By Kirk Deeter

Let me start by saying that I was quite impressed with the depth and emotion of the comments by all who replied to my rather loaded question of "What's your favorite fishing sideshow?" As I read them, it was clear to me that there is no wrong answer to the question. Any time you are fortunate enough to fish, it's the total experience—the landscape, the other animals, and especially the people you are fishing with that matter most. It is very satisfying to write for an audience that clearly understands and appreciates this. And it is nice to read your eloquent words as well.

By Tim Romano

Last weekend I had the pleasure of getting out and sticking my first largemouth of the season. It was one of our first really warm days here and the fish were going bonkers even though water temps we're still in the 40s. I wasn't one to argue.

By Kirk Deeter

Aloha from the Garden Island of Kaua'i in the Hawaiian Islands. I'm on a much-anticipated family vacation, where my wife, Sarah, and son, Paul, and I are enjoying some spectacular scuba diving (along with my brother, Drew, who took this photograph of a sea turtle we encountered Saturday). When I'm not fishing, diving is my favorite pastime. I enjoy watching fish when I'm not actually casting at them, sometimes for reasons explained in one of last week's Fly Talk posts. I'll admit, however, that I much prefer the clear, warm tropical waters over the icy swirling currents of trout rivers.

Last night, I took my rod to cast off a point of lava rocks. I was casting a Clouser minnow at nothing in particular, and truth be told, I didn't catch anything. But I did see another giant green turtle swim up near the shoreline, poke its head above the surface to check me out for several minutes, then vanish under the foam.

By Kirk Deeter

The "Going Deep" features I wrote for Field & Stream are some of my favorite stories I've ever written. I started with trout and that eventually led to bass and other species like pike and walleye.  The premise was simple: To truly understand fish, you have to "be the fish."  So I put on scuba gear, went below the surface, and watched what fish did as anglers were casting at them. The reason I like these stories so much is because I learned tons as I was producing them. We'd boil the information down into magazine feature packages, but there was always enough information to make a book...

Which is what my friend Geoff Mueller did in "What a Trout Sees: A Fly-Fishing Guide to Life Underwater." And I'd be jealous of Mueller for producing a book I wish I had done, but he did so in a way that I'm not sure I could have pulled off.