John Gierach - A Fly Rod of Your Own

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ALSO BY JOHN GIERACH

All Fishermen Are Liars

No Shortage of Good Days

Fools Paradise

Still Life with Brook Trout

At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman

Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders

Standing in a River Waving a Stick

Fishing Bamboo

Another Lousy Day in Paradise

Dances with Trout

Even Brook Trout Get the Blues

Where the Trout Are All as Long as Your Leg

Sex, Death, and Fly-fishing

Fly Fishing Small Streams

The View from Rat Lake

Trout Bum

Flyfishing the High Country

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Copyright 2017 by John Gierach

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition April 2017

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Jacket design by Lauren Peters-Collaer

Jacket illustration by Bob White Studio

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Gierach, John, 1946- , author. | Wolff, Glenn, illustrator.

Title: A fly rod of your own / John Gierach ; art by Glenn Wolff.

Description: New York : Simon & Schuster, 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016019507| ISBN 9781451618341 | ISBN 1451618344

Subjects: LCSH: Fly fishing.

Classification: LCC SH456 .G566 2017 | DDC 799.12/4--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019507

ISBN 978-1-4516-1834-1

ISBN 978-1-4516-1836-5 (ebook)

Today is my sixty-fifth birthday. I am thinking how long it has taken me to comprehend fishing. To begin to see more than a submerged shadow of myself.

JOHN N. COLE

The goal of fly-fishing isnt just to catch fish, but to catch them with style. Or, to put it another way, no one ever sets out to be half-assed at anything. Youd recognize style when you saw it even if you didnt know the difference between a fly rod and a pogo stick. (If youre like me, it was the mere sight of a good fly-caster that finally sent you out shopping for a fly rod of your own.) Think of those fly-fishing films in which all the tailing loops and motorboat drifts ended up on the cutting room floor, leaving only the economy of effort and absence of theatrics youd notice in anything thats done so well it looks easy. Filmmakers will tell you this ineffable quality is as difficult to capture as it is to find. After all, the first rule of style is: dont try to show off if you dont have the chops. And the second rule is: dont show off even if you do.

The fundamentals of fly-fishing take time and effort to learn, but once you get the hang of them youll begin to have days when you fish beautifully. You wont be wrong if you feel that youve now entered the prime of your prime: the time when youre old enough to know what youre doing and young enough to do it without breaking a sweat. You can even be forgiven for thinking youve reached a pinnacle of competence and that from here on out it will always go this smoothly. It wont, but every day on the water is still a fresh start, and every fisherman goes fishing expecting the best, just as every painter sits down at his easel planning to produce nothing less than a masterpiece.

Im not one of those natural-born fishermenit didnt come easily, and Ive always had to work at itbut I do have my moments. Ive been fly-fishing for over forty years now, and even if Im not the best wader, caster, fish spotter, or flytier, Ive learned to work well within my limitations, like a three-legged dog that can still go for a nice, long walk. The effect is cumulative. You naturally bring everything you know to every day of fishing, and the more days you have under your belt, the more you bring. If nothing else, the fly rod that once seemed so strange and awkward will now be thoughtlessly familiar, and the push of current against your legs and the slippery, uneven bottom are no longer surprising.

Do you still remember the first time you waded into a river that tried to knock you down, and what a shock it was? I do, but only because I walk past the exact spot every few weeks and always shake my head over that dumb kid who tried to cross right there instead of thirty yards upstream where its so much wider, shallower, and easier. I wasnt thinking clearly because Id spotted a large trout rising in a side channel on the far side of the riverthe biggest trout Id ever seen thereand in my excitement I took the direct route. My father once told me never to take my eyes off my goal. He forgot to mention that I should also glance down at my feet from time to time to avoid falling on my face.

I didnt catch that fish, and never saw it again. I wonder now if I imagined it.

There are few broad strokes in fly-fishing. Its all specific details strung together in a precise order; too many details to think about, really, but over time you wear neural pathways and the process resolves itself into something like instinct. This happens gradually and comes from nothing but repetition. There are no shortcuts, and the hunt for shortcuts only distracts you from the business of letting the craft become second nature. Eventually you lose track of how little you think about it until someone asks you to teach them how to fly-fish and you do have to think about it. Why cant you explain it better than you do? Well, partly because youre not a casting instructor, but also because by now youve made hundreds of fine adjustments that youre no longer even aware of.

Still, some days you fish brilliantly and some days you dont, for reasons that are never clear. Often it has to do with the quality of your concentration. Fly-fishing isnt as hard as some make it out to be, but it does demand your full attention, so if youre worried that your investments are going south or that your wife is cheating on you, chances are you wont fish well. It sounds like heresy, but there really are days when you should have stayed home to take care of business instead of going fishing.