Chris Santella - Why I Fly Fish: Passionate Anglers on the Pastimes Appeal and How It Has Shaped Their Lives

Chris Santella, bestselling author of the Fifty Places series, is back with the inspirational Why I Fly Fish. Based on twenty-five interviews with fly-fishing professionals and celebrity hobbyists alike, Why I Fly Fish illuminates the mysteries and appeals of the sport. It also encapsulates the life lessons fly-fishing aficianados have gleaned from their favorite pursuit. Featured contributors include Donald Trump Jr., CEO Bill Ford Jr., television personality Conway Bowman, actor Henry Winkler, the worlds best-known fly fisherman, Lefty Kreh, and many more. With beautiful photographs, as well as personal snapshots from the contributors themselves, Why I Fly Fish is an inspirational and intimate reflection on the beloved pastime.

Also by Chris Santella

• Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die
• Fifty More Places to Fly Fish Before You Die
• Fifty Favorite Fly Fishing Tales
• Fifty Places to Bike Before You Die
• Fifty Places to Hike Before You Die
• Fifty Places to Dive Before You Die
• Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die
• Fifty Places to Sail Before You Die
• Fifty Places to Play Golf Before You Die
• Fifty More Places to Play Golf Before You Die

CHRIS SANTELLA is a freelance writer and marketing consultant based in Portland, Oregon. A regular contributor to the New York Times and Trout, he has also contributed to the New Yorker, Travel & Leisure, Golf, American Lawyer, and Links magazine. Santella is the author of nine titles in the Fifty Places series, as well as Fifty Favorite Fly-Fishing Tales, Once in a Lifetime Trips, and The Hatch Is On.

Jacket front: An angler casts to rising trout
on a side channel of Chiles Paloma River.
Photograph Brian OKeefe

Design by Henk van Assen, with Loide Marwanga
and Marcela de la Vega

115 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011
www.stcbooks.com

This book would not have been possible without the generous assistance of the passionate anglers who shared their time and insights to explore how the sport of fly fishing can impact us. To these folks, I offer the most heartfelt thanks. I would especially like to thank Mac McKeever and Robert Tomes, who both offered encouragement and made many introductions on my behalf. I also wish to acknowledge the fine efforts of my agent Stephanie Kip Rostan; my editor Jennifer Levesque; designers Henk van Assen, Loide Marwanga, and Marcela de la Vega; and copyeditor Magdalena Schmidt who all helped bring the book into being. Ive had the good fortune over the last thirty years to make many fine fishing friends. This list includes Peter Marra, Ken Matsumoto, Jeff Sang, Joe Runyon, Mark Harrison, Peter Gyerko, Tim Purvis, Geoff Roach, Kenton Quist, Mike Marcus, Nelson Mathews, Kevin Wright, John Smith, David Moscowitz, Ken Helm, Chris Conaty, Bryce Tedford, Darrell Hanks, Hamp Byerly, Mac McKeever, Robert Tomes, Conway Bowman, and Kirk Deeter, among many others. I look forward to many more days on the river with these friends and friends to come. I also extend kudos to Sloan Morris, Keith Carlson, and Doug Mateer, whove helped put fly fishing to music in our band, Catch & Release. Finally, I want to extend a special thanks to my wife, Deidre, and my daughters, Cassidy and Annabel, whove humored my absence on far too many occasions so I could explore what fly fishing means to meand to my parents, Andy and Tina Santella, who are not anglers, but who always encouraged me to pursue my passions.

THERES AN APHORISM that goes something like God does not subtract from the allotted span of mens lives the hours spent in fishing. The quote has been attributed to a number of sources, including Muhammad, the eighth-century BCE philosopher Piscius, and an Assyrian tablet dating from 2000 BCE. Whether you ascribe the sentiment to divine or more earthly sources, it suggests that fishing has long had a certain spiritual component that transcends being merely another way of putting food on the table.

I would like to think that man and woman might get a few extra hours in their allotted lifespan for time spent fly fishing.

People constantly ask me what the appeal of fly fishing is. My neighbors, my childrens friends and their parents, and strangers in airports gawk at my expanse of gear bags and want to know: Is it the grace of casting? Is it because flies work better than lures? Did I start because of A River Runs Through It (what people in the industry simply call the movie)? I have trouble answering the question succinctly. But the question so frequently posed to me got me thinking and got me asking my angling companions about their motivations for taking up the long rod. I was astounded by the range of responses, and by how deeply the sport seemed to resonate for so many of its practitionersand how at times it seemed to inform other aspects of their lives.

The desire to record and share some of these fly fishers observations on their motivations and satisfactions in fly fishing was the impetus for Why I Fly Fish. As a freelance writer who has covered fly fishing for the last decade, Ive been fortunate enough to get to know many people around the fly-fishing field, from journalists (like John Gierach and Kirk Deeter) to television personalities (like Flip Pallot and Conway Bowman) to ardent conservationists (like Craig Mathews and Chris Wood) to guides (like April Vokey). In addition to gleaning their perspectives, I thought it would be interesting to get a view on the sport from people whove made their marks in other areas of endeavor, but who have a passion for the sport: figures from the business world (Bill Ford and Donald Trump Jr.), the entertainment field (Henry Winkler and James Williamson), professional sports (Nick Price), the world of letters (Carl Hiaasen), and the political realm (Robert Rubin and Senator Mike Enzi).

The combined perspectives of these fly anglers and their stories will hopefully shed a bit more light on a passion that will drive its practitioners to rouse themselves well before sunrise and return home well after dark with nothing for the frying pan; endure driving rain, near-freezing temperatures, insect bites, and body bruises (from hard-fighting fish) in the name of amusement; squander their eyesight trying to tie on flies that are dwarfed by your pinky nail; and tell nonstop stories that will glaze over the eyes of all but the most devoted fellow anglers.

Fly fishers will understand.

And fly fishers in the making may find good reason to give the sport a try!