Sex, Death, and Fly-Fishing
Sex, Death, and Fly-Fishing
From the irrepressible author of Trout Bum and The View from Rat Lake comes an engaging, humorous, often profound examination of life's greatest mysteries: sex, death, and fly-fishing. John Gierach's quest takes us from his quiet house water (an ordinary, run-of-the-mill trout stream where fly-fishing can be a casual affair) to Utah's renowned Green River, and to unknown creeks all through the Western states and Canada. We're introduced to a lively group of fishing buddies, some neighborhood "professionals" and
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Amusing views of flyfishing, worth a few chuckles,
John Gierach is one of the better-known names in the flyfishing literature, and he continues his tradition of lively, entertaining anecdotes in this volume. Although his often-biting tone can get somewhat tiresome, the book nevertheless has some very amusing stories – a couple of them downright hilarious. Although everybody will find aspects of the book worthwhile, anglers (especially flyfisherfolk) will see aspects of themselves reflected here, and laugh heartily
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|It’s About the Bugs,
Prurient readers titillated by the title will be disappointed. The only references to sex and death in this book have to do with the behavior of bugs – mayflies that is.
Here’s an example. “A mayfly spinner lies on the surface of the stream in what fishermen call the `spent’ position. To picture it accurately remember that the insect has just had the first and only orgasm of its life and is now, in the natural course of things, dying from it. His body lies flush with the water, wings spread, legs out flat, tails splayed wistfully. Usually he’s limp. If he struggles at all, he does it feebly at best. There’s probably a silly look on his face, although it’s hard to tell with insects”.
So accept it. What this book really is about is fly fishing, and the sex and death are there just to hook you. But can this kind of stuff also reel you in? You’ll find yourself wading through material such as the following: “I tied on a #14 Michigan Chocolate spinner, a fly that A.K. had turned me onto years before. This thing has fine split tails of pale dun hackle fibers, spent hen hackle wings of the same color, and a thinly dubbed, dark brown body…”.
You would think that this kind of gobbledygook would be accessible and interesting to hard core fisherpeople only, but it’s not the case. I’ve never fly fished, and I was captivated by it.
I think the author puts it well: “I don’t know exactly what fly fishing teaches us, but I think it’s something we need to know”.
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|The Birds and the Bees?,
The book is a collection of essays written more about fly-fishing than sex. The writing is crisp and avoids any notion of being “flowery.” Gierach is at his best when things go bad – real bad. In the context of fishing that is. The worst fishing conditions bring out his laser-focused wit in Sex, Death, and Fly-Fishing. And nobody or nothing is off-limits. He’ll take a swing at “selective” trout and those “tweed-coat” types along with anyone else who happens to be near where he’s fishing. A good example which had me laughing was “The Drought Years.”
But it’s not all laughs. Gierach has the unusual talent of sneaking in very lucid observations. Just when you think he’s going to continue on his comedic-roll… Bang, he hits you with a simple truth of the matter. A truth you probably knew, but never saw put in words so simply and clearly.
Gierach can even render the philosophical without sounding philosophical. Again, he finds a way to express a concept like an “ecosystem” in terms I think we can all understand:
“A good ecologist can dovetail into dovetail until the whole thing stretches out of sight. We call it an ecosystem now; earlier Americans called it the Sacred Circle. Either way it can make your little head swim with a vision of a thing of great size and strength that still depends on the underpinning of its smallest members.”
Makes sense… So, maybe it is about the birds and bees afterall.
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