Last year I entered the contest with a submission about my first year of fly-fishing. I didn't win, and when I opened the Autumn 2012 edition of FlyRod & Reel magazine to see Dave Karczynski's entry, "Awake in the Moonlight: Notes at Hex time," I understood why.
May 29, 2012
Traver
Fly-Fishing Writing Award
Fly
Rod & Reel MagazineP.O. Box 370
Camden, Maine 04843
Dear
Sirs:
I
am new to fly-fishing, but not fishing.
As you will learn from my essay, which I respectfully submit for your
consideration, the culture and the sport itself have drawn me unexpectedly to the
Robert Traver writing contest.
Just
two days after my conversion to the sport, which I write about, I discovered
references to Trout Madness. I could
not purchase it quickly enough in Seattle, and had to venture into the open sea
of the Internet to find a used copy offered for $5.97 by the Goodwill of
Southwest Florida. Amazon’s shipping and
handling added another $3.99, but within days I had my prized catch for just
under $10 bucks.
Quotes
and other sentiments of Mr. Traver speckle my essay like the trout I enjoy
fishing for. I only made the connection mid-way
through my essay that the author of Trout
Madness was also John D. Voelker.
Soon my wife and I were watching Jimmy Stewart walk through the door of
his house in Anatomy of a Murder. “Look,” I told my wife, “he’s carrying fly
rods and newly caught trout!”
And
so, regardless of the outcome of this contest, I have thoroughly enjoyed the
experience both of learning about Mr. Traver and constructing an essay that I
hope you enjoy.
Sincerely,
Greg Shaw
Washington state
* * * * * * *
--Norman Maclean
1.
This is the story, set to my own four count rhythm,
of a first year fly fishing. But this
fish story starts, of all places, not in the water but on a baseball
diamond. In the country, where I lived
and grew up in rural Oklahoma, baseball and fishing went together like fried
chicken and church on Sunday. If we
weren’t working we were on a ball field, a farm pond or a creek bed. I remember being happily surprised the first
time I learned that Ted Williams had become a world-class fisherman after his
retirement from the Boston Red Sox. Baseball is a sport that has inspired
writers in much the same way fly fishing has.
In fact, I’d like to weigh these respective bookshelves to see which
genre has the edge. Pitcher and writer Jim Bouton wrote in Ball Four, "You spend your whole life gripping a baseball, and
at the end you realize that it was the other way around." Do we
grip what we love or does what we love grip us?
In such an economical, literary way Bouton reminds us of the
self-absorption of our youth and the inevitable realization later in life that
our history and our culture reach out through the generations (and, yes, the
waters) to grab us and hold us fast.
I got to thinking about that the other day as the Winston
5-weight fly rod I was gripping bent and twitched against the fight of a small coastal
cutthroat trout on the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River in Washington
state. In my left hand I held the
familiar cork handle of a graphite rod and in my fingers ran a silky fly line
which stretched out into the oblivion of cold water beyond a submerged boulder.
There in the rushing water of a Cascades snowmelt, a freckled trout – a good
size one for this stream -- had attacked my Hare’s Ear. The cutt dove deep into
a pool and then rose to the surface as my rod tip reached for the sky.
Freeze this image in your mind just for a moment. A 48-year-old man is standing waist-deep in cold,
clear water on a sunny Sunday afternoon in May. The descendant of a Northern
Irishman who likely fished his own beat in Ulster County more than a century
ago is happily guiding a trout to his net as his ancestor might have near
Shaw’s Bridge in Belfast in the 1700s. On the other end of that line is a
cutthroat that emigrates from mountains to sea over its lifetime. Dispassionate descriptions of Irishmen and
cutthroat trout draw attention to their shared natures of significant
resistance.
That image fascinates me. Two living things, one wild and one domesticated,
suddenly connected in that stream. Was I
holding that fly rod or was it holding me?
Had I caught that trout or did it catch me? What if what we are fishing for is ourselves
or at least our stories, our history, our family? I am aware of the existentialist quip, “many men go
fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” I don’t accept that. I go fishing to catch fish. But I also go fishing because those striking
creatures on the other end of the line somehow reconnect me with who I am and
where I come from.
A case in point.
Cutthroats require pure, cold water as well as distance from others in
order to thrive. In the film Far and Away, the story of Irish
immigration to the United States, a hero I imagine to be no different than my
forebears, escapes troubled Ireland and lands first in Boston and later in distant
Indian Territory, present day Oklahoma.
Judging from the looks of me, my Irish ancestors didn’t look much like
Tom Cruise, but they were fighters and builders. After the Oklahoma Land Run my family fought
to build farms, ranches, power lines and grocery shops in small rural towns in
the Red River Valley. They beat the Dust
Bowl, grew wheat and plumbed the earth for oil.
They also prayed and fished a lot. The two went
together. “I will make you fishers of men,” we read in the scriptures on
Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. Unlike
the evangelical Piscator in The Compleat
Angler and the Presbyterian minister in A
River Runs Through It, we were not fly fishermen. But we did see fishing as pure, sustaining
and an act of both faith and grace. We
seined for bait and set trot lines for catfish.
In the seventh grade Daryl Ray and I would set our alarms for well
before daybreak to walk the miles through darkness to Cache Creek to check our
lines. The tug of a heavy channel or flathead catfish at the end of the other
line sent a surge of adrenaline through my body. My church became those muddy
banks deep in the cottonwoods, sycamores and pecan trees.
I could have never guessed that my routine of bait fishing
as a kid would end there in Cotton County Oklahoma and resume in mid-life as a
flyfisherman in the Pacific Northwest. In
Four Fish: the future of the last wild
food, Paul Greenberg reflects on his own transition from an avid child angler,
to busy adult, and then miraculously back to devoted fisherman. “The fishing jones waxes from about age seven
until sixteen or so and then abruptly withers in the harsh hormonal light of
adolescence.”
Like Greenberg, my path back to fishing came in my
40s on a drift boat down the Flathead River of Montana with a guide and my 7th
grade son, who picked up casting, mending and setting the hook much faster than
I did. Seeing his first cutthroat emerge
splendidly from those icy Big Sky waters stayed with me. It gripped me.
2.
Not long after that experience, I started a blog
about fly fishing. I call it Flyrod Nimrod. As I wrote then, it was
to be a blog about fly fishing from the perspective of a bumbling but
enthusiastic angler learning to cast, read water, stream flows, tides, fly
patterns and just about everything. That's the fly rod part of the blog's
title. The Urban Dictionary defines “Nimrod”
as a slow-witted person. That certainly described my beginning state.
When considering a name for the blog, I searched
fly+rod+Nimrod on the Internet and found nothing, except a 1955 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette blurb about a
novice flyfisherman who hooked a low-flying seagull on the backcast.”
“What a Nimrod,” I thought to myself. “Sounds like
something I would do.”But that was my idea for a blog. A former reporter and speechwriter, I needed a forum to express myself. I wanted to share my mistakes, stupid questions, stumbles and occasional successes. To the beginner, fly fishing can be intimidating. So much of what I found online and in books was serious, expert, prosaic, overly technical, pedantic and even romantic to a fault.
Yes, I learned something from everything I read, saw
and heard. But I thought it might be valuable to capture what I was learning as
I was learning. Peer mentoring for the fellow first-time fly-rodder!
Five years earlier I had started a baseball blog because
I wanted to learn about amateur baseball and the path to the Big Leagues. My
focus was the Cape Cod Baseball League, a summer collegiate league where scouts
have their pick of the top prospects from universities nationwide. I was frustrated to learn that baseball
writers covered the regular college season, the minor leagues and the big
leagues, but hardly anyone was writing about these summer leagues. It’s there that many of the American-born
Major Leaguers arrive as unknowns and became household names within a few
years. My blog grew to be popular and I
ended up joining a group of would-be George Steinbrenners in purchasing a
franchise in the West Coast League, which is like the Cape Cod League but on
the Pacific where “true cod” swim. Our
team became the Walla Walla Sweets. Located
in southeastern Washington, Walla Walla is a tribal name for waters, waters which
allow me to combine baseball with fishing.
When I spend a lot of time doing something –
baseball or fishing – I find it hard not to write about it. Writing about what I love has a couple of
psychic rewards. It enables me to say
things like, “I watch and write about baseball, or fishing.” That makes my squandered time feel a bit nobler. But it also seems to be a useful calling card--I
get into stadiums early for batting practice as a baseball writer, and fishing
guides like that their services will get a little more visibility after our
trips. Most importantly, though, it’s
useful to have a personal diary to help me remember what fly I used the last
time on a particular stretch of water, or where the temperature or water flow
stood.
Reading back over my blog, I now recognize the
moment I became a committed fly fisherman. It was New Year's Day morning, and I had a
pass from the family to go fishing for the day. For much of the fall and winter
I had worked coastal rivers and some Puget Sound beaches for my first sea run
cutthroat trout. It was becoming an
obsession. After studying stream flows,
tide charts and calling multiple fly shops, I decided to fish for sea cuts along
Purdy Spit near Gig Harbor in the South Puget Sound.
High tide was 10:16 am and the first sunrise of the
year was around 8 am. I figured I'd drive the hour from home to Gig Harbor and
be on the water just after sunrise. By 9 am, as I fished on the Southside of
Purdy Spit Bridge, a local asked if it was my first time on the water. Yes, I
acknowledged, and he pointed across the narrow spit to the other side.
"Usually that's where I see the fishermen. In fact, I see a few fish
rising over there now."
I walked hurriedly back to the car (a good mile) and
dropped back into the water behind a service station. I could see the
occasional fish dimple the surface.
As I worked the shoreline and got close to trees
near the opening to a creek, I saw a good sized sea run rise. At one point he
jumped completely out of the water and I could admire the athleticism of these
fish. The athlete was taunting me.
I threw everything in my box. Nothing. Finally, I
pulled out a pinkish colored, mid-sized clouser. On the second cast, bam, a
hard strike followed by the best struggle I'd had with a fly rod. My first sea run trout! Fourteen inches and
absolutely gorgeous. Even now I can calm
my mind at night and find sleep when I imagine walking that beach, casting once
again into that tidal ebb; the clouser is swept toward the sea, and I drift
peacefully to sleep. These fish are
precious, and strictly catch and release. Just as exciting as the catch is the
release. I return the fish to water, holding it beneath its white belly until
it swims away.
After that, I realized I could fish. The following day I hooked a nice steelhead
beneath the Fall City Bridge on the Snoqualmie River. I was becoming a little more discerning and
the fish were getting a little bigger. I thought more about the flies I used. I
read the water more carefully. I laid the line down on the water more gingerly.
I cast again and again, each time thinking about what the fish was seeing
beneath the water. I lost track of time.
3.
In college I ran cross country on an athletic
scholarship. Located in the Cherokee
capital of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the university is near one of America’s wild
and scenic rivers, the Illinois. Our
team used to run Indian-style, that is long-distance running single-file with
the runner in the back surging to the front to allow the pack to settle in
behind. We looked like salmonoids
working our way upstream. We ran the foothills from town to the river where
students paddled and some fished for smallmouth bass. My degree took me further
than running did, but I continued to run competitively through my 30s and then
for my health.
The other day, driving back from a short fishing
trip to the Yakima River, I asked myself this question, “What if the reason
I’ve run all these years was to be in shape for fly fishing?” That occurred to me for several reasons. The first is that I’ve discovered fly fishing
is not the amiable, semi-sedentary pursuit so often portrayed in photographs
and movies. Done right, it requires some real physical strength to climb creek
beds, boulders and trails, not to mention the balletic balance and strength
sometimes needed to wade tough terrain in frigid conditions. To maintain focus in these conditions requires
stamina, something I first learned on those Cherokee hills in my youth.
Running also has some rather unexpected fly fishing
benefits as well. After a long series of flights to visit family from Tulsa I
had an unsettling feeling when we arrived at the baggage carousel. “Christ, I left my fly rod on the airplane,” which
was parked a train ride away on the other side of airport security. My heart sank
like a weighted nymph.
After a painfully slow negotiation at the baggage
claim, I was handed a security pass and I sprinted through the airport O.J.
style, hopped the train, ran upstairs and arrived at the gate only slightly
winded. The door to the plane had closed and my racing heart skipped a beat. I
looked at the United staff with a desperate look. A smiling gate attendant
reached behind the counter and there it was! Flyrod safe and sound
I moved to Seattle 18 years ago. As an aging runner
I was excited to move to a region known for its running culture and for cool
temperatures that are perfect for distance. It never occurred to me that those
cool temperatures are also perfect for trout, my next pursuit. However, working for a large software
developer meant that I saw very little of the Pacific Northwest except my house
and the highway to our sprawling corporate campus. I saw the mountains and heard about the
beautiful streams but they were not part of my life.
Driving to work in the mornings I might hear on the
radio about a river to the north that was out of its banks because of drenching
rains. I would cross a lovely stream on
the way to a company retreat. The
beaches of Puget Sound looked improperly named. Why were these stony, pebbly
stretches of waterfront called beaches?
Occasionally I would get out for a hike with my wife
or with visiting friends who drug me up into the Cascades for an alpine walk. But I found hiking quite dull. I was reminded
of Henry David Thoreau’s essay, Walking.
I am in the camp of those who find sauntering through the woods the act of a
vagabond. Discovering fly fishing
turned aimless hikes into purposeful walks.
Over time I learned the names of those rivers,
creeks and streams. I learned their water flow, average temperatures and
depths. City, county, state and national
parks became second homes that required every sort of parking pass to be kept
in my fishing car’s glove compartment. I
learned driving times to communities where the fishing was good even if they
hardly appear on a map.
I also found a physical activity that is at once
strategic, deeply rooted in our culture and our environment. And I found
another literary sport that rivals baseball.
Fly fishing made it possible for an Okie catfish trot-liner to seem a
more gentlemanly (and expansive) angler.
4.
When I go fishing now with guides or friends there
is always this awkward moment where I have to decide how I will describe my fly
fishing capabilities. With a blog called
Fly rod Nimrod it can be confusing. Sure, I have a blog about fishing so I must
be serious, but I am also a self-described nimrod, worse than a beginner. When I first started it was easier.
“I’m a novice, just learning.”
“I am more interested in learning than catching
fish.”
Over the first two years my casting, my ability to
read water, scout locations and match hatches gave me a sort of GED in fly
fishing. Like an adult learner I began
to feel emboldened to pursue a BS and, who knows, maybe one day the PhD that’s
needed to fish the Ivy League rivers like Henry’s Fork or the River Test.
No one has ever pursued their studies with as much
intensity and joy as I have fly fishing.
The man at the fly shop who sold me my first rod taught what I needed to
get started. He described a few local
fishing holes and some other knowledge.
Then he looked me in the eye and said, “the only way to really learn is to
get out there regularly and fish.” And I
have.
The education of this fly fisherman has led to an
unexpected lesson. I think fly fishing
should be a required course in high school.
Every student should have to pass the course in order to graduate. That may sound silly, especially as the
nation pushes for higher standards in tested courses like math and
language. But consider the syllabus for
the course I have in mind.
Let’s start with physical education. Would you rather play dodge ball for a class
period or hike down to a local stream, pump your arms while casting and climb
creek beds and boulders?
Literature. Some of my most memorable, enjoyable moments
spent reading has been great writing about fly fishing. John Gierach, Norman Maclean and Robert
Traver teach us engaging writing while also instructing us in character
development and American history. Craig
Nova connects trout fishing with a writer’s life. Writing and fly fishing seem
less academic when Earnest Hemingway, writes, not in the Old Man and the Sea, but in a short-story about a man and a river:
Nick
took the line in his left hand and pulled the trout, thumping tiredly against
the current, to the surface. His back was mottled the clear, water-over-gravel
color, his side flashing in the sun. The rod under his right arm, Nick stooped,
dipping his right hand into the current. He held the trout, never still, with
his moist right hand, while he unhooked the barb from his mouth, then dropped
him back into the stream.
The entomology lessons of fly fishing also come
alive in the literature. Of course some call Hemingway’s Big Two-Hearted River
nothing but a grasshopper story. John
Gierach is surely the most literary of fly fishing authors. In his prose students will find beauty in the
sport and the science:
If
I had a favorite mayfly, it would be the speckled dun. Mayflies in general seem
Victorian, with more parts and more exaggerated proportions than they really
need. Add to that the Baroque speckling pattern on the Callibaetis wing, and you
have a creature whose beauty goes way beyond mere function. In that way,
they’re like the trout themselves.
Fly fishing is a gateway drug to environmental
conservation, sustainability. How can
you pull from a cold stream a delicate yet fierce, richly colored emblem of the
wild and not wonder from where this trout came? How is it related to other
fish, how has it evolved? What is
upstream from here and further upstream from there? What does this fish eat and what eats this
fish? You will wonder, as Charles Gaines writes, what is the next valley over. Reading
Traver will inevitably lead you to read Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. Traver, like Abbey, would not have wanted you
to “jump into your automobile next June and rush out” to fish the trout waters he
portrays in the UP of Michigan. Abbey,
like Traver, warns that his book is a “tombstone in your hands. A bloody rock.
Don’t drop it on your foot – throw it at something big and glassy. What do you
have to lose?”
It may sound absurd to require fly fishing in
school. “But,” as Nobel Laureate and
absurdist Albert Camus writes, the world is not reasonable and we all have a “wild
longing for clarity.” It may not turn Nimrods into Newtons, but physical
agility in a watery environment with wild fish and the clarity of a four-count
rhythm is a good start.
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