For a while, I was often introduced to people as a fly fisher or fly-fishing writer. And far too frequently, I interpreted polite replies — such as “Oh,” or “You’ve got something in your beard” — as requests to learn absolutely everything necessary to enjoy our sport for a lifetime.
I was wrong. Indiscriminate. I am sorry. Unable to imagine that anybody would not, once informed, embrace an activity melding primal excitement with skill, observation, and art — the chance to immerse oneself in the wildest and most beautiful environments — I did my best to spread the word to people who surely wished I’d be silent. At last I recognized how closely my approaches mimicked those of well-intentioned people who proselytized on my porch whenever my parents went out, urging me to believe, buy, or burn. While it is not technically plagiarism, I apologize for briefly promoting a brochure, Fishing from the Watchtower (Steeple Casting and Other Minor Techniques).
Sadly, that is not to say I was entirely cured. There still come moments during conversations with a newly met, pleasant person when I feel my eyebrow cock as I wonder in silent italics Shouldn’t this person be a fly-fisher? Or — even more presumptuous and unlikely — suddenly suspect a sympathetic stranger is already, unknowingly, a fly fisher, born or bred to delight in our sport but so far living unaware, deprived of essential purpose, awaiting only a crackling epiphany to split the shuck obscuring their manifest destiny. Surely someone should accept the mission to hatch this nymph or nymphet from the world’s mud and detritus, especially from commitments to false obsessions such as soccer, a game created for emus and other creatures lacking arms and opposable thumbs. And if these presentations require wild waves of a jalapeño, bacon, and cream cheese canapé — employed to mimic false casts, slip strikes — far be it from me to stand on dignity.
Laugh. But every once in a while — say a half dozen times over decades — I influenced. Or so I have heard from people who’ve called, e-mailed, written letters. Three single mothers remain grateful for pep talks, primers, and a lesson or two provided to kids. For years, I got even more exceptional service from a postal clerk with an autistic son who seized on fly tying during a class I’d suggested to her, some slow afternoon at the counter. As of last year, one father — an old boss to whose boys I gave a fly-tying kit at Christmas nineteen years ago — still swears he’ll never forgive me. Another dad sent one of my spawn a generous graduation present. I’ve a vague hope for several hundred more whose names I have forgotten or never knew. As to the rest?
They endured, I’m sure. And eventually, collectively, they informed my perspective. Remarks such as “Oh God, I bet the bathrooms out there are disgusting” reminded me of a mystery diner who deliberately ordered lima beans at a restaurant, proof positive there’s no accounting for taste. Add to that reports from a wife, offered with clarity and emphasis, that “when peoples’ eyes glaze over,” their starry gaze does not (says her) always suggest mesmerized appreciation.
So chastened often over time, I eventually decided to keep my own council. Fly fishing joined religion and politics as a topic to avoid in casual conversation unless provoked.
An advantage of such reticence is that I now enjoy more chances to hear about other peoples’ passions (occasionally ad infinitum, as is only just). Among these: competitive ballroom dancing, an explanation supplied with infinitely subtle references to how a partner’s sexual orientation may or may not impact a long-term, intensely physical relationship based on what looks like the mating rituals of birds of paradise; valuable tips on beading elaborate jewelry without stabbing yourself accidentally or — when frustrated — intentionally; the satisfaction of sewing quilts inspired by nineteenth-century Midwestern patterns popular mainly among Methodists; and, once, a two-part, five-hour diatribe asserting that Oswald had to be guilty because any other possibility is really too complicated to think about. Recently, my successful resistance to emphasizing the importance of fishing in the surface film allowed me learn that the local price of an oxycodone tab is thirty-five dollars, while a hit of heroin has dropped to ten dollars — sometimes as little as seven — a price probably discounted to build long-term market share; also, that the effects of legally grown strains of mind-bending marijuana almost justify the whacked-out perils presented in Reefer Madness, a 1960s propaganda film that helped convince generations of eighth graders to think “Golly, the government lies.” (Please note: this dope diatribe came complete with a “let’s step outside” show-and-smell session that might have glazed a weaker person’s eyes for, I don’t know, give or take seventy-two hours.)
In sum, I’m grateful for the chance to expand my horizons. I mean that. Also, relieved just a little. You, too, may have discovered that talking to people about an subject you know pretty well gets to be thin gruel, however morally obliged you to deliver your inspiring rant. And sometimes, of course you may wonder why on earth you imagine you’re any kind of emissary for a sport that doesn’t necessarily need one. Sure, you hope to enrich a life in ways you enjoy, maintain a tradition you value, promote a new generation who will preserve, conserve, and protect resources: all good. Could be you just like to teach or — Could be your motive’s less noble.
A while back I had a chance to wonder about that. It was a curious situation I don’t hope to repeat, volunteering to help somebody I didn’t care for, on first impression, then less so as things proceeded. So this is a story within a story, written first under the title “True to Type,” that appeared in the now-gone and sorely missed Fly Rod & Reel magazine. Its lessons are worth retelling.
Mentoring has a special place in fly fishing, so our literature often glows with moments of gratitude and satisfaction felt by those who teach and learn.
This isn’t one of those moments. I report it now a half dozen years later, doing my best to recall dialogue, but confident in the facts.
White, mid-twenties, six-feet two or three, a hundred and seventy pounds: he looked familiar “by type” because I’d worked at the edges of the criminal justice system. Though I try not to credit that kind of intuition — or to acknowledge it when I do — the impression was prompted partly by the slouch he affected as soon as he saw me walking toward where he stood on the housing association dock, well past a gate too often left unlocked. You’ve seen the pose: a “You looking at me?” position that stretched out his neck and rose humps of muscle in his shoulders.
Not my problem, said the sane side of me that my wife tries to encourage. Probably just looking around. And if it happens he was trespassing . . . like I’ve never invaded a golf course bass pond.
You bet. So, sane (and pious), I offered a “Live and let” absolution and was halfway through “Let he who is without sin” when I saw the kid cast, of all things, a fly rod.
No way. But so it was, from its flex almost certainly fiberglass, less “parabolic” than “limp from butt to tip.”
Naturally, I was embarrassed. First, by my initial suspicion, then because a whiff of suspicion remained, and finally because the fly rod made a difference to me and shouldn’t have. But my confusion ended a few seconds later when I recognized the caster, this time specifically. He was Ray, son of a friend of a friend of my mother’s, who had once been pointed out to me from a distance and described as “a lost young man” who lived out of his mom’s garage while mooching off a union fund. Ray was also the primary suspect in a series of neighborhood car prowls . . . who was now out a dock where a half dozen boats had recently been raided of electronics and trolling motors. . . .
Now using a fly rod as a prop?
Maybe. Then Ray added insult to indignation.
However awful the results of his casts — and they were — Ray’s casting stroke was so clean and smooth I couldn’t help but think “pure.” All he was missing were a couple of basics.
Which isn’t my problem, I reminded myself.
Ray stopped casting when I got close, staring away toward the water as if to show as little of his face as possible. He stood still as a plank, clearly waiting for me to pass. I did, murmured “Thanks,” and walked on down to my boat at the end.
I cast for twenty minutes, testing two rods with new lines. I took no pains to watch Ray, but while tracing the loop of my back casts glimpsed him watching me. So what.
I’d have liked to stay until he left, but couldn’t, so started down the dock.
This time Ray turned around. His expression was cool, his smile just shy of a smirk.
“Nothin’, huh?”
I shook my head. “Not today. Testing tackle.”
“Oh, right,” he said, smirking harder. Sometimes we surprise ourselves, sometimes other people. This time I did both. I could have showed him the yarn puffs on the end of my lines, but didn’t feel like it. Instead, I said, “You know, I’ve been casting a long time, and I’ll never have a stroke as sweet as you’ve got.”
Ray’s smirk remained, but his “cool” looked confused.
“What does that mean?”
“Your basic stroke. Smooth. Very nice.”
He glanced out to where his line lay out like crumpled kite string. “’Nice? Oh yeah. Just beautiful.”
And my job here is done! I thought happily. “My opinion, for what it’s worth.”
I’d taken a step when he said, “Well if it’s so fucking ‘nice,’ then what am I doing wrong.”
Not even posed as a question. But for some reason it mattered — just enough — that he wanted to know. I hesitated. “That’s a soft rod. Wait a little longer to let the line load on your back cast. Pull forward smoothly when it does — you’re doing that now — and then speed up. Most importantly, stop the rod higher, let the line lay out, then drop the tip.”
He waited. “That’s it?” “Pretty much.”
He repeated my instructions verbatim, then again, and a third time after flubbing a few pick-ups. A minute or too later, he found control and laid out thirty-five feet of line, as neatly as you like. And then, again.
“Fuck,” he said softly. “Fucking A.” “Or something like that.”
His head swiveled around to me. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Pause, “I mean, you don’t look like somebody who gives a shit.” Pure grace, this kid. “Looks deceive.
Honestly, I’m pretty sure I need to lie down.”
“What? Oh. Funny,” he said flatly. No humor in his eyes, though I did think his smirk looked less unpleasant.
“Going to leave you to it,” I said. “No. Hang on. I’ve been trying to get this down for a while, so you should watch a few more.”
Entitled much? I thought, but did watch — a dozen casts or two, more when he asked me to demonstrate the roll cast I’d been doing at best I can.
The kid was a natural. A mimic who could listen and understand, observe and then mimic so quickly it seemed absurd.
Ray was also, I discovered, a journeyman carpenter who hated his work, his union, and questions in general, and, no, he’d never think to ask any. He shouted “Fuck!” every time he made a mistake, using the word as verb, noun, and every form of punctuation. He also smoldered with a kind of anger I’d seen too often, and too recently, in a student on parole whose exit from my class left blood on the wall.
In sum, this time with Ray was not a mentorship moment. No glow at all, but if judged by results, it certainly was a lesson. Maybe Ray appreciated that. I can’t remember if he said anything like “Thank you.” But I promised myself not to forget his last boast: “I bet if I practice this a couple more hours, I’ll be better than you are.”
Probably true. And such a fine and apt way to summarize the experience that this time it was my laugh that confused the cool of his smirk.
True stories should end truly, good ones with some kind of truth.
The truth is, I walked off down the dock feeling flat — detached and clinical, vaguely curious as to why I had a faint sense of fulfilling an obligation. I would have considered this more carefully had I thought it worth the effort.
The truth is that I didn’t hear of any more boats getting ripped off, though I could easily have missed the reports. True, too, that I heard through the mother-to-mother telegraph that Ray told his own that he was proud of how much he’d
learned. And then, a month or two later, that he’d “moved somewhere, suddenly,” which prompted me to think “ jail.”
Then, last week, I walked the dock where I met Ray. I was thinking Don’t want to do that again when I was surprised by But I might, which obviously posed a question.
To show off? I wondered, a notion that startled me. Maybe so.
Or maybe because we do certain things, expecting nothing, because that’s who we are, or how we were raised, or because that’s who we want to be, because we’ve embraced ethics or standards or values so long we follow them without thinking too much.
I liked that idea better. Later, of course, it was tempting to suggest that fly fishing frames some of our, well, higher callings. Mentoring, for example, which has a special place in the sport, however awkwardly that describes my time with Ray.
I’m as likely to see him again as a fish I will catch and release next week, and I feel roughly the same about that. But I do see my face in the mirror, and occasionally it strikes me that I am “familiar by type,” which I hope I isn’t a pose, but true.
