swim as much as tilt its fins and jet skyward.”

“I've taken a mail packet boat along the southern Newfoundland coast and spent some time on St. Pierre and Miquelon watching the seal colonies. I like pine trees. I like cold rivers.”