As an amateur but avid if only mediocre fly fisherman and fly tier, when I came across this new title reviewed on Goodreads, I knew I had to read it. The cover picture alone was enough to entice me to borrow it from the library. The B.C. environmental journalist conveys an infectious enthusiasm for fly fishing and his love of the outdoors with great elan.
The trajectory of his fishing experiences starting as a preteen with a homemade pole and dew-worms attached to a hook on a string, then progressing to spin casting and then to fly fishing mimics my own fishing history and probably that of most fly fishing aficionados. Many of us then become conservationists practicing catch and release fishing and championing the wider cause of protection of nature, opposing clearcutting of forests and lamenting the decline of the appreciation of our connection to all of nature. I related to this so intimately that I feel at liberty to tell some of my own fishing experiences, and adventures in the natural world, which were and are much less expert than his. For example, we found the biggest fattest dew worms by overturning the half-dry cow manure droppings in the pasture on the way to the stream where we fished with willow sticks, strings, and dew worms as he did.
As a teen, in the spring, we netted hundreds of small smelt that are similar to west coast Eulachon in the shallow Leigth River outside Owen Sound, bringing buckets full of them home, and gutting them by secretly putting them through mother’s old hand ringer on the washing machine. (The bones are soft enough to eat and mother cooked them well.) Both species are now greatly depleted.
Hume addresses the ethics of inflicting pain on fish when their mouths are pierced by a hook. He often uses barbless hooks to minimize this. When I joined the Humanist Association of London and Area and revealed that I had a fly fishing addiction, some members expressed dismay that I was being cruel to fish. I pointed out that I usually practiced catch and release, often with barbless hooks, and thought that the fish were so overcome with relief and joy when released that any pain from the hook was forgotten. And the whole question of whether or not they feel pain from the hook is debatable. I have several times caught the same fish on the same fly within a hour, hardly a ringing endorsement of their memory of painful experiences.
When I am fighting a trout, salmon, or bass on a fly I have tied, all the problems in the rest of the world seem trivial and are forgotten for a while until I can make eye contact with that beautiful creature.
I am familiar with and have tied and used many of the flies he describes tying and using, and the casting techniques he describes although some of the flies used in eastern rivers and lakes differ somewhat from those that work in the west, and the possibilities are endless. One of my favourite effective flies that I tie for trout and steelhead is one I invented that I call ‘roe caught in river snot’. He never mentions the difficult double haul casting manoeuvre for long casts that I have only partially mastered.
I never was able to instil a love of fly fishing in my daughters as he did with his, although my busy son goes with me on fly fishing outings whenever he can. I share the author’s concern about the destruction of the natural world, the decline of fish populations, and global warming. But I am more wary of wild predators than the author was, careful to yield to bears whenever I encounter one fishing in the same river as I am and have only once encountered a mountain lion in the wild.
The last 55 or so pages relating his fear of dying, anxiety as his daughters leave home for university, his prostate cancer scare and depression and dealing with the death of his mother and friends is a tad too sentimental and introspective for my taste.
The writing flows naturally like a quiet trout stream with natural twists and turns, deep pools interspersed with faster sections. One need not be a fly fisher to enjoy this beautiful memoir, as the technical aspects of the sport I love are kept to a minimum.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thanks, Goodreads.
The Passionate Reader 