The American Fly Fisher Journal of the American Museum of Fly Fishing

SUMMER 2008 VOLUME 34 NUMBER 3 In the Spirit of Rivers

F THERE IS ANY time of year when we northern-hemisphere anglers might be found standing midriver, meditatively Icasting, and—as a direct result of this—allowing a feeling that could possibly be labeled spiritual or religious to seep in ever so slightly, it is right now. Summer. It was last summer that I met Sam Snyder, a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Florida’s graduate program on religion and nature. He and I were beginning to work on the article featured in this issue, and he was visiting the museum to do some research. Not only did his visit happily coincide with one from writer/historian Paul Schullery, whom Snyder cites prominent- ly, but also with a surprise visit from writer/Fly Fisherman edi- tor John Randolph, whose work Snyder discusses as well. Museum staff shared a sunny lunch at the picnic table with these three fly-fishing authors. It was a good day. In the aforementioned article, “Casting for Conservation: Religious Values and Environmental Ethics in Fly-Fishing Cul- ture,” Snyder asks, “Is fly fishing a religion? And what is accom- plished by considering it so?” He argues that fly-fishing faith can translate directly into works: conservation, restoration, and preservation. For more on the subject, turn to page 8. Turning from the philosophical to the literary, we’re pleased to bring you a rather unusual piece from our dear friend Gordon M. Wickstrom. Washington Irving, Wickstrom is quick Clouds Rising—Pinto Lake, The Wind River Range, Wyoming to point out, is no longer widely read; however, as he states in by Ogden Pleissner. Oil on canvas, 1937. the introduction to his article, he believes that “Irving’s ‘The Collection of David Nichols. Angler’ is indeed the prototype of the immense number of fishing stories, good and bad, that we have been reading for Volunteer of the Year Award is named. I was lucky enough to nearly two hundred years.” have started work here in the Joe Pisarro days, and I can attest In a fascinating exercise, Wickstrom made an outline of “The that his devotion and humor were an inspiration to all of us. Angler,” written circa 1815, and rewrote his own story based on Jerry further adds to this issue by gracing us again with his that outline. “The Angler” appeared in Irving’s The Sketch Book “Notes from the Library” column (page 19). This time he (1820), and one can find the story online by doing a quick updates us on donations and highlights Stackpole’s series of search for it. I recommend reading the original alongside fly-fishing classics edited by Paul Schullery. Two longer book Wickstrom’s retold tale. “Washington Irving’s ‘The Angler’: A reviews await you in these pages as well: Paul Schullery on New First Fishing Story,” begins on page 2. John Betts’s Making Strip-Built Fly Rods from Various Woods on Fred Buller, author (with Hugh Falkus) of Dame Juliana, the a Lathe (page 20) and John Betts on Fred Buller’s The Angling Treatyse and Its Mysteries (2001), offers us further food Domesday Book of Giant Salmon (page 22). How’s that for for thought in the ongoing search for earlier manuscripts that nearly completing a review circle? might have been the model for The Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth As often as we can, we’re asking Collections Coordinator an Angle (1496). He presents some notes as to his own recent Nathan George to tell us about some of our own stuff in research, which led both to dead ends and to possible leads for “Gallery” (page 7). Italian flies from the Sesia River valley, a future researcher well versed in French or Flemish. In the donated to the museum in the 1970s, constitute today’s fare. hopes that someone will take up the mantle, Buller shares this And speaking of the gallery, we couldn’t be more excited information with us in his “Notes and Comment” piece, about what’s in ours right now. The museum is pleased to pre- “Could Angling’s Oldest Manuscript Have Survived?” You’ll sent Ogden M. Pleissner: The Grand Sporting Tour until October find it on page 16. 31. This is the first museum show ever to focus on Pleissner’s What would the museum be without its volunteers? One of sporting art. Be a part of the experience, and come see us. our best and dearest volunteers, Gerald Karaska (whom we call Jerry), follows his Fall 2005 story about Dick Finlay with this one about Joe A. Pisarro (page 18), who became practically a KATHLEEN ACHOR full-time volunteer for a dozen years and for whom our EDITOR THE AMERICAN MUSEUM Journal of the American Museum of Fly Fishing OF FLY FISHING SUMMER 2008 VOLUME 34 NUMBER 3 Preserving the Heritage of Fly Fishing Washington Irving’s “The Angler”: TRUSTEES A New First Fishing Story ...... 2 Michael Bakwin Walter T. Matia Gordon M. Wickstrom Foster Bam William C. McMaster, MD Pamela Bates John Mundt Duke Buchan III David Nichols Gallery: The Sesia River Flies ...... 7 Peter Corbin Wayne Nordberg Nathan George Jerome C. Day Erik R. Oken Blake Drexler Raymond C. Pecor Casting for Conservation: Religious Values and Christopher Garcia Stephen M. Peet Environmental Ethics in Fly-Fishing Culture ...... 8 Ronald Gard Leigh H. Perkins Samuel Snyder George R. Gibson III John Rano Gardner L. Grant John K. Regan Notes and Comment: Could Angling’s Chris Gruseke Roger Riccardi James Hardman Kristoph J. Rollenhagen Oldest Manuscript Have Survived? ...... 16 James Heckman, MD Robert G. Scott Frederick Buller Arthur Kaemmer, MD Franklin G. Schurz Jr. Woods King III Gary J. Sherman, DPM Joe A. Pisarro, Volunteer ...... 18 Carl R. Kuehner III Ron Stuckey Gerald Karaska William P. Leary III Richard G. Tisch Douglas F. MacKenzie David H. Walsh Nancy Mackinnon James C. Woods Notes from the Library ...... 19 TRUSTEES EMERITI Gerald Karaska Charles R. Eichel Robert N. Johnson G. Dick Finlay David B. Ledlie Book Review: John Betts’s Making Strip-Built W. Michael Fitzgerald Leon L. Martuch Fly Rods from Various Woods on a Lathe...... 20 William Herrick Keith C. Russell Paul Schullery Paul Schullery OFFICERS Book Review: Fred Buller’s The Domesday Book Chairman of the Board Robert G. Scott of Giant Salmon ...... 22 President George R. Gibson III Vice Presidents James Heckman, MD John Betts Stephen M. Peet Richard G. Tisch Museum News ...... 24 Secretary James C. Woods Clerk Charles R. Eichel Contributors ...... 25 Treasurer Robert G. Scott STAFF ON THE COVER: Gibbon Falls, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, c. 1860. Executive Director Catherine E. Comar From the Mary Orvis Marbury Collection of the American Museum of Fly Fishing. Deputy Director Yoshi Akiyama Collections Manager Nathan George The American Fly Fisher (ISSN 0884-3562) is published Gallery & Store Supervisor Marci MacNeur four times a year by the museum at P.O. Box 42, Manchester, Vermont 05254. Project & Administrative Coordinator Sarah Moore Publication dates are winter, spring, summer, and fall. Membership dues include the cost of the Events Coordinator Kim Murphy journal ($20) and are tax deductible as provided for by law. Membership rates are listed in the back of each issue. Account Manager Patricia Russell All letters, manuscripts, photographs, and materials intended for publication in the journal should be sent to Director of Visual Communication Sara Wilcox the museum. The museum and journal are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, drawings, photographic material, or memorabilia. The museum cannot accept responsibility for statements and interpretations that are wholly the author’s. Unsolicited manuscripts cannot be returned unless postage is provided. Contributions to The THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER American Fly Fisher are to be considered gratuitous and the property of the museum unless otherwise requested Editor Kathleen Achor by the contributor. Copyright © 2008, the American Museum of Fly Fishing, Manchester, Vermont 05254. Original Design & Production Sara Wilcox material appearing may not be reprinted without prior permission. Periodical postage paid at Copy Editor Sarah May Clarkson Manchester, Vermont 05254 and additional offices (USPS 057410). The American Fly Fisher (ISSN 0884-3562) EMAIL: [email protected] WEBSITE: www.amff.com

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The American Fly Fisher, P. O. B ox 42, Manchester, Vermont 05254. Washington Irving’s “The Angler”: A New First Fishing Story by Gordon M. Wickstrom

To: My Reader RE: The Matter of Washington Irving and Angling Literature

Washington Irving is no longer widely read. His stories and essays of early American life inThe Sketch Book (1820) lie sadly neglectedall but The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, made popular once again in a Tim Burton film that transforms the awkward country school teacher, Ichabod Crane, into Johnny Depp, a callow would?be? scientif ic New York detective on assignment in the remote van Winkle mountains. But Johnny Depp is not the issue here. Rather, I?m on to another of the fine things in The Sketch Book: Irving?s story, The Angler (circa 1815), quite possibly the first of all modern fishing stories. Everything that we have come to expect from a good fishing story is there. I believe that Irving?s The Angler is indeed the prototype of the immense number of fishing stories, good and bad, that we have been reading for nearly two hundred years. It struck me that I might advance this claim for the originality and modernity of Irving?s story from the early nineteenth century by outlining it, testing its skeletal structure in the twenty?first. So I did it and was amazed at how at home I felt in the story. To continue my analysis, why shouldn?t I outlinetest theby writing a brand?new story using the scaffold of Irving?s as a template? Here follows that new, late?modern story of our own time of carbon rods and plastic lines. It is a near mirroring of Irving?s tale and my bow to him as America?s first professional writer and to ?his superbly writ ten tales full of insight into the American character and the breadth? of that experi ence. G MW

’M BUT A ROUTINE sort of teacher of Compleat Angler year after year. They other that Don Quixote’s squire, Sancho English literature at an obscure think it’s boring—all that milkmaid stuff. Panza, observed that there’s no taking Imountain junior college. It’s a posi- But I do my best with it and firmly trout without getting your pants (read: tion of some pleasure, considerable com- believe in fishing and all of its nonsense, your ass) wet. That’s the way it is: you fall fort, and even more security. Life out of even though I’m not greatly accomplished in and catch a chill, get hopelessly tan- doors here in Wyoming is unsurpassed. at it. I’m prepared to believe that it’s a gled, break your rod, take a spill and hurt And I’ve come, as they say, to know the sport as deep as Walton avers and can yourself, and are given hell for your pains territory. teach us to be quiet and contemplative. when arriving home late for dinner— As to my qualifications to be writing a I took up fishing under an uncle’s and all too often fishless. Student papers fishing story, I rush to assure you that I wing when a kid and was at first fasci- are still there waiting to be graded. A bit do know and teach Izaak Walton’s nated, but high school drew me away by like Don Quixote’s tilting with the Compleat Angler in my survey English lit- endocrinological force, and I fell away proverbial windmills. erature course and am competent in the from my angling only to get caught up in Nevertheless, I’m proud to be a right- seventeenth century. But I have not been it again after landing this teaching job in thinking child of the Northern Hemi - exactly a card-carrying Waltonian-of- Wyoming ten years ago. sphere where the salmonids roam and record, and I’m afraid that my students It’s pretty crazy, this fishing. Only a the skies are—well, you know the rest. wonder why I continue to assign his short time ago, I read in some book or I’m secretly proud of being called a fish- 2THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER toasted on high from camp cups—and with nearly three hours of daylight left to try the river not 30 yards from camp. Rigging tackle went fast, as did getting into waders, everyone bent on the oblig- atory hopperlike fly. Never did four guys beat it to the water faster. Me? I held back just a little to see how things would go, who would go where, where an opening might be left for me, and if I could see any fish working. I held back only to step into a beaver run and fall forward, damn near wrecking my knee. A bit shaken and dismayed at my bad luck and clumsiness, I limped back the short way to camp where I made myself almost comfortable by dewadering, dumping all the gear hanging on me, and relaxing with yet another bourbon, a can of cashews, and a good book that I do not care to identify here. Illustration by Gustave Doré in Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (translation by John After a decent time had passed—and Ormsby), Don Quixote (eBooks@Adelaide, 2006), http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c feeling better, my knee promising to be /cervantes/c41d/complete.html#p1chap18 (accessed January 25, 2007). okay—I sauntered down to the river, walked it up and down, made a few use- erman and feel that there is much that’s and could cast their flies from hell to less casts, checked on my companions. I beautiful about it. breakfast as delicately and accurately as tried to establish the sophisticated image Given all this maundering around you could want. of an angler who has already caught his about the meaning of fishing, a couple Anyway, the day in July of our depar- fish and was enjoying the approach of years ago, four of the hottest hotshot fly ture came, and we were collectively off evening while watching others flail away fishermen on our college faculty orga- up over Dead Indian Hill, down into the at the water for any last fish they might nized themselves into an expedition into Clarks Fork, up to Cooke City, and on possibly pound up. I was quite above the Yellowstone country where they into the park, loaded into Harry’s old that sort of thing. intended to camp on the Lamar, a fine pick-up and Walter’s SUV. They taught I could cover myself by appearing the river of varied character and type. My economics and biology, respectively. keen observer of nature, the naturalist, friends wanted simply to fish themselves It was a rowdy drive of nearly four and began collecting mental notes on silly for four days. And nothing would do hours to our “secret” campsite just off the “natural phenomena” to remark upon but that I should come along—I, a lesser Lamar River, not far from Soda Butte. around the fire tonight when dinner was brother of the angle than they, but, like When, along the way, we stopped for cof- past. No toasted marshmallows for these Shakespeare’s Jacques, able to add my fee or other relief, our spirits were high. piscators! somber mirth to the company and cele- The fine weather was only briefly cloud- And I must say it was a fine dinner brate the whiskey around the camp fire ed by my casual remark about all the stu- based on excellent pork chops and a bit at the end of an exhausting day on the dents’ papers we had left unread at more bourbon to accompany my “re - water. I like to joke about senility and home. For that, they failed to love me. marks” that they all so longed to hear. accidental death—for which they love me. Walter led us to our campsite in a The fishing had been good enough. These four colleagues of mine from stand of aspen, quite off the beaten track, Four men with a total of ten brace of cut- various academic persuasions dragged not one of your regular, official camp- throat about a pound each, not one of me into this trip, full of the confidence grounds designed more for motor which, I want it known, had been taken that they would have the best of camps homes than tents. We would be tenting on a grasshopper pattern. Rather, almost and catch loads of fish on any fly even in the fine old style. Walt assured us that every one of their fish took a dark little faintly suggesting a grasshopper. They we had official ranger permission to dry fly a guy had once given me called in sisted that they would need me for camp here. The rest of us were a bit the Caribou Captain and that I had tied comic relief at each day’s end. doubtful on this score as the place up, not too well. I had, on an earlier trip, All four of these guys were the most seemed too idyllic and desirable to be deigned to share a few of them with my fully overequipped anglers in my experi- officially permissible. friends. This remarkable generalist fly ence. They were as though right out of Still, we were in no mood to argue. had really done the business this late an Orvis catalog in their togs as well as There was camp to set up: tents to be afternoon on the Lamar. their tackle. They might even have been rigged, tables arranged, bearproof grub Night soon fell. Sleeping bags were the subject of a catalog photo shoot. I felt caches devised, lanterns hung, and the unrolled, gear stashed against any inva- tacky and ill-equipped by comparison, best sleeping places in the tents to fight sion. Herb produced a hell of a bear pis- some of my tackle being hand-me-down for. We might even get it done quickly tol from his duffle, declaring that he stuff and my clothes right out of our enough to be on the river for the evening didn’t give a damn what the park regula- backyard garden. But, again, they loved rise. I have to admit that this was next to tions were: he didn’t intend to be helpless me for my imperfections. And I tried not the finest campsite of my experience: when some old sow bear and her cubs to stare disdainfully at them, under- you’d think we knew what we were doing. came rummaging after him and his. standing, even as I did, that they really All went well, nothing of note forgotten Secure in the thought of that pistol, knew how to use all that elegant tackle at home, spirits buoyant, especially those Yellowstone being what it is, my com-

SUMMER 2008 3 panions of the angle drifted off to sleep, kid standing there looking me over. He Lunch was good and heavy, almost each man in his own way, for as long as carried a beat-up spinning rig and too heavy with the beer. All five of us his way could stand, before rising to trot lugged an old willow creel, which hung were groggy and drifting away from the off into the night to his ease. Me, I stayed on him suspiciously heavy. He asked me joking and wisecracking. But, after a out a while to trace the stars, listen to the if I had seen his dad come by here in the decent hour of repose, the core four wolves and the river, and dream a bit. last few minutes. I had not. Anyway, he again rose to the occasion and managed The dawn burst in on us with a fury of asked how I was doing, so I told him of to hurry off back to the river for as many summer heat, but welcome after the dis- my brown, and the damned kid volun- more fish as were willing to rise and take. comforts of any first night in camp. A teered me a peek into his creel, stuffed as Me? I just wanted to lie down in the substantial breakfast of eggs and bacon it was with a great mess of fish, all of summer grasses and have a nap, forget and thoroughly boiled coffee, dish wash- them husky, more than one at least as big about my broken rod, even the fishing. I ing, and tackle rigging gave us just enough as mine. I half wished that the feds might wanted to be away from all the stum- time to get good and nervous about what jump out of the bushes on him—all bling along the difficult banks of the we imagined was the fishing waiting for those dead trout! river, and wading its tricky currents, I us during those prime morning hours. What had he taken them on? A red remembered Shakespeare’s Roman gen- And they were prime hours. The five and white spoon, that’s what! “And a lit- eral declaring that “There is a world else- of us caught a lot of fish lying here and tle child shall lead them,” as the saying is. where” (Cor. III, 3). there and ready to rise. I even caught a I wasn’t at all unhappy to see the kid dis- As the delicious afternoon drew me brown of 2 pounds that I spotted finning appear on downriver looking for his dad, toward sleep, in a reverie, I thought back in thin water and nipping at the surface. whose creel gave me the shakes just to on what I have not told you, my reader, or Bless his heart, when I sneaked up think about. I learned my lesson for the even my companions there on the Lamar, behind him and dropped a Caribou Cap- day, got to my feet, and headed back to which is that I had been to that same tain about 3 feet above him, he took camp in high dudgeon. stretch before, maybe four years ago now, with out any doubt at all but that he was One by one and in good time, my dear when it really was “a world elsewhere.” getting something good to eat. After a four lads drifted back into camp more Yes, in these parts I had had a most reasonable struggle all over the run and than ready for their lunch and a bit of a remarkable experience. It haunts me two jumps, I got him in hand to release, break. The fishing had been very good. now, up here again, where it all hap- all very nicely and according to Hoyle. Ozzie, our sociologist, said he had at least pened. Fearing that my buddies would But when I turned again to my rod, I twenty to the net and this time several on miss the point, I never mentioned it to found that the loosened fly had thought - a grasshopper fly, not that nondescript lit- them. And so I must try it on you. Let me lessly flung itself around and got badly tle “Captain thing.” His hopper he recite it here as from that bower of sweet, messed up in some reeds. I tried too hard declared to be “a man’s proper fly” for shaded grass, now, as in a dream of what to get the fly loose by pressuring the rod. manly fish. And they had fish as big or might have been. It broke clean in two in the middle joint. bigger than my prize, too. I couldn’t think ! When these carbon rods break, they don’t of an easy way to tell them about my Across and up the highway out to mess around; they just snap. smashed rod and so stayed quiet about it. Cooke City is a trail marked on the map So, what do I do now?! I was done for. (Shame is responsible for what often pass- for “Fishing Lake,” where it all happened. Yesterday I had bunged up my knee and es for modesty.) In good time, I would I had been on a trip there with a bunch today taken my clumsiness out on my bring it up and see about a “borrower” to of Scouts, who, one of the camping days, one and only rod. I recall someone saying, get me through the next two days. were to be driven by bus around the park “Never go out with but a single graphite rod: they break too easily.” Now, I had to borrow a spare from one of the boys and get a good razzing into the bargain. So, I just sat me down as comfortably as I could to reflect on my sins. Not long before, Frank, the fourth in our group— he taught French—came charging up the opposite bank, slowing down only enough to call across the creek to wonder how I was doing. How was I doing, indeed! “Fine,” I lied. “I just got a good brown and am now sitting here relishing it.” “Fine,” he yelled back and plowed on upstream, hell bent for the next fish. And so, the saga continues. I was de - ter mined to enjoy myself in spite of myself and so put my destroyed rod out of sight behind me and set about seeing just how many living organisms I could spot in air, water, and on land around me. All too soon the sense of the limitlessness of things nearly suffocated me. Who could ever presume to count all this? I must have dozed off for a moment when I came up short, startled by this

4THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER “Loop,” leaving me with time on my hands, time to myself, maybe a blessing. The map indicated what could be an interesting hike to that Fishing Lake, not too far, yet far enough. It was only a hike, however, as I had no tackle on this Scout-supervising trip. So I got me to the trailhead, found it more a climb than a hike, but found Fishing Lake, maybe 2 acres, a few heavy fish rising here and there—taking deep. I wished I had a rod to pound them with, but had to be content to walk the lake, watch the fish, and get more and more frustrated and excited, especially with that cow moose grazing the shal- lows with her twin offspring watching from the edge of the timber. But, beyond the moose and the lake, up the meadow, it looked clearly like the spot for another lake, some body of water that could be my own personal, private The Lamar River, 1959. National Park Services photo. place. So, carefully skirting the moose, I took off, thrashed up through the brush his camp for a fish for supper and that it the great books of angling that had always along a faint game trail, and, just as I ought rightly to be a 14-inch brook been his study. Here he could fish in those caught a glimpse of what could be my trout—ordered up just like that. The fly old ways apart from what he called the secret lake, I nearly jumped out of my he was tying on was a big, surprising “hysteria of the fly shops.” He said he felt skin to hear a commanding voice call thing that had along its back an array of like two parts Walton, one part Theodore out, through the still and pellucid air, jungle-cock nails. When he saw my inter- Gordon, a lot of Ray Bergman, all made “Hello there!” I must have replied some- est, he said he had found that the trout practical by Al McClane. thing or other even before I saw him, this around here were particularly fond of I broke in to ask him, taking the risk, classy, classical outdoorsman sitting on a jungle cock. Why? He had no idea, but what did he think was wrong with con- log working on his tackle above what fain would not argue with the trout, big, temporary fly fishing? His response was proved to be not a lake but a big beaver beautiful, and plentiful as they were. He quick and ironic: Hadn’t he just told me? I dam. added that back in his camp, he contin- let the issue drop even as the urgency and Obviously one of those people of ued to tie flies of widely varied types, the desperation with which my friends immediate and generous authority, he hoping to trick these local trout, brooks, fished these days crossed my mind. waved me over to where he sat. Only browns, and rainbows into something My mentor’s rod was of cane, his line then did he look up from the knot he was besides jungle cock—but without much of old, well-dressed silk; his leaders, he tying and surprise the living daylights success, the larger fish always preferring confessed, were nylon. He was not alto- out of me. This man had taught me the exotic fly. He said, parenthetically, gether the troglodyte. I marked that word Milton at Berkeley one long lost summer that he took it as a sign that his jungle- somehow when he bade me follow him ago! He was professor Julius Henry, a fowl cape was running out of usable nails. up the hill and away from the pond, noted seventeenth-century scholar of the I failed at the moment to catch his mean- rather steep, through more willow, alder, old school. ing and let it drop. I should have known. and some dense fir, not the faintest sug- I tried to regain my composure. This For a moment, he seemed to drift gestion of a trail to mark our way. coincidence was too much, more than away as to some secret or some deep pre- Suddenly we broke out into the open I—or even this story, maybe—could occupation before coming round and to only a few yards from the base of the bear. Who would ever believe it? Out here his feet to get down to the pond for that immense cliff that rimmed the high valley. in the wilderness, for crying out loud! brookie, saying, as he went, that he’d do Here was a low-domed half-a-cave shel- Henry had been a fine and popular it! He’d show me the whole thing! Show tering a well-established permanent camp. teacher, I recalled, as I caught myself me what? I wondered. I felt a little uneasy. I wish I could describe its every falling back into that old student/teacher He would trust me! he almost shout- detail—its order, its comforts and securi- relationship. Would he by any chance ed, and began throwing his jungle-cock ty. It was all there: an old-timer’s camp in remember me? Would he care? Was this fly to the deep water along the dam face, the mountains. The very model of a real? A dream? casting it with skill and finesse. And, by camp, and handsomely protected and He didn’t tumble to me; so, I thought God, in only moments he had his exact hidden away by the overhanging cliff. A I might as well just ’fess up and tell him fish, an exquisite, fat, inflamed 14-inch masterpiece. that he had taught me much about poets, brookie. He had his supper. I stood there amazed, trying to take it poetry, and John Milton (who readily Now what? all in. It was a dream of a place. Professor could have known Izaak Walton). My good old professor launched into Henry stood at my side muttering that After exchanges of courtesy, he pre- what amounted to a paean of praise to he knew his camp was illegal and that it tended, I’m sure, to remember me and this magical place. He told me he had had been a miracle that he had gotten was pleased—as are all teachers—to be been coming here every summer for a away with it for so long, but that he had well remembered by an ex-student. The dozen years, spending at least two weeks been extremely careful. For instance, he old teacher then turned to the business working at his fishing in the old ways used nothing but bone-dry aspen that of fishing, said he had come down from that he had learned from his father and burns smoke free, no sign of fire to bring SUMMER 2008 5 bread, roasted potatoes, local I thought I’d surely have to study the mushrooms, and watercress. structure of the “angler” story with great There was excellent coffee and care. And then I could set the world after-dinner chocolate to boot. straight on what might be the origin of I felt that, had it been mine, all fishing stories. I could never leave such a But I didn’t do it. Sad but true, I was camp. Professor Henry finally too complacent, too comfortable in my confessed that it was cancer daily Wyoming routine to get into such driving him home for what demanding scholarship. would be the last time and that So that, my dear reader, is what I didn’t he was glad on this evening to tell my angling colleagues up on the know that someone else knew Lamar—that I’d been there before, that of his camp, had seen him in it, I’d had that marvelous experience and and might remember him. It treasured it too much to let them in on it. was deeply moving—so many That afternoon, lazing in the delicious lines of life joined so fatefully Yellowstone grasses, waiting for “the together. boys” to come back from the river, my I had to tear myself away spirits flagged. Another two days with a from the spell of the place, its borrowed plastic rod and now boringly powerful and altogether im- regular trout was daunting. I thought of probable presence, and get back what I might have done for Washington to that bunch of Boy Scouts Irving, Professor Henry, and even for the before they called out a search literature of angling. All that might have party on me; there were two been.* more days of supervising them. And so, that’s it. It was a great trip. When it was all over and I was back home, for weeks I " Washington Irving. Brady-Handy Photograph couldn’t escape the memory of Collection, Prints & Photographs Division, the professor and his camp. I Library of Congress, LC-DIG-cwpbh-03513. gave in and Googled “Professor Julius Henry,” actually got a *In his once beloved poem “Maude,” John the law down on him. He had an alcohol phone number, and ventured to call. Greenleaf Whittier wrote that “the saddest words stove just in case. Mrs. Henry answered and—after care- of all are these: It might have been…” He had found this ideal place after a fully finding out that I was an ex-student lot of looking those twelve years ago, a and had met her husband in the place safe and sound, to which he could Yellowstone—told me that Mark Leffingwell pack in, year after year, more and more he had only just died. In the provision, equipment, and comfort than days of his passing, he had he needed for that particular two-weeks mentioned a young man camp. Each year his camp grew in com- who visited his camp and fort and efficiency by virtue of what he with whom he had passed lugged up from his carefully hidden car an enjoyable evening. When down below. I told Mrs. Henry I thought At the end of each season, in breaking I was that young man, she camp, he stashed all his gear well back in went on to tell me that her the dry cave and hid everything—his husband wished that he tackle, fly-tying materials, books, cook- could have shown me his ery, bedding, supplies that would not notes and a draft for an spoil or attract bears—with logs, brush, article on “Washington Ir - and rock and never lost a thing. He left ving the Angler.” And that not a sign of a fire pit, not a footprint he had been thinking of a anywhere. It would be next to impossible critical edition of The for anyone happening by to know that Sketch Book. And that she here had been a camp. would be pleased to send Never did he take anything out with me copies of those notes him other than his notes from his read- and the draft. Imagine such ing and maybe a book or two, which a trust, such generosity! were as essential to the camp as his fish- While still trying to thank ing. He told me that this summer he was her, I couldn’t help but leap back in his beloved seventeenth century, ahead, imagining that I rereading John Donne. He muttered, might work on an edition of rather absently, that this might be his last Irving. I could use Henry’s summer “in camp.” essay as a preface to my But for now, I was told that I must eat work and write a sketch of half of that brook trout, broiled at the him in his Yellow stone cave side of the aspen fire, surely enough fat, with fat brook trout and The author fly fishing on Boulder Creek in 2001. red fish flesh for two, with some hard John Donne.

6THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER GALLERY The Sesia River Flies

Photos by Sara Wilcox

HE MUSEUM’S COLLECTION is heavily represented by adding a few turns of floss for the head. The hooks themselves angling Americana. Rods, reels, and flies from America’s are eyeless and snelled. Eyeless British hooks often had a Tbest-known fly fishers and celebrities abound. Among knurled section at the end of the shank to give the leader bet- the less-celebrated constituents of the collection are the inter- ter grip. Their Italian counterparts have a smooth shank with national items. a flared tip, giving the appearance of a hook that was flattened In the 1970s, the museum acquired one dozen flies from the at the shank’s tip. This gives the leader adequate purchase. Sesia River valley in northern Italy. Tied in the traditional style As for size, the hooks are about the length of a modern size of the region, they were donated by a Mr. Felizatto and were 16 or 18 with a gap approximately one size bigger. They were included in a piece for the American Fly Fisher shortly thereafter sold by the dozen, bundled together by their leaders. These (vol. 5, no. 3, Summer 1978). “Traditional” is often synonymous flies were used for trout and grayling, with smaller-size hooks with “antiquated,” but not in this case; the flies of northern preferred for the latter. It is not clear exactly how they were Italy remained unchanged for hundreds of years, well into the most often fished, but their appearance is identical, more or twentieth century. For that matter, fly fishing in general re - less, to a modern soft-hackle wet-fly or nymph pattern. mained largely static in that region at least into the 1970s. Remarkable for their simplicity, these flies from the Sesia Braided lines and 14 -foot rods without reels were still in use at River valley are a refreshing contrast to many modern patterns that time. that incorporate synthetic fibers, molded bodies, and epoxy The flies are simple: a floss body with a soft hackle collar adhesives. Bigger is not always better; new is not always from a partridge or similar bird. Blue, red, green, yellow, and improved. If that were the case, these flies would not have black round out the color range for the body, and the collars endured so long. are more subdued, including light gray, tan, or grizzly. The general practice is to wind the hackle 360 degrees around the NATHAN GEORGE hook shank, but gather it toward the top 180 degrees before COLLECTIONS MANAGER SUMMER 2008 7 Casting for Conservation: Religious Values and Environmental Ethics in Fly-Fishing Culture by Samuel Snyder

The sport of fishing is an important Fishing: A History (1989) or his more play - ly, allows us to understand our sport, cri- part of life to many thousands of peo- ful, but equally astute, works such as Royal tique it, and perhaps, as I will show, de - ple, perhaps several millions of people, Coachman: The Lore and Legends of Fly- velop more powerful tools for motivat- on this continent alone. It needs no Fishing (1999), Schullery not only high - ing the fly-fishing faithful into activities more than this to make it an important lights a litany of examples of such religious of conservation, restoration, and pre ser - subject. But it is also something more than a sport. It is intimate exploration production—such as dry-fly debates; col- vation of fish and their watershed homes. of a part of the world hidden from the lectors seeking “religious eyes and minds of ordinary people. It is relics” in the form of bam- a way of thinking and doing, a way of boo rods; or an accom pa - reviving the mind and body, that men nying superiority com plex have been following with growing among fly fishers, fans of the intensity for hundreds of years. 1 dry fly in particular—but he —Roderick Haig-Brown problematizes these very same instances of fly-fishing T IS NO SECRET that fly fishers have religiosity for teetering dan- historically taken their sport so seri- gerously close to a snobbish Iously as to frequently elevate it to elitism that leaves a bad taste religious status. Fly fishers around the in one’s mouth. world frequently use terms such as reli- Exploring the myriad ex - gious, spiritual, sacred, divine, ritual, amples of fly-fishing religi - med itation, and conversion to describe osity, particularly in light of their personal angling experiences. In some of Schullery’s cau tion - doing so, fly fishers have no shortage of ary notes, one must won der resources and traditions from which to to what degree it is valid to build support for the religious designa- seriously consider fly fish- tion of their sport. ing along the lines of reli- Reflecting on the connections between gion. To put it simply: Is fly religion and fly fishing, Tom McGuane fishing a religion? And what wrote that “humans have suspected” is accomplished by consid- their connection “for thousands of years.”2 ering it so? Does such an in- In A River Runs Through It, Norman quiry allow us to more fully Maclean’s family held that very suspi- appreciate all aspects of our cion, believing there existed “no clear piscatorial practices? Or, by line between fishing and religion.”3 The elevating fly fishing to reli- Macleans connected fly fishing to Chris - gion, do we risk falling into tianity, but other fly fishers often per- the elitism folks like Schul - ceive fly fishing itself as a religious or lery caution against? It is spiritual activity. No one demonstrates my belief that placing fly this more clearly in his work than Paul fishing into categories of re - Cover of A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean Schullery. In his insightful American Fly ligion, when done cautious- (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989).

8THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER My argument, I believe, is supported creation of their own on-the-ground churches, synagogues, or specifically de - by contemporary discussions within religious communities. marcated ritual areas. Today, however, schol arly fields of religious studies and Commenting on these expansive scholars are more frequently relocating environmental ethics in which scholars, approaches to religion, professor of reli- religion from formal structures to spaces, writers, and activists are examining the gion at Vermont’s Middlebury College such as nature, in ways that allow one to diverse ways that religion relates to, con- Rebecca Gould stated, “religion has been consider the traditions and heritage of fly structs, and shapes human re - fishing as equally valid targets lationships to the natural of scholarly inquiry. world in everyday practice, In agreement with Orsi, I making it all the more rele- believe that religion arises vant to questions of popular where humans act in “subtle, religion, such as fly fishing, intimate, and quotidian” ways but also to issues of environ- that make meaning “known mental conservation. and verified,” for both indi- Informed by such perspec- viduals and groups. In other tives, I shall briefly highlight a words, religion is quite simply few historical, material, and a “meaning making activity.”10 everyday elements of fly-fish- In a parallel way, Roderick ing religiosity,4 demonstrating Haig-Brown said the same along the way the insights that thing of fly fishing, calling it a come by understanding fly meaning-making activity.11 fishing as a religious practice To clarify, these definitions when considering the his- of religion—and many others torical and potential contribu- by contemporary scholars not tions that fly-fishing subcul- mentioned here—insist that tures stand to offer en deav ors by creating meaning, religion of environmental conser va - consists of more than struc- tion.5 ture of thought, doctrine, or institutions, but entails ele- CASTING RELIGION ments of action through modes of expression, motivation, in - Over the last decade or so, tention, behavior, and style. cultural anthropologists and Some might object that such academics have increasingly broad and inclusive defini- turned their attention to top- tions run the risk of reducing ics not traditionally consid- the analytic value of religion ered religious. Leading schol- as a concept by making the ar of religious studies David term applicable to anything. Chidester has explored such Contrary to such objections, diverse topics as baseball, Tup - projects such as this one seek perware, and Coca-Cola along to demonstrate the power of the lines of religion and pop- religion to function beyond ular culture.6 If they are not the walls of institutions, such “real religions,” he insists, as on rivers chasing trout. these cultural phenomena do awfully religious work, and FLY FISHING AS A this is what scholars should NATURE RELIGION consider. In so doing, he builds on a previous definition of According to John Randolph, religion as being “that dimen- longtime editor of Fly Fish - sion of human experience erman, there is no question engaged with sacred norms.”7 that fly fishing is a religion, a Elsewhere, former president point he made on page 2 of of the American Academy of Becoming a Fly Fisher: From Religion and pro fessor of reli- Juran, Seeking the Tao in the Autumn Mountains. Brookie Days to the Tenth Level gious studies at Northwestern Northern Song dynasty, 10th century, hanging scroll: (Lyons Press, 2002). In making University Robert Orsi has ink on silk. National Palace Museum, Taipei. such a claim, Randolph took encouraged scholars to ex- inspiration from Native Amer - pand their purview of inquiries of reli- ‘relocated’ from the fixed definitions of ican and Asian religions, such as Taoism, gious communities and phenomena into former models of method and theory of while arguing that the goal of fly fishing spaces in which religion is “lived” in the study of religion.”8 Following this is the journey toward spiritual perfection everyday popular culture. Orsi’s work trajectory, targets of inquiry have ex - of “fly fishing nirvana.”12 Drawing on a traditionally deals with the practices of panded to more broadly include, as Orsi variety of religious resources, fly fishing, Catholics in New York City or Chicago, argued, those “places where humans according to Randolph, clearly fits some but his primary goal is to understand the make something of the worlds they have of these more scholarly attempts at variety of ways that individual and com- found themselves thrown into.”9 For- defining that which is often so difficult munal actors engage sacred worlds in the merly, religion remained relegated to to grasp: religion. SUMMER 2008 9 Jeremy Randall which anglers describe their conversions to a new fly-casting nature religion as if they were baptized and born again. As Ted Leeson gracefully noted, fly fishers often insist that fishing provides more than the occasion to catch fish, but op - portunities to “approach . . . a web of re- lations that give shape and coherence to the natural world.”18 In a recent interview, one New Mexico fly fisher recounted that learning about bugs and aquatic life, more than catching fish, caused him to “sell all [his] spin-fishing gear and switch addic- tively to fly fishing. . . . Fly fishing forces you to understand bugs, fish habitat, and life cycles,” he reflected, and “therefore connect more deeply with nature and God. . . . You know,” he told me,

I saw the cycles of life. Looking at in - sects and becoming an amateur ento- mologist, looking at life cycles. I felt so close to God. You cannot fly fish and not believe in a higher power, I truly believe that. You would be a fool to think that this was some random act of events that A smoky mountain baptism: the author fishing Kentucky’s Cumberland River. makes all that process take place. To see a mayfly as a nymph turn into a fly, mate, More than being a religion of doctrine touch with God on a river than I’ve ever and die to feed trout; that trout can take or institution, for Randolph and many felt standing in a church.”16 His point is advantage of this wonder and acts of others, fly fishing aptly might be one commonly made by anglers in both God—that is about where I get it.19 described as what has been termed a life and literature. nature religion. Through his work on a There is something about being on a When making such proclamations on variety of forms of nature religion, stream in the mountains or spring creek the power of fly fishing to connect the including surfing, University of Florida in the plains that draws some to fish with angler to nature, fly fishers, like other professor of religion Bron Taylor has great passion. I think it has to do with religious devotees, often draw upon a identified a common-denominator spir- the desire to directly experience and en - lengthy literary tradition for support, ituality that usually involves experiences gage the earth. The solitude and sounds inspiration, and credence. and perceptions of connection and of a stream, the careful turning over of belonging to a living, sacred earth.13 rocks in search of nymphs and larvae, LITERARY LESSONS Taylor has noted how people and groups and many other aspects of fly fishing eas- AND LEGENDS often turn to nature “for wisdom, ily—indeed, naturally—seem to foster a strength, for maturation, for spiritual sense of connection with and belonging Although Schullery cautioned against comradeship, and for lessons in devotion to nature. Exploring such sentiments in calling all fishing writing literature,20 it and humility.”14 Fly-fishing culture fly fishing’s literary, material, or everyday has been said that fly fishing is the most seems to fit well in his nature religion venues, however, one must question to literary of outdoor sports. Scholar Mark model as a mode of spirituality or reli- what degree we should take such senti- Browning wrote, “outdoor sports have gious practice based on being-in-nature, ments seriously. generated a considerable literature, far in which nature not only provides solace, more than half of that writing is centered strength, wisdom, and humility, but is REEL-LIFE REVELATION not on the land, but on the aquatic hunt, often construed as sacred and increas- fishing.”21 Leonard Wright, an angling ingly deserving of reverence, care, and Fly fishers often describe their early author himself, bragged that fishing “has conservation. moments of angling in terms that con- produced a library that dwarfs any other In his social science queries into note experiences of religious conversion. sport, and the fly fishing sections of these nature-based religions, professor of ecol- This is an appropriate response within a shelves contain the vast majority of qual- ogy and forestry at Yale University nature religion, in which nature provides ity books.”22 According to Browning, fly Stephen Kellert has demonstrated how the spaces or sources of divine or sacred fishing’s esteemed literary tradition cre- many who do not attend religious ser- encounter. In an article on steelhead fish- ates a space for fishing to act as “at least vices understand nature to be a site ing, Lani Waller described catching his an active metaphor for religion and spir- where one might encounter the divine or first rainbow trout on a fly rod as an itual life.”23 For others, the sheer size and tap into something “greater,” thereby “‘amorphous gestalt,’ a mysterious blend historical legacy of angling writing gives providing “meaning making” or “world of vague yet powerful signals, which came angling its religious character and justifi- orienting” moments when nature is the from an unknown and distant source.” cation for serious scholarly examination. holy or sacred space of religious prac- This moment “of revelation” in 1949, Fly fishing’s literary tradition builds tice.15 On an angling Internet forum, a Waller continued, thoroughly immersed on the larger canon of American nature man, when asked why one fishes, replied, him into a life devoted to fly fishing.17 writing, which, according to scholar of “Not to steer this conversation in a reli- In interviews with anglers across the English literature John Gatta in Making gious direction, but I’ve felt more in United States, I have heard stories in Nature Sacred: Literature, Religion, and 10 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER Environment in America from the tions. In the end, he compared the writ- In such a celebration of water and the Puritans to the Present (2004), provided ing and telling of fish stories to that of act of fishing, fly fishing moves beyond the archetypal path for reflecting on catechism.29 Or, as Browning noted, in history, literature, and materiality into a “pursuits of self-transcendence” in na - reference to Hammond, “all those realm where anglers perpetually assert ture’s forests, fields, river valleys, and involved come to the words fully aware that they primarily seek an opportunity mountains.24 If Taylor highlighted the that nothing new is forthcoming, yet to stand in a river, meditatively cast a role of nature as a source of the sacred in remain faithfully attendant to their repe- line, and commune with nature. John nature religions, Gatta emphasized a pri- tition and variation.”30 Stories, like fish- Gierach has often argued that for many mary mode of reflection on sacred nature ing, through repetition, aid anglers in, as anglers, it is not the gear, the river, or the that emerged through the romantic writ- Orsi says of religion, making something size of the trout, but rather the opportu- ings of Muir and Thoreau or the more of the worlds they have found themselves nities to worship in the church of nature contemporary engagements of Aldo thrown into. Fishing writing, done well, in solitude that constitute the bedrock Leopold, Annie Dillard, or Gary Snyder. takes the angling reader into the magical for the religious and spiritual percep- Writers and readers of fly-fishing litera- moments of fishing and into a world of tions that can come with fly fishing.33 ture often draw on and self-identify with connections and wholeness, where more Herbert Hoover argued, “next to this larger tradition of American nature than fish are caught—where meaning is prayer, fishing is the most personal rela- writing, which, Gatta rightly noted, is created and a bit of world orientation is tionship of man [and woman].” Anglers pivotal for understanding how humans gained.31 around the world agree with Hoover that have reflected on the religious and spiri- fishing is a chance to “wash one’s soul tual potential of the natural world. NATURE’S SOURCES OF with pure air, with the rush of the brook, In the realm of fly fishing, however, SIGNIFICANCE or with the shimmer of the sun on the although Maclean is one of the most blue water,” and that this practice “is not faithfully recited authors, no fishing text In “Nature and Sacrament,” Christian so much getting fish as it is a state of is more historically celebrated and theologian Paul Tillich urged Christians mind and a lure for the human soul into debated than Sir Izaak Walton’s The to revitalize natural elements of the refreshment.”34 Compleat Angler: or, the Contemplative world as sacramental realities. “The According to Harry Middleton in The Man’s Recreation. Since its publication in power and meaning of nature,” he insist- Earth Is Enough: Growing Up in a World 1653, it has ranked third as the most ed, “must be sought within and through of Fly Fishing, Trout, and Old Men, fly printed text in the English language, its objective physical structures.”32 Water fishing creates situations and opportuni- behind the Holy Bible and Pilgrim’s is just such a physical structure, into ties for anglers to bind themselves to Progress.25 Just as Gatta highlighted the which baptism not only offers opportu- something greater, primarily nature.35 ways that Christianity “has most deeply nities for purification, but also a more These sentiments recall what some spec- affected” the language and expression of embodied connection to the physical ulate reflect the etymological root of the American nature writing, one can make reality of the divine. As if they were read- term religion—religio or religare—“to tie the same point for fly fishing’s literary ing Tillich, fly fishers elevate water as the or bind.”36 tradition, particularly Walton or his even most holy symbol next to the fish itself, According to Browning, fly fishers more debated and enigmatic predeces- equating wading into rivers as a self- might insist they fish to make contact sor, Dame Juliana Berners.26 induced equivalent to baptism. with the ineffable, to reach into the One cannot overstress the profound influence this creative literature has had on fly-fishing culture. Walton, Ernest Hemingway, his daughter Lorian Hem - ingway, Aldo Leopold, David James Duncan, and Norman Maclean are but a few of the iconic figures in an increasing- ly long list of fishing literati. Quoting and adding to famed author Sparse Grey Hackle, Arnold Gingrich stated, “Some of the best fishing around is to be found not in water but in print. It follows that some of the best fishing partners are to be found not in life but in literature.”27 If these authors are skilled with the fly rod, they are even more skilled with the pen and the spinning of a story. As a primary modus operandi of fly- fishing nature religion, the storytelling tradition goes beyond the simple telling of exploits to the singing of praises of nature, fish, and sport—not unlike the American nature-writing tradition— while teaching lessons and ethics, and reflecting on the divine potential of nature.28 Sociologist Bryn Hammond likened the storytelling tradition in fly fishing to the power of storytelling and Gibbon Falls, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, c. 1860. narrative in the world’s religious tradi- From the Mary Orvis Marbury Collection of the American Museum of Fly Fishing. SUMMER 2008 11 “unseen and draw out life,” and in turn, perceive “angling as a means toward the divine.”37 Ted Leeson, in The Habit of Rivers, passionately reflected that “trout streams tug at the mind with an insis- tent, contradictory pull, presenting both a plain and perfect simplicity and a sub- tle link to sources of hidden signifi- cance.”38 David James Duncan, who unabashedly pushes the borders of reli- gious mysticism in a variety of his works, signaled agreement with Leeson and Browning by stating, “When I fish, I fish to hook into an entirety. I fish to trade self-consciousness for creek conscious- ness and self-awareness for rise-aware- ness.”39 Although such words are those of famous angling authors, streamside con- versations, bar-stool babblings, and fly- shop stories reveal wholehearted agree- ment with such sentiments. Anglers, then, in literature and life, often seek experiences that represent essential quests for meaning in the lives of all The author (left) with restoration specialist Craig Sponholtz, planting willows on humans; anglers simply perform these Comanche Creek, a native Rio Grande cutthroat habitat in New Mexico’s Valle Vidal. quests on streams, rivers, and lakes while Picture courtesy of Quivira Coalition, Santa Fe, New Mexico. ritually waving a wand in the air.

on the role religions can, should, and do but that those religious sentiments are RELIGION AND play in mitigating various and troubled just as—if not more—likely to be gener- ENVIRONMENTAL human-to-nature relationships. ated by participating in activities of out- CONSERVATION As Gould and others have noted, door recreation where nature becomes understanding how humans perceive and church.44 According to Taylor in his explo- negotiate relationships to the environ- Therefore, Oelschlaeger and others rations of surfing or other forms of ment is pivotal for projects pertaining to have increasingly challenged people of nature religion, these religious feelings of environmental ethics, conservation, and faith (of any sort) to reconsider the role orientation, meaning, and connection to sustainability. In search of solutions to of their religion in this time of ecocrisis.45 nature are central for the formation of a troubled human-to-nature relations, Based on these challenges, then, I am in - practiced environmental ethic of conser- Max Oelschlaeger turned to religion after ter ested in what happens—or, I should vation. By highlighting these aspects of a failing to find solutions elsewhere in his say, what is happening—when fly fishers tradition to connect to the natural career as an environmental philosopher take their claims of fly-fishing religiosity world, Taylor is one of many scholars to and conservationist.41 In his introduc- seriously and consider Oeslchlaeger’s turn toward religious milieus as poten- tion to Caring for Creation: An Ecu - challenge. tial sources for the ethics of conserva- menical Approach to the Environ mental tion. Because religion has increasingly Crisis (1994), he insisted that “religious RITUALLY RESTORING become a target of inquiry by those discourse is perhaps the most promising WATERSHEDS interested in environmental ethics, con- way to expand our cultural conversa- servation, and sustainability over rough- tion” toward proper ecological ethics and Because many fly fishers—and other ly the last forty years, I suggest we take fly ways of living with the land.42 anglers—praise their sport for the occa- fishing’s religious realms seriously. In LifePlace: Bioregional Thought and sions it provides them to connect to In 1967, religion came under particu- Practice (2003), Robert Thayer played nature, they will contend that these con- larly heavy fire from historian of science with the term recreation as re-creation. nections often lead them to be concerned Lynn White Jr., who, in an essay titled For him, re-creation provides a positive- about environmental degradation. In “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic ly potent path for individuals and groups interviews, when asked if fly fishing leads Crisis,” called Christianity, in particular, to enact, negotiate, and renew meaning- one to pay attention to the “health” or “the most anthropocentric religion” the ful relationships with the natural spaces “state” of the environment, one angler world has ever known. Although White of their residence. “Our engagement emotionally replied, “Well of course. is most noted for criticizing certain reli- with the land,” he mused, “depends a Being out there on a stream over the years, gious traditions, particularly Chris tian ity, great deal on how we play with it, or you notice changes from stream deg - for their part in the environmental crisis, within it . . . not in search of food, but of radation to water loss.”46 Another angler many forget that he closed that very essay meaning and belonging.”43 Templeton replied more broadly, “If you enjoy the by stating “since the roots of our trouble Award–winning environmental ethicist environment in any way, you cannot are so largely religious, the remedy must Holmes Rolston and wildlife ecologist help but support organizations and take also essentially be religious, whether we Stephen Kellert have both emphasized care of it when you are out there.”47 Fly call it that or not.”40 Since White, the last this point by noting how not only are fishers often agree, then, that they must forty years have seen the growth of religious sentiments necessary in secur- sustain the rivers that sustain them emphasis, both scholarly and practical, ing a functioning environmental ethic, through conservation practices.

12 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER More pointedly, one often finds the to concerns for the inherent value and 2001 issued a “native fish policy,” which fly-fishing conservation ethic and prac- integrity of native fish, such as the brook seeks to restore native fish species and tice rooted in religious or spiritual con- trout or the variety of cutthroat trout their habitats as essential for the contin- cepts. Browning stated, “Just as a religious species. uation of “fly fishing heritage and tradi- devotee, having accepted certain doctrine The former rationale for conservation tion” as well as the betterment of ecosys- will be expected to behave in an appro- has largely dominated fly fishing for tems.56 In one (of many) grassroots priate manner,” the fly angler should be much of this time. Most famously, example, the bylaws of New Mexico expected to embrace certain values and Herbert Hoover gave an address titled “A Trout state that the trout streams of New qualities.48 David James Duncan de - Remedy for Disappearing Game Fishes” Mexico must be protected, not only be - manded in My Story as Told by Water, to the Izaak Walton League in Chicago cause “trout waters and their pristine “We must revere the resource,”49 and on 9 April 1927. The remedy he spoke of surroundings offer nourishment, soli- Paul Schullery has argued that “we fish - consisted of an increased emphasis on tude, and comfort to the human spirit,” er men need to be on better behavior.”50 stocking America’s rivers with fishes so but also because “trout waters are a gift Or, because fly fishing is at “root a that “there is less time between bites.”53 of nature to be understood, preserved, nature-based spirituality,” Tom McGuane Although it is no secret that Hoover cer- and protected.”57 This is but one example likened environmental protection to a tainly espoused religious perceptions of of the increasing efforts of organizations “holy war.”51 All of these sentiments find angling, his most religious experiences, it to preserve and protect fisheries and on-the-ground realization in many seems, came from catching fish, not nec- watersheds based on beliefs in the value grassroots and national fly-fishing orga- essarily the “time between bites.” of nature, as well as for their cultural, nizations devoted to the conservation of Today, however, the conservation lan- religious, and spiritual value. nature, waters, and piscatorial species. guage has expanded well beyond the sim- Regarding watersheds themselves, fly Although conservation organizations ple stocking of rivers to satiate anglers’ fishers are increasingly engaged in pro- such as Federation of Fly Fishers or Trout spiritual desires. As noted earlier, fly fish- jects aimed at restoring areas previously Unlimited did not emerge until 1965 and ers often celebrate fly fishing because they degraded or polluted to a perceived “orig- 1959, respectively, the language of con- believe it leads to a greater awareness of inal” or “pristine” state. Robert Thayer, servation began to surface at least in the the bugs, insects, aquatic hab itats, and an ecologist at the University of Cali - late 1800s, if not before, as argued by watersheds upon which the fish depends. fornia–Davis, equated the activities of Schullery and evidenced in the emerging From this expanded awareness, conser- restoration to that of religious rituals magazine and journal culture of fly fish- vation today hardly refers to the former that have the power to lead to “social ing. In terms of full-length books, George goal of stocking rivers with hatchery- cooperation in place.”58 Activities of eco- Dawson argued in The Pleasures of Angling raised trout. If anything, hatchery trout logical restoration, according to William (1876) that participation in such a “gen- are looked down upon, whereas “wild” or Jordan III, a restoration ecologist and teel art” should lead anglers to recognize “native” trout are celebrated.54 To put it founding member of the Society for the depletion of fish stocks in America’s in religious terms, the quest for wild and Ecological Restoration, operate as “clas- rivers and therefore act to reverse that native trout, according to Gierach, repre- sic rituals of initiation, communion, and trend.52 Points like Dawson’s were not sents the “purest form of fly fishing.”55 world renewal, providing a new context uncommon in both America and En - Conservation efforts today, therefore, for accomplishing the ritual work of gland and have only grown more fre- represent this quest to return fish, fish community making and world build- quent in the years since. Within this con- habitats, and fishing to purer forms. ing.”59 Thayer, Jordan, and many others versation, the reasons for conservation Groups like Trout Unlimited are believe restoration practices have a reli- have, however, shifted over the past cen- funding programs such as “Back the gious dimension and provide as much tury, moving from very anthropocentric Brookie” and “Bring Back the Natives.” community healing as they do environ- concerns of having enough fish to catch Similarly, the Federation of Fly Fishers in mental. In the fly-fishing world, Thayer’s and Jordan’s points hold equally true. Moreover, one finds that fly fishers explain their concern or involvement in conservation and restoration efforts as driven by values and attitudes that em- brace the various religious and spiritual qualities fostered by fly fishing’s various traditions, of which this paper only treats a few. In tracing fly fishing’s reli- gious motivations and initiatives for conservation, one could create quite the family tree, so to speak. Whereas conser- vation groups, such as Trout Unlimited and the Federation of Fly Fishers, at one point represented—and still do—the primary groups for fishing conservation, in the sixty years since their creation, the fly-fishing world has seen an explosion of regional, state, and localized conserva- tion groups, watershed projects, and species-focused endeavors, many of which attribute their activities to the Rio Grande cutthroat trout. Photo courtesy of Benjamin Casarez. world-orienting, nature-connecting reli- gious potential of fly fishing.

SUMMER 2008 13 CONCLUDING CASTS preservation, river restoration, and water- fear, as Schullery and others have point- shed conservation. Interviewed fly fish- ed out, of being labeled “tree-huggin’ In Authentic Fakes: Religion and Pop - ers often insisted that because the pur- ’nvarnmental extremists.”69 By under- ular Culture in America, David Chidester suit of fly fishing provides so much more standing the history of the sport, in all its wondered “what difference it makes to for the angler than simply catching fish, potentially religious variants, perhaps call any cultural activity ‘religion?’” fly fishers should therefore give back to anglers can come to fully appreciate, as Religion, he replied, “can be a useful term both sport and streams through res- Oelschlaeger challenged, “the role of for understanding the ways in which the toration and watershed projects. William their faith in this time of ecocrisis.”70 transcendent, the sacred, and the ulti- Jordan III echoed these angling senti- " mate are inevitably drawn into doing ments in The Sunflower Forest: Ecological some very important things in popular Restoration and the New Communion with culture: forming a community, focusing Nature, arguing, “everything we have, we ENDNOTES human desire, and entering into human take from nature, sometimes by persua- relations of exchange.”60 To call fly fish- sion or collaboration, sometimes by out- 1.Roderick Haig-Brown, Fisherman’s ing religion, then, has the same power right theft. Therefore, the act of restora- Spring (New York: Lyons Press, 1975), 10–11. that calling baseball religion does for tion is attractive because it offers a way 2.Thomas McGuane, The Longest Chidester. In the context of conversa- of repaying that debt.”65 Therefore, in Silence (New York: Vintage Books, 1999), xiv. tions surrounding environmental con - coherence with Chidester criteria, Jordan’s 3.Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through ser vation, I believe that calling traditions point demonstrates a powerful mecha- It and Other Stories (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 1. such as fly fishing religion might have a nism of exchange in these religiously 4. I explore and trace these aspects of fly bit more influence than baseball. perceived avenues of popular culture. fishing in much greater detail in “New To conclude with Chidester’s tripar- In ways similar to Chidester’s work in Streams of Religion: Fly Fishing as a Lived, tite criteria for religion, noted above, fly Authentic Fakes, Rebecca Gould’s analy- Religion of Nature” in the Journal of the fishing first forms a community based ses of homesteading highlighted the American Academy of Religion (New York: on literary, material, historical, and meta- importance of scholastically “relocating Oxford Press, December 2007). That article physical traditions in which the commu- religion” into new realms of inquiry, traces the religiosity of fly fishing for a non- nity of believers often associate them- deemphasizing strict definitions of reli- fly-fishing audience, but I feel it is more selves with, to use Browning’s term, “an gion in order to underscore “the ways in important to spend time in this essay illumi- ancient religious order.”61 As a religion of which problems of meaning are worked nating potential resources for environmental nature, the fly-fishing community ex - out by those who construct the sacred ethics and conservation in such religiosity for tends beyond its human participants to and profane, the religious and spiritual the fly-fishing audience of the American Fly include nonhuman nature. Fly fishers in particular ways.”66 By illuminating the Fisher. However, if you are interested in a greater treatment of the material elements of often acknowledge that, as Ted Leeson complexity and contradictions of reli- fly-fishing religion, please refer to “New stated, “To some temperaments, fishing gious and cultural behavior, both Gould Streams of Religion.” appeals most deeply as an approach to a and Chidester are, in similar ways, mak- 5. Of course, fly fishers and other an - web of relations that give shape and ing statements about how scholars “do” glers sometimes precipitate environmental 62 67 coherence to the natural world.” This studies of American religious life. degradation. Fieldwork, however, indicates web of relations, then, enlarges concepts Building on their innovative work, I that those who are involved in efforts of envi- of community to the inclusion of rivers, contend that the question of how schol- ronmental conservation often maintain reli- rocks, trees, and fish, with which fly fish- ars “do” religion is particularly crucial gious, spiritual, or at least deeply affective ers seek to feel, as Taylor says of Earth- when placed into the context of nature con nections to the natural world through and nature-based spiritualities, a sense of religion and questions of environmental their sport. Further, fly fishing is merely one connection and belonging. ethics and sustainability. In conclusion, example of religiously conceived popular cul- Second, the fly-fishing community then, it is worth considering—by schol- ture related to conservation practice. By “focuses its desire” not only on the catch- ars and fly fishers alike—that if fly fishers highlighting fly fishing, I am hardly identify- ing the sport as a panacea for environmental ing of fish, but more importantly on the seriously think of their sport in such ills. I am instead merely highlighting the engagement of nature in ways that create sacred, religious, or spiritual ways as its value of examining popular culture through religious resonances for its members. As cultural manifestations so often demon- the tools of religious studies for understand- Harry Middleton stated about his grand- strate, this perception should increasing- ing important human-to-nature relation- father and uncle, “The land was not a ly support and demand participation in ships. In order to explore these watersheds of theory or a principle, it was a belief, their and awareness of the human-to-nature sport and religion, throughout this paper I religion, for these two old men surely of relationship as mitigated by both sport make use of quotes and comments offered by the earth, their lives mixed and bound and conservation. Therefore, not only anglers through interviews and fieldwork, as inexorably with it, as tied to it as snugly are such conversations necessary for well as recorded on Internet blogs (Web as a snail fits its shell.”63 The desire to understanding how scholars “do” reli- logs). Those anglers quoted within this par- connect to nature in ways that refresh gious studies, but also how anglers “do” ticular essay represent a small sampling of a the soul often leads fly fishers to contin- their fly fishing. larger interview sample collected around the ually splash into bodies of water with Examining the history of fly fishing country over the course of 3 years of field research. All of my interviews, including hope of finding “sources of hidden sig- and its relationship to endeavors of con- those not referenced here, represent a wide nificance,” moments of making mean- servation, I agree with Paul Schullery spectrum of skills and devotion to the sport ing, and world orientation in religious that fly fishers have indeed “come a long 64 of fly fishing and involvement in conserva- and spiritual ways. way” in their formulation of a code of tion. Some quoted are novices and newcom- Third, the relations of exchange in ethics related to environmental conser- ers to the sport, whereas others have fished, religious communities of fly fishing ex - vation.68 However, in the larger context guided, or worked in the fly-fishing industry tend beyond commercial consumption of American conservation history, fly for a great part of their lives. None theless, I of fishing gear to relationships of ex - fishers have also been a bit slow to come maintain that each of these anglers, regard- change emergent in the pursuit of fish to certain aspects of this dialogue for less of experience and “authority,” provide 14 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER illuminating statements on the religious and 21. Mark Browning, Haunted by Waters: and activists turning to religion as a source of spiritual aspects of fly fishing while making Fly Fishing in North American Literature (Ath - environmental ethics and guidance for con- use of the larger cultural milieu traced in this ens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1998), 20. servation and sustainability. In the mid- article. 22.Leonard Wright, The Fly Fisher’s Read - 1990s, the American Academy of Religion 6.David Chidester, Authentic Fakes: Re li- er (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 11. formed a subgroup focused on religion and gion and Popular Culture in America (Berke ley, 23. Browning, Haunted by Waters, 12. ecology. Under the guidance of John Grimm Calif.: University of California Press, 2005). 24. John Gatta, Making Nature Sacred: and Mary Evelyn Tucker, Harvard University 7. David Chidester, Patterns of Action: Literature, Religion, and Environment in has founded the Forum on Religion and Religion and Ethics in a Comparative Per - Amer ica from the Puritans to the Present Ecology. And most recently, in 2003, the spective (Belmont, Wash.: Wadsworth Pub- (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 7. University of Florida announced the creation lishing Co., 1987), 4. 25.Howell Raines, “Introduction” The of a PhD program, the first of its kind, to 8. Rebecca Kneale Gould, At Home in Compleat Angler: or, The Contemplative Man’s focus specifically on religion and nature. Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Recreation (New York: Modern Library, 2001), xiii. 42.Max Oelschlaeger, Caring for Cre - Practice in America (Berkeley, Calif.: Uni- 26. Gatta, Making Nature Sacred, 7. ation: An Ecumenical Approach to the En vi - versity of California Press, 2005), 7. 27. Arnold Gingrich, The Fishing in Print: ron mental Crisis (New Haven, Conn.: Yale 9. Robert Orsi, “Everyday Miracles: The A Guided Tour through Five Centuries of An - University Press, 1994), 12. Study of Lived Religion,” in David Hall, ed., gling Literature (New York: Winchester Press, 43.Robert Thayer, Lifeplace: Bioregional Lived Religion in America: Toward a History of 1974), 1. Thought and Practice (Berkeley, Calif.: Uni - Practice (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni ver - 28. Bryn Hammond, Halcyon Days: The versity of California Press, 2003), 83; italics his. sity Press, 1997), 6. Nature of Trout Fishing and Fishermen (Cam - 44.Kellert and Berry, Knowledge, Af- 10. Orsi, “Everyday Miracles,” 6–7. den, Me.: Ragged Mountain Press, 1992), 225. fection, 1980. See also Holmes Rolston III, En - 11. Haig-Brown, Fisherman’s Spring, 222. 29. Ibid., 226. vironmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the 12.John Randolph, Becoming a Fly Fisher: 30. Browning, Haunted by Waters, 201. Natural World (Philadelphia: Temple Uni - From Brookie Days to the Tenth Level 31. Ibid., 208. versity Press, 1988), 24. (Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2002), 18. 32. Paul Tillich, “Nature and Sacrament,” 45. Oelschlaeger, Caring for Creation, 12. 13. Bron Taylor, “Earth and Nature Based in Paul Tillich, The Protestant Era (Chicago: 46. Franchell interview, 21 June 2006. Spirituality (Part I): From Deep Ecology to University of Chicago Press, 1957), 94–112, 101. 47. Gus Gustafson, interview with author Radical Environmentalism,” Religion (vol. 31, 33. Gierach’s celebration of solitude and in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 21 June 2006. no. 2, 2001) and Bron Taylor “Earth and small streams is evident throughout his writ- 48. Browning, Haunted by Water, 190. Nature Based Spirituality (Part II): From ing but perhaps most evident in Fly Fishing 49. Duncan, My Story, 13. Bioregionalism to Scientific Paganism and Small Streams (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole 50. Schullery, Royal Coachman, 198. the New Age,” Religion (vol. 31, no. 3, 2001). Books, 1989), in which he called small stream 51. McGuane, The Longest Silence, xii. For greater discussions of “nature religion” fishing “pure fly fishing” (27). On gear, 52.George Dawson, The Pleasures of and the role of religion in the history of Gierach noted in At the Grave of the Unknown Angling (Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons, and American conservation, see also Bron Taylor, Fisherman (New York: Simon and Schuster, Co., 1876), 20. “Resacralizing Earth: Pagan Environ men - 2003) that “there’s probably way too much of 53. Herbert Hoover, “A Remedy for talism and the Restoration of Turtle Island,” it” (71). If he loves gear, however, that love is Disappearing Game Fishes,” excerpted in the in David Chidester and Edward Linenthal, professed in books such as Fishing Bamboo: American Fly Fisher (vol. 6, no. 4, Fall 1979), eds., American Sacred Space (Bloomington, One Man’s Love Affair with Bamboo Fly Rods 24–29; 25. Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1995), 97–151; (New York: Lyon’s Press, 2001). The senti- 54.For an outstanding essay on the diffi- Bron Taylor, “Diggers, Wolfs, Ents, Elves and ments noted are manifest throughout his tex- cult definitions and values of “wild” and Expanding Universes: Bricolage, Religion, tual corpus and are far too many to list here. “native” versus hatchery trout, see Paul Schul - and Violence From Earth First! and the Earth 34. Herbert Hoover, Fishing for Fun—and lery, “Trout Family Values,” in Royal Coach - Liberation Front to the Antiglobalization to Wash the Soul (New York: Random House, man, 186–200. I have also explored the histo- Resistance,” in Jeffrey Kaplan and Heléne 1963), 76, 11, 30. ry of this debate in the longer form of a dis- Lööw, eds., The Cultic Milieu: Oppositional 35.Harry Middleton, The Earth Is Enough: sertation chapter; stay tuned for publication. Sub cultures in an Age of Globalization (Lan- Growing Up in a World of Fly-Fishing, Trout, 55.John Gierach, Fly Fishing Small ham, Md.: Altamira/Rowman and Littlefield, and Old Men (Boulder, Colo.: Pruett Pub - Streams (Harrisburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 2002), 26–74; and Bron Taylor, “Ecology and lishing, 1989), 57. 1989), 27. Nature Religions,” in Lindsay Jones, ed., 36.Chidester, Authentic Fakes, 75. For fur- 56.Federation of Fly Fishers Native Fish Pol- Lindsay Jones Encyclopedia of Religion (New ther information on the often contested ety- icy,www.fedflyfishers.org/Portals/0/Conservation York: MacMillan, 2005), 2661–66. mological roots of the term religion, see John %20Content/FFFNativeFishPolicy.pdf. 14. Taylor, “Earth and Nature Based Spir - L. Esposito, Darrell Fasching, and Todd Accessed 16 October 2007. it uality (Part I),” 181. Lewis, World Religions Today (New York: 57.New Mexico Trout By-laws. www 15.Stephen Kellert and J. K. Berry, Oxford Press, 2006), 6; or Jonathan Z. Smith, .newmexicotrout.org/values.htm. Accessed Knowledge, Affection, and Basic Attitudes To- “Religion, Religions, Religious,” in Mark C. 20 July 2006. ward Animals in American Society (Wash - Taylor, ed., Critical Terms for Religious Studies 58. Thayer, Lifeplace, 55. ington, D.C.: United States Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 59. William R. Jordan III, The Sunflower Printing Office, 1971). 269–83. In addition to exploring the etymolog- Forest: Ecological Restoration and the New 16. Wading Tall, “Why do you fly fish?,” ical roots of the word religion, Smith’s chapter Communion with Nature (Berkeley, Calif.: www.winstonrods.com/forum/Forum=5 provides one of the better pictures of the com- Uni versity of California Press, 2003), 71–73. &Topic=720. Accessed 18 December 2005. plexities of the term religion as well as the for- 60. Chidester, Authentic Fakes, 2. 17. Lani Waller, “The Lure of Steelhead,” mation of the discipline of religious studies. 61. Browning, Haunted by Waters, 55. Fly Fisherman (September 2006), 53–56, 53. 37. Browning, Haunted by Waters, 20. 62. Leeson, Habit of Rivers, 3. 18. Ted Leeson, The Habit of Rivers: Re - 38. Leeson, Habit of Rivers, 1–2. 63. Middleton, The Earth Is Enough, 57. flections on Trout Streams and Fly Fishing 39. David James Duncan, My Story as 64. Leeson, Habit of Rivers, 2. (New York: Lyons Press, 1994), 3. Told by Water (San Francisco: Sierra Club 65. Jordan, Sunflower Forest, 96. 19. Jeff Franchell, interview with author Books, 2001), 230. 66. Gould, At Home in Nature, 9. in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 21 June 2006. 40. Lynn White Jr. “The Historical Roots 67. Ibid., 10. 20. Paul Schullery, Royal Coachman: The of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science (no. 155, 1967), 68.Schullery, Royal Coachman, 175 and 192. Lore and Legends of Fly-Fishing (New York: 1203–7, 1207. 69. Ibid., 195. Simon & Schuster, 1999), 173. 41. Oelschlaeger is one of many scholars 70. Oelschlaeger, Caring for Creation, 12.

SUMMER 2008 15 NOTES AND COMMENT Could Angling’s Oldest Manuscript Have Survived? Frederick Buller

The last three lines provide a summary that would work equally well as a synop- sis for the Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle—generally known as the Treatyse— and indeed his reference to “an old man- uscript treatise on fishing” brings it to mind. The possibility of there being a link, however tenuous, between this and the manuscript that Blakey brought to our notice has intrigued me for years. Accordingly, I ask readers to be patient while I backtrack to the basics of my researches for a book that Hugh Falkus N WILLIAM SENIOR’s re - the book was severely criticized by and I wrote on the Treatyse.2 print of Robert Blakey’s Thomas Satchell, the coauthor of Bib - By tradition, Dame Juliana Berners is IAngling or How to Angle, liotheca Piscatoria (W. Satchell, London, said to be the author of the Treatyse of And Where to Go (Geo. Rout - 1883), William Senior, sometime editor Fysshynge wyth an Angle. The book, as ledge & Sons, London, 1898), of The Field, disagreed and plainly ad - most students of angling history will we learn quite a lot about the mired Blakey’s writing. I would like to know, was first printed and published by author. In 1845, despite having add that Blakey’s expansive reading and Wynkyn de Worde when he added an established himself as a writer, research brought an enormous amount angling section to the second edition of Blakey was experiencing prob- of historical data to the notice of anglers The Book of Hawking, Hunting and Blasing lems of a pe cuniary nature; his for the first time. Perhaps the most im- of Arms, popularly called the Boke of St. prospects were rather gloomy. portant discovery that Blakey ever Albans. Several angling historians, no- He had gone to Europe to study brought to his readers’ attention is on tably John MacDonald, have pointed out the literature of the Middle Ages page 33 in the chapter “Angling Lit erature that although the printed version was (my italics) and was wandering of the Middle Ages”: published in 1496, clues in the text indi- around the fortifications cate that it was probably written about of Saint-Omer when he There was a paper read a few years ago, 1420. An incomplete manuscript copy, met up with two keen at a society of antiquaries at Arras, in known as M.S. Wagstaff 18, now in Yale anglers. The result of this France, on an old manuscript treatise University Library, was made by a scribe meeting eventually led to on fishing, found among the remains of about the year 1450. Historians have the three men em barking the valuable library belonging to the argued that both versions seem to be on a fishing ex cursion in Abbey of St. Bertin’s, at St. Omer. This derived from an even earlier missing Belgium and France that work was supposed, by the style of writ- manuscript that could have been French. ing, to have been composed about the culminated with Blakey year one thousand; and to have been Although searches have been made in writing his first angling divided into twenty-two chapters. As France and the Low Countries for evi- book, Hints on Angling, far as could be gathered from the muti- dence of an earlier manuscript (or manu- With Sug ges tions for An - lated remains of the work, the author’s scripts) that might have been the model gling Excur sions in France main object was to prove that fishers for the Treatyse, none has yet been found. and Belgium. He used a had been men singularly noticed by Coming to terms with what hitherto has pen name, Palmer Hackle, Divine approbation; and he supports been a fruitless search made me wonder if and the book was pub- this theoretical view from the leading such a manuscript was still extant but not lished in 1846. incidents in the life of the fishermen of yet found—or whether it ever existed. Judea, through whom Christianity was Blakey’s most controversial promulgated to the world. There was Recently, a third possibility occurred to but certainly his most important book, likewise appended to the manuscript a me when I heard that a large number of Histor ical Sketches of the Angling Lit - full list of all river fish, the baits used medieval manuscripts, and many of the erature of All Nations (John Russell for taking them, and, the suitable sea- earliest printed books, were deliberately Smith, London, 1856) followed. Although sons for angling for each sort of fish.1 destroyed by fire during World War I. 16 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER Tantalizingly, the fire took place in an area British Library, which was damaged in This library was destroyed in 1915, and of Belgium that by chance happens to be a fire in 1731, as well as the Strasburg was severely damaged again in 1940, but associated with the rebirth of angling, Library, destroyed in the Franco- most of the manuscripts survived (al - during the early fifteenth century, as a Prussian War of 1870 and the Naples though the printed books were com- high society sporting activity.3 This made State Archive destroyed in 1943. pletely lost in 1915), and again, they However, most manuscripts disappear have catalogues of what they had before me wonder—be cause it is known exactly as a result of far more mundane rea- 1915. how many manuscripts and early printed sons. For instance, numerous frag- Both libraries ought to be able to books were destroyed—if the authorities ments turn up in the bindings of later cope with a straightforward enquiry in still have detailed records of the lost items manuscripts and printed books, having English. and, if so, was an angling manuscript been cut up in order to supply flyleaves. The situation in Louvain is more dif- among them? More importantly, the vast majority ficult, because the catalogues were des - I was alerted to the facts about this of missing manuscripts disappeared troyed along with the manuscripts in disastrous fire when a television series before they found their way into a 1914, and there is only a partial list now about the Great War took a look at the modern, catalogued collection. Due to of what was there before 1914. Every - this, we often have no reliable informa- thing became even more difficult in the one of the most famous military plans in tion about them. As a result, it may well 1970s when the surviving collections history, the German Schlieffen Plan, not prove possible to find any trace of were divided up when the university which aimed to force a French surrender your missing manuscript. Unfor tu - had to split into French and Flemish 4 within forty days. Subsequently, I con- nately, I do not have a personal contact halves. Whether it’s likely that many St. sulted Martin Marix Evans’s book, Over at the University Library, Louvain. Bertin manuscripts would have ended the Top: Great Battles of the First World However, I understand that the li - up there is difficult to say. But there’s no War (Arcturas, London, 2002) for more brary’s main catalogue of manuscripts harm in asking, and the man to write to detail. Seemingly, in August 1914, as part was also destroyed in the fire of 1914.* I is Chris Coppens, Centrale Bibliotheek, of the plan, the Germans advanced hope that this information proves to be Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Lad - through Brussels. During this advance, of assistance. euzeplein 21, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium. He is in charge of the manuscripts and while a unit was resting in the small Yours sincerely, rare books there. town of Andenne, some two hundred Dr. Justin Clegg officers were attacked by Belgian civil- Yours sincerely, ians (the Germans subsequently main- *This was bad news. —Author John Goldfinch tained that these were army men in civil- ian clothing), and many were killed or Dr. Clegg’s answer alerted me to the So I wrote to the University Library in wounded. The Germans responded by misdirection of my original letter, so Louvain, Bibliothèque Municipale in ordering one hundred and ten citizens to that I was able to send a copy properly Arras, and Bibliothèque Municipale in be shot, and so terror became an instru- addressed to John Goldfinch. His reply, Saint-Omer, enclosing with each letter a ment of the war and, on entering the dated 20 May 2003, is extremely valuable copy of an article I’d had published in the ancient university town of Louvain on 25 because it provides shortcuts for a American Fly Fisher5 that contained August 1914, the German army sacked researcher who is multilingual and pre- background information. This effort the university library, which had been pared to surmount the difficulties asso- elicited one reply but nothing of any use. founded in 1426. Some two hundred ciated with this kind of enquiry. Not being able to communicate in either thirty thousand volumes were destroyed French or Flemish has proved to be a by fire, along with seven hundred fifty Dear Fred: severe impediment. So, in view of my medieval manuscripts and one thousand advancing years, I have decided not to of the earliest printed books. As to the Lost Manuscript, I can make a continue investigations, but I hope that In order to discover if a list of the lost few suggestions. Robert Blakey says that these notes will provide an incentive for a the French manuscript had come from items was still available, in April 2003 I the abbey of St. Bertin at Saint-Omer. researcher with the necessary linguistic sought the assistance of the manager of Most of the manuscripts from St. gifts to carry on with this project. I sus- rare books (Early Printed Collection) at Bertin went to the Bibliothèque pect the results will not only be fascinat- the British Library, John Goldfinch, who Municipale in Saint-Omer in 1791, ing but of some of historical importance. had assisted me previously. Because of a where they still are. " typing error, my letter was misdirected, There’s a mid-19th century catalogue and it was answered by Dr. Justin Clegg of them, which we have here, but it’s ENDNOTES (curator of manuscripts) in a most unex- only indexed by authors and titles, pected but useful way, be cause he warned which isn’t much help when you don’t 1. Robert Blakey, Historical Sketches of know either! And it’s a large catalogue the Angling Literature of All Nations (London: me that other catastrophic events had to have to read through. What they also also caused important manuscripts to be John Russell Smith, 1856), 33. have at the library in Saint-Omer, 2. Fred Buller and Hugh Falkus, Dame lost, although mostly for reasons more apparently, is a full catalogue of the old prosaic than war. Juliana, The Angling Treatyse and Its Mysteries St. Bertin library that includes the man- (Moretonhampstead, Devon: The Flyfisher’s uscripts that didn’t end up with them. Classic Library, 2001). Dear Mr. Buller: So a first port-of-call should be the 3. Frederick Buller, “Some Notes on the library at Saint-Omer, whose address is I have been asked to reply to your letter 40 Rue Gambetta, 62500 Saint-Omer, Evolution of Sport and Sport Fishing during concerning the existence of a French France, where they may have some the Middle Ages,” The American Fly Fisher treatise on angling. Although it is true ideas about what happened to manu- (Spring 2002, vol. 28, no. 2), 2–10. that the University of Louvain Library scripts they haven’t got. 4. The Great War, aired on BBC2 Sat- was destroyed in the First World War, Blakey heard about the manuscript urday, 8 March 2003. Narrated by Sir Michael other important manuscript collec- at Arras, and the library there may also Redgrave. tions have also been destroyed over the be worth a try. It’s the Bibliothèque 5. Buller, “Some Notes on the Evolution centuries. This includes part of the Municipale, 20 Rue Paul Doumer, of Sport,” 2–10. Cotton collection, now held here at the Palais Saint-Vaast, 62000 Arras, France.

SUMMER 2008 17 Joe A. Pisarro, Volunteer by Gerald Karaska

OLUNTEERS HAVE ALWAYS been ex - tremely vital to museums, and Vthose who help out at the Amer - ican Museum of Fly Fishing are no exception. Some have played small but important roles, whereas others have been major contributors to our rich his- tory. Our museum is still relatively young, and in its nearly 40-year history, we have had two volunteers who were particularly extraordinary: Dick Finlay and Joe A. Pisarro. Dick was here when the museum began (I covered his contri- butions in the Fall 2005 issue of this jour- nal), and Joe was here for twelve years during a very formative stage (1984–1996). It is interesting that each man had an unusual, yet vital and common, style. Dick Finlay was an Orvis employee whose boss, Leigh Perkins, encouraged his staff to help the museum, never telling them what to do or how much Joe Pisarro at work in the museum ca. 1988. Museum file photo. time to devote to the numerous tasks of building the museum. Thus, the institu- articles for the journal and even advising Another remarkable facet of Joe’s tal- tion was richly rewarded as Dick and drop-in contributors on their donations. ent is that he was active in an actor’s others jumped in. Joe’s personality and enthusiasm al - repertory community theater in Rutland, Joe Pisarro’s tenure was similar. He lowed him to find a niche in his retire- Vermont. One of his roles was “Bogey” in was an eager, bright, hard-working, and ment. The fit for him was perfect. What’s Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam. Not dedicated individual who was there reg- more, fly fishing had a special place in his the least remarkable are his artistic skills. ularly and often. I recently had the op - heart, and being surrounded by fishing His home is adorned with a number of portunity to interview Joe. When I asked “stuff” was great. Joe quipped, “I was (he his abstract paintings, which are excep- him what his responsibilities were, he said modestly) a fairly knowledgeable tional. And, he is an aficionado of jazz, started to list them, then stopped and historian of fishing . . . which was a con- especially Duke Ellington. replied, “I guess I did whatever needed to nection between me and the museum.” Joe misses the museum. In recent be done. I was like a member of the staff.” He began fishing as a small boy in years, he’s returned only once—to the When Joe retired and moved to Trenton, New Jersey, plying worms on grand opening of the new building—and Vermont in 1984 from California, he the Delaware River’s Raritan Canal and that brought back many fond memories. came with a broken Orvis cane rod. on the trout streams of northern New In 1990, the museum’s board of During that first year, he went to the Jersey. In the late 1940s, while living in trustees decided to honor Joe by creating store to have the rod fixed. Because he New York City, he began fly fishing, but the Joe A. Pisarro Volunteer of the Year knew John Merwin, the former museum only sporadically. His life as an ardent fly Award, awarding it first to Angus Black. director, he visited the museum, and fisherman began in earnest when he be - The museum is privileged to have had a Merwin persuaded Joe to become a vol- came one of the founders of the Theodore volunteer like Joe Pisarro for so many unteer. At first that entailed weekends. Gordon Flyfishers. He was the third pres - years. This soon grew to two days a week, and ident of TGF and served for three terms. Joe recently moved to Northridge, in the long run, it turned out to be (It is interesting that he and three other California, to be with his daughter. almost every day. presidents had their portraits painted, His years at the museum were very but the fifth president, Gardner Grant, " rewarding. “Those were twelve very happy refused a portrait, and the custom ended.) years for me,” he said. Joe described this Joe’s life has been a very full one. He feeling as a reflection of the people with was a radio scriptwriter, a journalist, and whom he worked: they were especially a public relations director for a number Editor’s note: As this journal was going to friendly and embraced him. They valued of nonprofit organizations. His war press, we received word that Joe Pisarro his contributions, which seemed to in - record was distinguished by his service in died on June 7, just a few weeks shy of his volve everything from running the mimeo the North African and Italian campaigns eighty-ninth birthday. The museum has machine and doing inventory, to writing of World War II. lost a great friend. 18 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER NOTES FROM THE LIBRARY

HE MUSEUM LIBRARY has recently Auchincloss of Woodbury, Con- received some very interesting necticut, sent us Darrel Martin’s Tbooks. We hope to review some of The Fly-Fisher’s Craft (Guilford, these in later issues of the journal. Conn.: The Lyons Press, 2006). Ron and Cheryl Wilcox of Manchester, Special thanks to Tony Lyons Vermont, donated an inscribed copy of of Skyhorse Publishing for some Margot Page’s Little Rivers (New York: of their recent books: Dale P. Lyons & Burford, 1995). Victor R. Johnson Clemens’s Advanced Custom Rod Jr. of Vallejo, California, donated his Building (2008) and Custom Rod signed book American Fly Lines (Vallejo, Thread Art (2008); Eric Leiser’s Calif.: EP Press, 2003). Patricia K. Flick The Com plete Book of Fly Tying of Rockford, Illinois, donated three (2nd ed., 2008); Ed Van Put’s books: James A. Henshall’s Book of the Trout Fishing in the Catskills Black Bass (Cincinnati, Ohio: The Robert (2007); and Ted Wil liams’s Some - Clarke Company, 1904); James A. Hen - thing’s Fishy: An Angler’s Look at shall’s Bass, Pike, Perch and Others (New Our Distressed Gamefish and Their York: The Macmillan Company, 1903); Waters—and How We Can Protect and Charles F. Orvis and A. Nelson and Preserve Them Both (2007). Cheney’s Fishing with the Fly (Boston Thanks also to Frank Amato and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Pub li ca tions for their donation 1883). Tom Whittle of Harrisburg, Penn - of John Betts’s Making Strip- sylvania, donated an inscribed copy of Built Fly Rods (2007) and to the his and Bill Harms’s Split & Glued by Yale University Press for Joseph Vincent C. Marinaro (Harrisburg, Pa.: Furia’s Tight Lines: Ten Years of Stony Creek Rods, 2007). And Edgar the Yale Anglers’ Journal (2007). Stackpole Books sent us Jay Nichols’s 1001 Fly- Fishing Tips (2008) and Robert H. Boyle’s Dapping (2007). and why anglers are so passionate about They also sent us the second and doing so. His writings are often amusing. third titles in a new series of fly- For example, as quoted by Schullery: fishing classics edited by Paul “Nor ris recommended that when fishing Schullery: Norris on Trout Fishing: in unfamiliar country, it was wise to be A Lifetime of Angling Insights kind to local boys, because stones are of (2008) and Skues on Trout: Obser - convenient size along the creek to throw vations from an An gler Naturalist at a surly fisherman” (p. 96). Norris has (2008). Editor Schul lery, reflect- an interesting discussion as to who is an ing that these early writers pro- angler and who is a true angler. The for- duced profound work, has chosen mer is one who fishes with nets, spears, selections from the celebrants’ etc.; brags about catches killed, from fin- publications. gerlings upward; the fussy angler, the The George E. M. Skues book snob angler, the greedy, pushy angler; the is especially well written, revealing spick-and-span angler; and so on. To the modesty, warmth, and humor, true angler, fishing is a recreation and a and Schullery credits him with calmer of unquiet thoughts; when fish pathbreaking insights into how are difficult to catch, he smokes his cigar, trout rise. (Some of us older fel- chats with the boatman, and takes an oc - lows think we know everything casional “nip.” about why a trout will rise or not. I heartily recommend these collec- Skues said it all with clarity and tions. brevity seventy-five years ago.) Thaddeus Norris (1811–1877) —GERALD KARASKA re veals an amazing breadth of LIBRARIAN knowledge on how to catch fish SUMMER 2008 19 BOOK REVIEW John Betts’s Making Strip-Built Fly Rods from Various Woods on a Lathe by Paul Schullery

WAS LUCKY enough to receive a hand- which is shown here). Frank Amato’s interesting but beyond our personal some preliminary version of this team is to be warmly congratulated for scope of operations. Ibook some months ago and have had em bracing John’s approach on its own My fondest hope, therefore, is that perhaps too much time to think about it, terms and presenting it to us so hand- this amazing book will elevate the place which might explain why I find this book somely. of nonbamboo wooden rods in our so hard to describe. The title tells you I suppose some would quibble that sport. I’ve used a few over the years, and what the book does, but barely suggests this is not quite a book of history and I have been struck by the extent to which what the book is. The word that keeps thus doesn’t rightly deserve reviewing in our popular literature underrates them, coming to mind is “astonishing”; I might the museum’s journal. But that would both as fishing tools and as beautiful as well start with that adjective as a tone miss the bigger point, which John makes objects of craft. As usual, Mr. Betts is setter. by example throughout the text: that onto something important here, whether John Betts has long been one of our everything he accomplishes here grows the rest of us pick up on it or not. freshest thinkers, displaying a rare com- out of his intense awareness of the I conclude that even if you don’t har- bination of, on the one hand, an exhaus- angling tradition. No matter how for- bor serious craft yearnings, maybe you tive awareness of the sport’s most ob - ward-looking he may be at any point in should buy this book anyway, just for a scure historical and theoretical corners, the narrative, he’s attentive to, and in - glimpse at some of our sport’s neglected and, on the other, an open eagerness to vokes, the savvy of his predecessors in the possibilities through the gifted eye of ex plore all kinds of new ideas. He is also history of angling theory and practice. one of its great innovators. a gifted artist. This combination of skills All that said, I won’t deny that this is a brings to his work a unique perspective specialist’s book, for those with a passion and a habit of doing things quite his own for the crafts that fly fishing honors and John Betts, Making Strip-Built Fly Rods from way. This extraordinary book is—to preserves. Though from childhood I Various Woods on a Lathe (Portland, Ore.: Frank offer just one example of Mr. Betts’s own have admired the lathe as a tool of al - Amato Publications, 2007). 178 pages. Illustrated way—literally “written” by him. The en - most mag ical capabilities, and though I with the author’s drawings, concluding with an tire text is in his personal script, a com - am at tracted to woodworking above all extended section of 137 color photographs of vari- for table italics that swings along quite other crafts, I am probably like other ous production processes and completed rods and readably page after page (an example of ang lers who will find this book vastly reels. Hardcover, $45.00. 20 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER SUMMER 2008 21 BOOK REVIEW Fred Buller’s The Domesday Book of Giant Salmon by John Betts

HE ORIGINAL Domesday Book was ordered in 1085 by William I, king Tof England. It was completed in 1086. The title (pronounced doom’s day) indicates that for that moment, it was the final compilation of what William owned and controlled, which was every- thing in sight, twenty years after the Conquest. In effect, it was a taxation and legacy roll that formed much of a base- line from which all other information in these areas could proceed, compare, or be traced. Some years ago, Fred Buller wrote and published The Domesday Book of Mam- moth Pike (a wonderful title). This book is now rare, and it should not have gone out of print. It is the most significant record ever published of pike larger than 50 pounds taken primarily in the United Kingdom between 1700 and the present. The book is full of photographs and sto- ries of the people and pike that have been—and are still—so much a part of English, Irish, Scottish, and continental angling. There is nothing in either the United States or Canada that approaches their level of interest or the quality of their sport. Buller’s The Domesday Book of Giant Salmon is the same concept but refined and expanded many times over. It is an unparalleled record of a major part of angling history in which the salmon is at the center. Beyond being a description of events—and not just dates and sizes—it expresses a deep respect for our past and its connections to our present and future turbed by internal strife or repeated tres- conditions that encouraged the growth through its stories about legendary pass. Fly fishing advanced in England of huge pike in fresh water and salmon salmon. The author is a leading angler of and later in the United States to where it in the ocean—at least until modern man wide experience, a well-known writer, is today because of the people, their gov- showed up. and probably our most respected angling ernance, and their locations on the Early in its history, England was pop- historian. He thoroughly understands globe. An important encouragement for ulated by cultures that insisted on per- and explores the idea that fishing and its exploration was the fish to be had for sonal independence, some form of rep- progress are symptoms of the society those willing and able to go to the trou- resentative government, and the protec- that contains them. ble of trying to catch them. tion of private property. Every attempt to The temperate maritime climate of the repress these interests eventually failed. Recreational angling cannot develop Northern Hemisphere, along with the Supporting all of this was the English in areas that are constantly being dis- physical character of the land, created Channel. It physically guarded the coun- 22 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER try from careless adventuring and there- ship between the angler, the salmon, and said. We would have behaved no differ- by insured its internal stability. The their environments, both natural and ently. On the back of the dust jacket is a channel kept at bay the more restrictive man-made. Between 1700 and 1875, picture of Mr. Merthyr Guest, his tackle, forms of government and religion found twenty-two fish heavier than 60 pounds and the salmon he caught. I’m not quite on the Continent. Individuals in English were recorded. From 1876 to 1925, seven- sure how to read the expression on his society felt secure enough, most of the ty-eight are counted, and from 1926 to face, but it must have been quite a day. time, to discover on their own what they 2000, there are only sixty-nine. Certainly, Inside is a portrait of “Beardie Willie” wanted to do and know about, and they not every fish larger than 60 pounds is Duff (page 417). Six-foot-six-inch Beardie expected to be left alone while they were counted, but the trend is clear. Willie was the river keeper that poachers doing it. Years ago, I asked John Halford These large fish had to have been in might have to face when they were why he thought our system was the best rivers before 1700, swimming along with sneaking around the Athol estates at one. He replied, “Because it’s the only others on their way to reaching that size. night. How much bigger was Willie’s fish one that works.” By 1875, many of the largest fish were still than the 60-pound Restigouche levi a - present, but their numbers were going to than pictured on the frontispiece? Twenty No fish in fresh or salt water—in fact, decline. Publicity and easier access pounds. Someone said years ago that if perhaps no other animal—has evoked a brought more people. Mechanization weasels were 6 feet long, no one would culture that has the intensity of the one not only increased hook-and-line traffic, go outside. Along that line, one might be that embraces Atlantic salmon. Around but also created more efficient ways to reluctant to wade in some of the waters them is an aura that includes the mystery take and distribute the catch commer- where these fish were caught (see page of their lives, the cost and effort needed cially. The commercial harvest process 425). Looking at them and wondering if to get to the places where they are found, also invaded the salmon’s food supply of they bite, an incautious individual might the intricate and peculiar practices small salmon, sea trout, and herring. The respond, “Not often enough.” involved in catching them, and the possi- loss of spawning areas brought pressure Game-fish records are readily avail- bility—however remote—of actually from yet another direction. By 1926, the able, but—and appropriately so—none doing so. Relative to the billions that glow of abundance was beginning to go into the culture of the people who have been accessible during the centuries fade from the English rose, the Scottish caught the fish. That kind of depth can they have been pursued, how many have thistle, and the Irish shamrock. only come in a book like this and from been taken by hook and line? Very few. A piece of information like that little someone like Mr. Buller. As with his book One would think that that paucity of table creates the relationship between on pike, his achievement here is a singu- return would have caused the activity to one part and the rest of a whole, which is lar one, and we as readers are lucky to decline, especially when encumbered made up of other parts, all tied to the have the fruits of his persistence, dedica- with declining stocks of fish. Instead, same thread of deliberated exploitation. tion, and care. The Domesday Book of quite the opposite has occurred. If one In their part of the whole, the salmon are Giant Salmon is a masterpiece from any adds their appearance and performance now given some protection, which is why point of view, not the least of which is to the rarity of catching one, the attrac- they are still with us. Recreational the fun of reading it. tion is irresistible—especially when there angling and commercial netting are The English have always had a gift for is a chance at one of the giants of the symptoms of the society that both creat- creating handsome books. Domesday is species. And there is always that chance. ed and encourage them. Protection, also no exception. In fact, it raises the bar. It Opportunities to encounter these fish a symptom, is a reaction to unbridled is well planned and laid out, and printed were expanded by the Industrial Revo - use. It involves both the commercial and with superior attention to every detail. lution. Anglers could get to where they recreational aspects of the same issue Each page was tinted to slightly off-white, needed to be in a short period and in and is evidence of new ways of thinking. except where the illustrations went, considerable comfort. By the mid-1800s, Perhaps we can arrest the slide before which was left pure white so as not to railroads were providing an affordable everything plunges over the edge. compromise their appearance. The quali- way to avoid the bone-crushing coach ty of the content is enhanced by the type, ride from England to Scotland and back. Contained in this book are hundreds with everything coming together to create No doubt the conversations on these of illustrations, both old and new, of the very special appearance of each page. journeys would sooner or later turn to people, the fish they caught (or found), Being asked to write about The that will-o’-the-wisp that some had and some truly beautiful images of Domesday Book of Giant Salmon for the heard of being caught on the same beats where they fished, such as Malcolm museum is a privilege. Fred Buller has to which they were now going. Those Greenhalgh’s landscape Harling on the been a good friend for a long time, dur- wills-o’-the-wisp actually existed, and Namsen (page 21). In the photographs we ing all of which he has been, without they are on every page of The Domesday also find big rods and reels, some flies, exception, generous and enthusiastic to a Book of Giant Salmon, where they create and the kind of clothing that ultimately fault, even when I’ve interrupted his the same sense of excitement and antici- resulted in polypropylene, Synchilla, and lawn mowing at the oddest hours. His pation in us as they did in our predeces- Gore-Tex. Mixed in with all of this are gestures of kindness and warmth have sors. The stories, such as one about the slim, beautifully designed boats used enriched many parts of my life. MacOrdie and another about Colonel in Norway that look like they were deliv- Haig, along with the images of fish that ered by the Vikings a thousand years ago. John Betts has at one time or another get increasingly bigger, create an addic- The photograph on the front of the made every part of his fly-fishing outfit tive suspense that causes us to turn each dust jacket shows three young men with himself: hooks, line, reels, rods, and flies. page and go up one step higher for an a salmon as big as they are. These are He lives in Denver. even more breathtaking view. everyday people with probably what is the biggest salmon they’ve ever netted. Fred Buller, The Domesday Book of Giant Salmon: Appendix 5, a small table titled “Num - No matter how they got it—because all A Record of the Largest Atlantic Salmon Ever ber of Salmon Caught Weighing Over means are included in the book—their Caught (London: Constable, 2007). 480 pages. 60lb Since 1700,” bears out the relation- expressions say to us all that needs to be Hardcover, £50.00. www.constablerobinson.com.

SUMMER 2008 23 AMFF Part of the New SmA FLY FISHERS; a two-piece 9-foot, 3-inch, 7-weight graphite Orvis Advantage; a two-piece 8-foot, 2-inch graphite Shake - The American Museum of Fly Fishing (AMFF) is proud to speare; a two-piece 8-foot, 2-inch, 2-weight graphite Orvis 3 be a founding member of the newly created Sports Museum of Western; a two-piece 7-foot, 2 ⁄4-ounce bamboo R. L. Winston; America (SmA), which opened in New York City in May. SmA and a two-piece 8-foot, 6-inch, impregnated bamboo Orvis showcases exhibits, memorabilia, stories, and artifacts from Battenkill. She also sent us five reels: an Orvis CFO III with a more than fifty leading single-sport halls of fame, museums, spare spool; a Scientific Anglers One Thirty, made by Hardy; a national governing bodies, and other top athletic organizations Pflueger 1495 with a spare spool; a Hardy Featherweight with across North America: from NASCAR to baseball, football to two spare spools; and a Hardy Princess with two spare spools. hockey, track and field to soccer, figure skating to extreme Pisarro-Grant also gave us two framings by William Cushner sports, horse racing to fly fishing. In addition to hosting the of Charles DeFeo flies: one of a single fly and one of a group of first women’s sports hall of fame, SmA will also be the new per- seven. Also included in her donations was a wading staff made manent home of the Billie Jean King International Women’s from a ski pole. Sports Center and the legendary Heisman Trophy and annual presentation. According to Philip Schwalb, SmA’s founder and CEO, “The Sports Museum of America will, for the first time, offer visitors one destination where they can come to experience the feeling of triumph at the core of all great athletes and sports.” In return for our participation, SmA will make annual Upcoming Events donations to AMFF. August 16 We encourage all of our members to stop by and visit this Fly-Fishing Festival exciting new museum to enjoy a little taste of the AMFF in the On the museum grounds heart of New York City. AMFF members may be able to buy Manchester, Vermont advance discounted tickets; call our museum directly for details. Visit SmA online at www.sportsmuseum.com. October 2008 Third Annual Hack and Cast Tournament Rhode Island Recent Donations October 16–17 The Peabody Museum of Natural History donated a Seventh Annual Friends of Corbin Shoot Deceiver fly from George W. Bush with a letter regarding the Hudson Farm recent Anglers All exhibit. Charles Fredette of Phillipston, Andover, New Jersey Massachusetts, sent us a metal fly box with several dozen salmon flies that had been owned by Hartford, Connecticut, October 25–26 Mayor Newton C. Brainard. Annual Membership Meeting Bob Torres of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, donated two Board of Trustees Meeting Pflueger Medalist #1494 reels, each with a pouch; an Allison Manchester, Vermont reel with a pouch; and two leather fly wallets with fleece patch- es and flies. Trustee Jim Hardman of Dorset, Vermont, gave us a Check our website at www.amff.com for changes, 3 three-piece, 8-foot, 6-inch, 5 ⁄4-ounce bamboo Omar Needham updates, and additional upcoming events. Deluxe rod. For more information, contact Kim Murphy at Joe Pisarro and his daughter, Judy Pisarro-Grant, of (802) 362-3300 or via e-mail at [email protected]. Northridge, California, donated six rods: a three-piece 6-foot, 3.25-ounce bamboo Orvis Rocky Mountain marked JOE A. PISARRO, PRESIDENT, 1966–69, FROM THE THEODORE GORDON 24 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER CONTRIBUTORS

Todd Hosman

Frederick Buller, a retired London gunmaker, has spent most Gordon M. Wickstrom of Boulder, Colorado, holds a Ph.D. of his spare time during the last forty years researching angling from Stanford University and is a professor emeritus of Franklin history. In 2002 he was awarded the Country Landowners and Marshall College. He has written for Gray’s Sporting Association Lifetime Achievement Award for Services to Journal, Fly Tyer, Anglers’ Journal, the Art of Angling Journal, Angling. He is the author of ten books, the most recent of and Wild on the Fly and is a regular contributor to the Amer - which—The Domesday Book of Giant Salmon—was published ican Fly Fisher. He has published a linear display of the chro - by Constable London in 2007. His most recent contribution to nology of fly fishing and writes and circulates quarterly the this journal was “John Murray’s Pike,” which appeared in Bouldercreek Angler, “a gazette for those who fish” and the Spring 2008. Bouldercreek Actor, “a gazette for those who make theatre.” He is a columnist for the Daily Camera. Wickstrom’s Notes from an Old Fly Book was published by the University Press of Colorado in 2001. Late in an Angler’s Life was published by the University of New Mexico Press in Ben Casarez 2004. His The Great Debate: A Fantasia for Anglers was pro- duced on stage and published in 2006.

Erwin Markowitz

Samuel Snyder is a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Flor - ida’s graduate program on religion and nature. He is currently completing a dissertation titled “Casting for Conser vation: Religion, Popular Culture, and Environmental Politics of River Restoration,” which in large part explores the role of angling in the American conservation movement, paying special atten- Gerald Karaska is a retired professor of geography from tion to contemporary grassroots movements and ecological res - Clark University. For the last nine years, he has been a volun- toration. Beyond religion and environmental ethics, his teer at the museum, where he essentially functions as the research interests include environmental dispute resolution, librarian. Residing in Worcester, Massachusetts, he spends grassroots collaborative conservation, and sustainable agricul- considerable time fishing the trout streams of Massachusetts ture. When he is not being an academic, fishing, or writing and Connecticut as well as the salmon rivers of Québec and about fishing, he is working in his garden or getting to know New Brunswick. Like other volunteers, he finds the museum his current bioregion of central Florida. to be the closet thing to being on the water.

SUMMER 2008 25 Patagonia’s Estancia del Zorro is in the Coyhaique Alto mountain range on the Chilean-Argentine border, 23 miles northeast of Coyhaique, Chile. The 15,000-acre Estancia rests in the habitat of the red fox (zorro), the namesake of the lodge. Many of these waters are seldom fished and some have only recently been discovered, producing diverse fishing conditions from exciting dry-fly action to challenging sight fishing in pristine, crystal clear waters where fish can grow as large as 32 inches. The Estancia Del Zorro spring creek is a mere 200 yards from the lodge and offers easy walk- in fishing for large, heavy Photos by Brian O’Keefe brown trout. You will also have the unique opportunity to explore private free- stone streams in both Argentina and Chile—two countries in one trip reached by 30- to 90- minute rides by four-wheel-drive vehicles from the lodge.

For more information on Estancia del Zorro, please contact: Jay Burgin • 12530 Highway 41 • Dillon, MT • 59725 800.378.5006 • www.estanciadelzorro.com Use the code AMFF to book your accommodations and 10% of your lodging charge will be donated to the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

Announcement of B ACK I SSUES! Volume 6: Numbers 2, 3, 4 Volume 7: Number 3 Annual Meeting Volume 8: Number 3 Volume 9: Numbers 1, 2, 3 The annual meeting of the members of the American Volume 10: Number 2 Museum of Fly Fishing will take place in Manchester, Volume 11: Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 Vermont, on Saturday, October 25, 2008, at 9:00 A.M. Volume 13: Number 3 Volume 15: Number 2 Members will vote on the election of new trustees, Volume 16: Numbers 1, 2, 3 officers and any other matters that may be presented. Volume 17: Numbers 1, 2, 3 Members should contact the American Museum of Fly Volume 18: Numbers 1, 2, 4 Fishing for a copy of the agenda any time after October Volume 19: Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 15, 2008, at (802) 362-3300. Volume 20: Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 Volume 21: Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 The annual trustees’ meeting will follow the mem- Volume 22: Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 bership meeting at the same location. Volume 23: Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 Volume 24: Numbers 1, 2 Volume 25: Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 Volume 26: Numbers 1, 2, 4 Volume 27: Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 Volume 28: Numbers 1, 2, 3 Volume 29: Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 Volume 30: Numbers 1, 2, 3 Volume 31: Numbers 1, 2 Volume 32: Numbers 1, 2, 3 Volume 33: Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 Volume 34: Numbers 1, 2 We welcome contributions to the American Fly Fisher. Before making a submission, please review our Contributor’s Guidelines on our website (www.amff.com), or Back issues are $4 a copy. write to request a copy. The museum cannot accept responsibility for statements To order, please contact Sarah Moore at and interpretations that are wholly the author’s. (802)362-3300 or via e-mail at [email protected].

26 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER Museum Donors Our sincere thanks to those who contributed to fund the museum’s important work in 2007.

PLATINUM Michael Bakwin Ronald Gard Walter T. Matia John Regan Foster Bam George R. Gibson III William McMaster, MD Roger Riccardi Pam Bates Gardner L. Grant John Mundt Jr. Kristoph J. Rollenhagen George Bennett Chris Gruseke David Nichols Robert G. Scott Duke Buchan III Jim Hardman E. Wayne Nordberg Richard G. Tisch Peter Corbin James Heckman, MD Raymond C. Pecor David H. Walsh H. Corbin Day Art Kaemmer, MD Stephen M. Peet James C. Woods Jace Day Woods King III Leigh H. Perkins Sr. Blake Drexler Carl Kuehner III John Rano Christopher Garcia Nancy Mackinnon James Reid Jr.

GOLD Rob Krist Frederic Sharf Allan Poole Frank “Chip” Weinberg George Records

SILVER York: (New

Fitz Coker John S. Mackiewicz . 17

Thomas Daniels Dana G. Mead ),

Kathleen Delaney F. D. Meyercord 1875 Paul Ford Randall Perkins Matthew S. Forelli Stephen M. Pioso Geoffrey A. Gold Robert Rich Fishing Waters in American Maxwell “Skip” Lester James E. Specter, DDS Robert E. Longnecker Carl Taylor The American News Company, The American Company, News BRONZE Genio From Scott, Anonymous Thomas Dyett Lawrence Marsiello Thomas D. Ripp Samuel Bailey Jr. Jon R. Eggleston Oscar Martinez Pierre Riverin Mark W. Banks John Feldenzer, MD George C. Marvin rk miles Christopher T. Barrow Dick Finlay Charles H. McCaughtry Edward H. Ruestow P. James Barthe Bruce P. Finney Bruce McCollum B. P. Russell Michael Betten, MD Charles W. Fleischmann Melvoin Foundation Skip Schimpff Angus Black Charles H. Foster John B. Merritt Andrew Schlickman Stanley E. Bogdan Keith Fulsher Michael Monier Keith M. Schonbrun Mr. & Mrs. Seth Bongartz Mr. & Mrs. Michael Gawtry William Morrissey John A. Scully John I. Boswell Marc R. Genereux Paula Morgan Eugene A. Sekulow Mr. & Mrs. James Bowman V. Georas Mr. & Mrs. Robert L. Moser Jr. John M. Shanahan Philip M. Brett Dale R. Greenley Bob Murphy Bob Sheldon Jan Brunvand Robert N. Gudbranson S. Charles Nelson Leigh S. Shuman, MD Donald Buckley Thomas Halpin W. Kemp Norman Jeffrey H. Smith Charles T. Church Bob Hoback Elliott W. Olson Richard A. Stanton Michael D. Coe Leon C. Holt Betty Lou Osborne Mr. & Mrs. F. Jerome Tone III Edward A. Collins Yuji Ishikawa Alphonse Palmer Richard Trisman Connecticut Fly Fisherman’s Warren T. Jones Jeanne C. Parham Trout Unlimited Farmington Association John Kelleher David S. Pennock Valley Chapter Woodward Corkran Robert T. Kinkoph Jeanne H. Pettersen J. D. Wagner David L. Deen George Klein Nicholas Posak James W. Wallace Thomas P. Doolittle, DDS James Lee Sandra Read William B. Webster Robert P. Dotson William H. Lord Keith Reed William F. Zapf Ford B. Draper James T. Lynn Philip E. Richter Vince Zywiec Bruce N. Duff Nick Lyons Vincent Ringrose, MD SUMMER 2008 27 Why Fly Fishing

Presented by the American Museum of Fly Fishing, Why Fly Fishing is a 31-minute DVD created to promote and share the grace and beauty of fly fishing. Featuring stunning images and commentary by some of the most well-known names in the sport—including Joan Wulff, Nick Lyons, and John Gierach—Why Fly Fishing is the perfect way to introduce someone you love to the sport you adore. Why Fly Fishing is available for $30 (plus shipping and handling). To order please call us at 802-362-3300, visit www.amff.com, or e-mail us at [email protected].

There’s something almost voyeuristic, indeed sensual, about the act of fly fishing. People who have never touched a fly rod, or any other kind of rod, will stop to watch an accomplished fly caster swoosh sinuous loops of line between sky and water. Now, with the DVD release of Why Fly Fishing, you can peer straight into the eyes of fly fishing lumi- naries who espouse the fundamental, the philosophical and the spiritual, and begin to grasp what’s so all-fired transfix- ing about such a seductive sport. —Don Roberts, founding editor of Flyfishing The West

The film evokes the beauty of the environment in which fishing takes place. I love the way you got Joan, John, Nick, Flip and everyone else to express their love of fly fishing and see many of them actually doing it. You couldn’t have cho- sen better folks. My daughter said it’s the best fishing DVD she’s ever seen, and she doesn’t praise often. —Dave Hughes, author and editor of Flyfishing & Tying Journal

The film went by too quickly . . . an excellent piece of work. —Jerry Kustich, author and partner in Sweetgrass Bamboo Fly Rods

Why Fly Fishing beautifully illuminates numerous wide-ranging aspects that make fly fishing a lifestyle choice for so many of us—the science, the craft, the art, the poetry, the spiritual, the losing of one’s self, the finding of one’s self. Thank you for a wonderful film. —Frank Bryant, Chota Outdoor Gear

Great visuals, intelligent commentary, wonderful music. And things move right along smartly. —Larry Kenney, writer and fly-fishing video & gear reviewer

28 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER Pleissner: The Staff Behind the Exhibit

Evening at the Forks Pool by Ogden Pleissner. Watercolor on paper, ca. 1952. Collection of Marshall Field.

ERE IN VERMONT, the weather is always a topic of con- • Nathan George: coordinator of the three-dimensional versation. We plan our days and activities around im - objects from the collection Hpending storms (ice, snow, rain, wind, and everything •Kathleen Achor: editor of the catalog and exhibition text in between) and cherish the warmth of the sun when it is • Marci MacNeur: purveyor of Pleissner-related items bestowed upon us. In the true Manchester tradition of fly fish- for our gift shop, the Brookside Angler ing, we watch and discuss the snow melting on the nearby • Jim Becker: creator of the exhibition cases mountains in order to gauge the levels of current and water in • Tish Russell: manager of the bills, invoices, sponsorships, the Battenkill as the opening day of trout season approaches. and donor letters As these late-winter-and-spring weather observations were being made this year, the staff at the American Museum of Fly Lastly, there is Sarah Moore. Sarah took on the unbeliev- Fishing was busy making sure this season would be a success— able task of making sure we all completed our individual tasks even as we watched the streets pile up with heavy, wet snow and on schedule and acted as the central location for all informa- raised the question of leaving the office early. For months, the tion that was related to the exhibition. Sarah can effortlessly main project was the exhibition now on display: Ogden M. recite the titles, dates, and owners of every one of the fifty- Pleissner: The Sporting Grand Tour. Though we were fortunate to eight Pleissner works included in this exhibition. This project be able to hire guest curator Bob Shaw to assist with the project, could not have been completed without her. the multiple details surrounding the planning and implementa- We may have suffered a long and messy winter, but the staff tion of a major art exhibition concern everyone on the staff. at the American Museum of Fly Fishing has persevered so that Allow me to introduce and thank the staff for their hard we may proudly present Ogden Pleissner, one of the masters of work on our feature exhibition: sporting art, as he so deserves. We hope that you will be able to visit the museum by October 31 to enjoy a “grand tour” of some •Yoshi Akiyama: creator and designer of the exhibition, of the most beautiful and significant North American fly-fish- exhibition components, and catalog ing and bird-hunting locations of the twentieth century. • Sara Wilcox: designer of the marketing graphics and editor of the catalog and exhibition text • Kim Murphy: coordinator of the press preview, CATHI COMAR press packets, and opening event EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR The American Museum of Fly Fishing Box 42, Manchester,Vermont 05254 Tel: (802) 362-3300 •Fax: (802) 362-3308 E-MAIL: [email protected] WEBSITE: www.amff.com

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF FLY FISHING, a nationally accredited, nonprofit, educa- J OIN! tional institution dedicated to preserving Membership Dues (per annum) the rich heritage of fly fishing, was found- Associate $40 ed in Manchester, Vermont, in 1968. The International $50 museum serves as a repository for, and Family $60 conservator to, the world’s largest collec- Benefactor $100 tion of angling and angling-related objects. Business $200 The museum’s collections and exhibits Patron $250 provide the public with thorough docu- Sponsor $500 mentation of the evolution of fly fishing Platinum $1,000 as a sport, art form, craft, and industry in The museum is an active, member-ori- the United States and abroad from the ented nonprofit institution. Membership sixteenth century to the present. Rods, dues include four issues of the American Fly reels, and flies, as well as tackle, art, books, Fisher. Please send your payment to the manuscripts, and photographs, form the membership director and include your major components of the museum’s col- mailing address. The museum is a member lections. of the American Asso ciation of Museums, The museum has gained recognition as the American Association of State and a unique educational institution. It sup- Local History, the New England Asso ciation ports a publications program through of Museums, the Vermont Museum and which its national quarterly journal, the Gallery Alliance, and the International American Fly Fisher, and books, art prints, Association of Sports Museums and Halls and catalogs are regularly offered to the of Fame. public. The museum’s traveling exhibits program has made it possible for educa- S UPPORT! tional exhibits to be viewed across the As an independent, nonprofit institution, United States and abroad. The museum the American Museum of Fly Fishing relies also provides in-house exhibits, related on the generosity of public-spirited indi- interpretive programming, and research viduals for substantial support. We ask that services for members, visiting scholars, you give our museum serious considera- authors, and students. tion when planning for gifts and bequests.