To Read
REELLY: UNBELIEVABLE FLY FISHING GUIDE STORIES
By Ryan Johnston
$20, RJ’s Fly Trips, 2024
Available on Amazon
Are all fishing guides a little crazy?
Trying to understand them— and enjoy the fruits of their obsessions by learning lots about fishing — is juicy material, as proven by Ryan Johnston’s new book, REELLY: Unbelievable Fly Fishing Guide Stories. Johnston, a guide in Central and Northern California, in his second book on the topic, describes his perspective on fishing and guiding in that gray area between obsessed and nutty. The result is a book that’s entertaining, sometimes over the top, and always informative as to what’s going on in your guide’s mind when you miss the big fish he lines you up on.
Johnston narrates as a family man, god-fearing, and an expert guide. It’s an enjoyable voice, perhaps one you’ve had the pleasure of experiencing after a great day on the water. Grab a few beers with a guide you’re friendly with, and they’ll likely start “spilling the tea” on crazy or asshole clients they’ve had in the past.
Why guides behave the way they do
For Johnston, it’s largely about the job itself: Guiding is often an extremely tough endeavor, though most anglers at least think they’d gladly trade in their cubicles for waders. “More often than not, the wind does blow, the water conditions are not great, and the fish are picky little bitches,” he writes. “We all try our best to make our clients’ days on the water as enjoyable as possible, but there are so many variables outside our control. Most of them, actually.” 110-degree days; hands callused from rowing all day; clients snagging them with hooks. Oh, and importantly, “Guides do not fish for a living.” They are tethered to the fish, the conditions, and most of all, the whims and emotions of their clients. The rigors of the job provide a good introduction to why a guide might occasionally seem a little on edge.
Guiding bona fides established, Johnston moves quickly into what we came here for: stories about clients. Specifically, why clients sometimes suck. There’s an entire chapter dedicated to anglers who get spoiled by going frequently to Alaska. “If I were fishing in Alaska, I would’ve landed twenty rainbows by now,” a client sniffed to him while catching massive stripers on the lower Sacramento River. He examines the bizarre behavior of a haughty client who owns a fly shop, is a terrible angler, and absolutely cannot stand to be told what to do. Or the woman who, due to anxiety, intentionally breaks off every big fish she hooks. Or the ballerina who… well, you should just read that one yourself.
There is interesting stuff here to answer questions you have about guides, like: Am I the asshole, or are they? Johnston’s memoir lends answers, as in when he lies to a group of young anglers about an Indigenous tribe that doesn’t exist, telling them they are not allowed to fish for a long stretch of river, which they subsequently waste by believing him and floating silently. Fishing for steelhead on the Eel River, Johnston reaches his breaking point with a capable angler who wastes an incredible opportunity with a “miracle fish” right at the takeout.
“The fish was cartwheeling under the water, determined to free itself. In the excitement and shock of it all, once again, Roy forgot to strip his line to stay tight… He released his frustration in a huge roar… I was so frustrated that he had lost another fish. I had one mission that day, and I had gotten so close. I was working my ass off, but the steelhead curse was working against us. I looked up at Roy in agony.
“Dude! What the hell! You have to strip. Stripping is such a basic part of fly fishing. How do you forget to strip on two fish in a row?”
Maybe you’ve been in this situation: yelled at by a guide after messing up. (I certainly have.) While a guide’s cajoling can feel like salting a fresh wound, Johnston’s insights show just how badly it hurts a hard-working guide when a client screws up. Going out with a guide is high stakes, in that money is being exchanged, ostensibly for the capture of a few fish; that pressure sometimes needs to be let off or else explode. In the end, the guide’s haranguing works out as they hook and land yet another “miracle” fish.
This fine line — helping anglers catch fish while ensuring everyone has a good time — is the liminal space guides inhabit. And Johnston, despite the tell-all feel of the book, writes beautifully about the people we love in angling, our fishing buddies, for instance, who often become real friends and travel along with us throughout our lives. A highlight chapter is “Walkoffs,” entirely dedicated to anglers he’s guided who catch a fish so epic they decide to “walk it off,” or just relax and have fun the rest of the day.
REELLY offers insight on rivers like the Feather, Yuba, Eel, and Lower Sacramento, dropping intel for those committed to learning those rivers better. Johnston is a guide I would hope to fish with someday, both for his local expertise and his approach to angling as a pursuit.
Johnston isn’t reaching for poetic or literary heights—but his guide-y bluntness has a ring to it. He writes well on California’s natural beauty and the emotional highs and lows of the sport. And he is confident enough in his side of the story that spilling the tea on weirdo clients makes a heck of a fun read.
– Chris Wright
THE BELIEVER
By David Coggins
$28, Scribner, 2024
If the previous book was about a guide, David Coggins’s is about a client, or a “sport,” as he refers to a guided angler throughout his book. (Johnston never uses the word, interestingly enough.)
I know Coggins as an entertaining sartorial writer for GQ and other lifestyle publications. (I swear I remember reading an excellent sex column written by him, but the internet cannot currently confirm me on this.) In 2021, he published The Optimist: A Case for the Fly Fishing Life, about getting into the sport. I approached this book cautiously, as the journaling of a newbie, or worse, a poseur, and admit I didn’t make it past the first chapter. I will have to go back to it because I found his second book, The Believer, a book worth reading for any angler.
While always presenting himself as well-heeled, Coggins is also self-effacing and funny. Viewing his search for meaning and what matters in life through the lens of fishing, Believer is a collection of stories describing his quest, along with a close inspection of fishing buddies and companions.
He determines to spend a year fly fishing around the world before ostensibly being forced to settle down with his long-term girlfriend, whom he adores. In Argentina, he is in full “sport” mode, engaging with guides at beautiful, luxurious outdoor lodges and homes while struggling mightily to catch fish.
As a neurotic fly fisher, Coggins ventures to Cuba, Belize, Norway, Spain, and Scotland. In Cuba, he witnesses the luxury side of crumbling communism, succeeds at catching tarpon on the flats, and poignantly visits Finca Vigia, Hemingway’s old estate where the Pilar sits on blocks, rotting. He delves into the madness that is permit fishing in Belize. In Norway, he signs up for an exclusive ’salmon school’ run by a madman named Johan and ends up learning to salmon fish on his own. By the time he reaches Scotland, he is ready to succeed. Along the way, Coggins transitions to a big-fish-obsessed angler. He explores what this is about — and why it could be happening to him. “It’s not modest and it never was,” he writes, about permit-chasing. “We start small but then we want it all.”
Coggins is an angler anxious to succeed, and that anxiety rings through the pages as a search for meaning and what matters in life. The book reminds me of Tom McGuane’s The Longest Silence in that it is a collection of stories in which the author views themselves through a search for fish and also a close inspection of one’s fishing buddies and companions.
Coggins paints himself as a decent angler, though nothing more. And yes, he is a fop. But one who is driven to go out and learn about himself while seeking large fish in beautiful and interesting destinations. The Believer becomes a page-turner the deeper you delve.
– Chris Wright
To Watch
MENDING THE LINE (2022)
2h 2m | R
Drama/War
6.7/10 IMDB, 77% Rotten Tomatoes
There’s something profoundly therapeutic about standing in a river, casting a line, and immersing oneself in nature’s embrace. This peaceful practice resonates with many anglers who find solace and healing through fly fishing.
Various organizations harness these therapeutic benefits to support groups, including breast cancer survivors, first responders, at-risk youth, and veterans. Mending the Line centers on this healing power, telling the story of a Marine wounded in Afghanistan who is sent to a V.A. facility in Montana. There, he meets a Vietnam veteran who introduces him to fly fishing, a skill that helps him cope with his emotional and physical wounds, offering a path to recovery and connection.
Starring: Brian Cox, Sinqua Walls, Perry Mattfeld
Directed by: Joshua Caldwell
Available on Netflix
THE MANZANAR FISHING CLUB
1h 14m | NR
Documentary
Editor’s Note: While discussing notable places to highlight in the Eastern Sierra for our June Lake Loop spotlight destination, editorial committee member Bernard Yin brought the little-known Manzanar Fishing Club to our attention. The documentary’s director Cory Shiozaki spent six years tracing the untold story of this painful chapter in U.S. history. The following is Richard Imamura’s overview of the documentary on Vimeo.
As if in a dream, the Manzanar “Relocation Center” suddenly appeared on a desolate stretch of California’s Owens River Valley in the Spring of 1942. The first of ten prison camps that would house Japanese Americans during World War II, it would soon become the largest town between Los Angeles and Reno.
Manzanar opened its gates to “volunteer” workers on March 21, 1942. They were needed to help build the Camp, where they would be confined for the next 3-1/2 years. The first non-volunteers arrived on March 31 under military guard. Eventually, more than 10,000 prisoners—from Southern California, Sacramento, and Bainbridge Island, Washington— would fill the Camp.
But what kind of life was in store for the people who lived there, surrounded by barbed wire, guard towers, and armed military police? For some, it was a spirit-killing experience. For a handful, there was fishing.
The Manzanar Fishing Club is their story, told as a feature-length documentary film that chronicles the World War II imprisonment of Japanese Americans from a unique perspective: through the eyes of those who defied the guards, watchtowers, and barbed wire to fish for trout in the surrounding waters of the Eastern Sierra.
Featuring: Sets Tomita and Mas Okui
Directed by: Cory Shiozaki
Available on Vimeo On Demand, $3.99
