A Fly Fisher's Sixty Seasons

by Steve Raymond

  E. H. “Polly” Rosborough, the famous, talented, and sometimes irascible Oregon fly tyer, published several editions of his book, Tying and Fishing the Fuzzy Nymphs. I don’t now remember what I said, but evidently I reviewed one of the early editions in less than glowing terms, so when Polly published the fourth edition he sent me a copy inscribed: “May this time meet with your approval.”

  As I recollect, it did.

  Ralph Wahl’s One Man’s Steelhead Shangri-La is his memoir of a great stretch of steelhead water on the Skagit River, now long gone, and a copy of the published work occupies a place on one of my shelves. Right next to it is a copy of the original typescript of the book bearing this inscription by Ralph: “Steve: You were born a generation too late. I would have been delighted to share it with you.” Of course he did share it, vicariously, through his words and vivid descriptions. As one of my steelhead fishing mentors, he also shared much more—the gift of his priceless knowledge.

  My copy of Sparse Grey Hackle’s classic Fishless Days, Angling Nights is not autographed, but it does include a letter from Sparse (whose real name was Alfred W. Miller). The letter, on stationery from the Anglers Club of New York, was written after I reviewed his book in The Flyfisher magazine. “Thank you kindly for giving me a generous and friendly review,” he said. “It was gracious of you and I appreciate it very much.” That was a much nicer letter than the kind I usually got from authors whose books I had reviewed.

  I never met Sparse in person, much to my regret, but he occasionally corresponded with my friend Al Severeid, who shared many of his letters with me. Severeid, incidentally, was one of those highly addicted book collectors mentioned earlier, one who eventually quit fishing in favor of books.

  My copy of Lefty Kreh’s Fly Fishing in Salt Water bears a rather standard inscription: “For Steve Raymond—I hope that this book helps you catch many of these grand fish. All the best, Lefty Kreh.” But Lefty added something else, something very special—a fly taped to the page, with this notation: “A favorite baby tarpon fly of the author, tied by Lefty for Steve.” It’s a handsome fly, and I can scarcely think of anything more personal that an author could add to an inscription. If only I were a better fly tyer, and not so ashamed of my ragged-looking patterns, this might be a solution to the problem of what to say when I’m asked for a personal inscription. I could just sign my name and paste a fly in the book.

  Unfortunately, that won’t work for me.

  Maybe, if the publishing industry continues to shift toward electronic books, I won’t have to worry about personal inscriptions any more. I’m definitely no fan of electronic books, but as far as I know, nobody has yet figured out a way to sign names or write personal inscriptions on them.

  My book collection also contains a number of unusual and elaborate works, mostly gifts from other writers. One is Van Gorman Egan’s Tyee: The Story of the Tyee Club of British Columbia, the wonderful chronicle of this famous fishing club. Published by the Ptarmigan Press of Campbell River, BC, in a limited edition of 180 copies, the book is slipcased and bound in leather fiber with gold foil imprints and was signed by Van Egan and Ann Kask, the graphic designer.

  Another rare and unusual little book in my library is Vernon S. (Pete) Hidy’s An Open Letter to the International Society of Flymph Fishermen, signed by the author. I didn’t even know there was such a society, or that I had been “accepted” into membership, until I received this copy, number thirty-three of a limited edition of one hundred.

  Pete Hidy appeared on the fly-fishing scene in 1941 with publication of James Leisenring’s The Art of Tying the Wet Fly, as told to V. S. Hidy. Leisenring was a Pennsylvania master angler and fly tyer, and Pete’s fascination with his theories led to publication of the 1941 work and several reprints. An expanded edition, The Art of Tying the Wet Fly and Fishing the Flymph, was published in 1971, with three new chapters about the “flymph” written by Hidy. The “flymph” is a fly pattern designed to simulate the appearance of a hatching nymph surrounded by an air bubble as it makes its way to the surface. The Open Letter includes two “flymphs” tied by Hidy along with samples of the dubbing material used in their construction. It even includes a toothpick for the reader to insert through the eye of one of the flies so he or she can then submerge the fly in a glass of water and see what it looks like. Not many books come complete with dubbing material or a toothpick, and I’ve seen copies of this one listed for as much as five hundred dollars in dealer’s catalogs. You’ll never see mine listed there.

  Hidy, who passed away in 1983, also favored the angling community with another book, The Pleasures of Fly Fishing, published in 1972, and edited the treasured works of Ben Hur Lampman in two wonderful little volumes, A Leaf from French Eddy and Where Would You Go? He deserves far more attention than he has received among the angling literati.

  Some other rare items on my bookshelves:

  The Greased Line, edited by John Alevras, Joe Brown, and Alec Jackson, is a collection of excerpts from four decades of the newsletter published by the Washington Steelhead Flyfishers. Richly illustrated with color photographs, it includes pieces written by such steelhead fly-fishing legends as Wes Drain, Syd Glasso, Bill McMahon, Walt Johnson, Al Knudson, and others. My copy is not numbered, but my late friend Alec Jackson, one of the editors, told me only fifty copies were printed.

  Totem Topics, edited by Ron Grantham, is not quite as rare or elaborate as The Greased Line, but it contains excerpts from a newsletter published by the Totem Flyfishers of British Columbia. My copy is the club’s twenty-fifth anniversary edition (1993), a handsome hardbound book dedicated to the memory of Roderick Haig-Brown. It includes segments by such BC fly-fishing luminaries as Jim Kilburn, Pete Broomhall, Jim Stewart, Martin Tolley, Jack Vincent, Bill Yonge, Art Lingren, and Lee Straight. There’s plenty of good fishing in these pages, along with black-and-white photos and line drawings.

  Another rare little gem that somehow ended up in my library is Sam Lehman’s Fly of the Month calendar for 1972. The calendar includes Sam’s hand-colored fly illustrations for each month, on pages bound together with a leather thong. Besides the traditional twelve months, there’s a sort of generic additional month that includes “seven extra days … to take care of catching up on your fishing, fly tying and similar very essential duties.” Old Sam had a good sense of humor.

  One of the more spectacular books on my shelves is Jack Heddon’s Scotcher Notes: Bibliographical, Biographical and Historical Notes to George Scotcher’s “Fly Fisher’s Legacy,” circa 1810, with comments on the Fly-Dressings. Published in 1975 by the Honey Dun Press of London, the book’s front matter states that “One Hundred & Sixty-five Copies of this work have been Printed in this format on Abbey Mills Greenfield Laid Paper. One Hundred & Fifty Numbered Copies Signed by the Author & Artist are for Sale. Fifteen Copies are ‘Out of Series.’” My copy is one of the latter, numbered IX.

  The book is bound in quarter green morocco grained leather with gilt lettering, and the initials of the binder, A. S. Sismore, appear on the inside rear cover. The book includes six hand-colored fly plates by John Simpson, and a real fly—Scotcher’s Black Gnat—mounted opposite the title page. The whole package comes in a box with a silk ribbon book marker. This elaborate work was obviously designed to command a high price from well-heeled collectors. In my case, they missed the target, but I’m very glad to have this beautiful little book in my library.

  By any measure, the strangest book in my collection is Saltwater Fly Fishing Fundamentals, An Introduction to Saltwater Fly Fishing, by Australian writer Peter Morse. It’s autographed: “To Steve: I thought you might enjoy this special ‘Northern Hemisphere’ edition—it’s you guys who do it the wrong way round.” What he meant by this, and what makes the book so strange, is that this particular copy was bound with the cover upside down and backwards, so the front cover is on the back of the book and vice versa, and if you open the book from what appears to be the front cover, the text is upside down. Morse’s
humorous inscription is in the back of the book, because it appears to be the front. But of course it really isn’t.

  Got all that?

  I assume, or at least hope, that all the books in the press run weren’t bound this way. If this is the only one—well, who knows how much it might be worth? It might be like some of those postage stamps that were printed with errors, which have brought prices of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on the auction market. Somehow I doubt anyone would bid that much for this odd book; in any case, it’s not for sale.

  Assuming my copy of Morse’s upside-down work isn’t unique, then the rarest book in my library, or perhaps any fishing library, is Bill Nation, a British Columbia Fly-Fishing Legend. Only three copies exist. The text is a brief (nine-page) biography of Nation, the pioneer British Columbia fishing guide and fly tyer who created a series of Kamloops trout fly patterns used by several generations of anglers. It was written by my friend, BC angling historian Art Lingren, and a ten-page pamphlet version was distributed to attendees at the British Columbia Federation of Fly Fishers’ 2000 Annual General Meeting, which was dedicated to Nation. Lingren and another friend, Bill Jollymore, were both instrumental in resurrecting Nation’s reputation and heretofore all-but-forgotten fly patterns, and I also tried to do my part. But I didn’t know Art and Bill were planning to publish this special edition of Art’s text until I received a copy from them.

  A hand-laid card in the front of the book tells its story: “Three copies of this work have been hard bound with a Nation fly mounted in the slipcase. A Nation’s Red is mounted in the slipcase of the author’s copy, a Nation’s Green Sedge is mounted in Bill Jollymore’s, and a Nation’s Special in Steve Raymond’s. The author dressed the Nation’s Red for copy No. 1 and Bill Jollymore dressed the Nation’s Green Sedge and Nation’s Special for copies Nos. 2 and 3. Gwen Kushner, of Campbell River, bound copies Nos. 2 and 3, and made all three special slipcases.” She also signed them.

  I have no idea of the monetary value of this little book, but since only three copies exist it is probably substantial. For that reason, I keep it under lock and key, along with some of my other potentially valuable books. But the book’s chief value to me will always be its reminder of the thoughtfulness and generosity of my friends, plus the story it tells of one of British Columbia’s greatest fly fishermen.

  The books that crowd those sixty feet of shelves in my office contain many other memories—and much more. They enrich the days when I cannot go fishing and their teachings help me on the days I can. Some of them I’ve read at least a half-dozen times, and they still seem fresh each time I turn to them.

  Will books survive in the electronic age that now seems upon us? I think a more relevant question is whether we can survive without books. In any case, I believe traditional books, printed on paper and bound between covers, will be with us indefinitely. I think they will survive because their authors can sign them and say whatever they please (or can think of); because we won’t need batteries to read them; because we will always need the tactile feedback they give us; and most of all because of their sense of permanence. Electronic books, by their very nature, have none of these features. They do have one advantage, though: They will never develop the musty smell that old books have, although some people grow to like that aroma.

  Yet another reason we will always have traditional books is because they sometimes combine the printer’s and binder’s arts with the writer’s prose to make a book something of real and lasting beauty, a work of art unto itself—something like my copy of Scotcher Notes, for example. That’s also something electronic books will never be able to duplicate.

  Take it from someone who ended up a book collector in spite of himself.

  THE FORGOTTEN HATCH

  IT WAS a glorious day, the first sunny day after an interminable stretch of gray, wet weather. If you’re a Pacific Northwest resident, you get used to those long rainy periods. Then, when the sun finally does come out, it makes you blink.

  It also was an unusually warm day for early April and the lake was crowded, as I had known it would be. It has been crowded ever since the state declared it a “selective fishing” water. The selective fishing regulations allow only the use of artificial lures or flies with single barbless hooks, with a daily catch limit of one trout exceeding eighteen inches. It’s one thing to establish such regulations on a body of water, however, and quite another for the water actually to produce trout of eighteen inches or larger. Many waters don’t. The one I had chosen on this April Saturday did, so it was always crowded, especially on warm, sunny weekends.

  I shoved off in my nine-foot aluminum pram and looked for an opening in the picket fence of boats and pontoon craft anchored side by side in a long line ahead. All held fishermen who were hunched over, staring fixedly at strike indicators bobbing in the chop. Each indicator was attached to a long leader dangling a chironomid imitation near the lake bottom, waiting for a fish to grab it and pull the strike indicator under.

  I steered carefully around the line of boats and headed for the far side of the lake. Not many people are willing to row that far, and it’s a long way to kick in a float tube, so it’s usually possible to find a place to fish in relative solitude. Once again that proved to be the case.

  Even better, I could see a hatch in progress. Small chironomids were popping to the surface and trout were rising leisurely to suck them in. I tied on a favorite chironomid emerger imitation, designed to float in the surface film, and began casting with a six-foot rod. Some people think such little rods are toys and that people who use them are nuts, but there are actually some very good reasons for using such rods to fish floating lines on lakes: A short rod needs only a short casting stroke and generates high line speed, which can shave as much as a second off the time it takes to get your fly over a rising fish if you’re using a long rod. That second can be critical when you’re fishing to fast-cruising trout. Using a short rod is also a lot more fun.

  The chironomid imitation brought about a dozen trout to the surface. I missed half of them—chalk it up to rust from all those rainy winter days—but hooked and landed all the others. The smallest was about sixteen inches; a couple exceeded the eighteen-inch minimum size limit. I could have kept one if I’d wanted. I didn’t.

  While I fished, I noticed little dimples here and there on the surface. They weren’t caused by trout; they looked almost like big raindrops falling on the water. That’s the first thing that occurs to you when you live in the Pacific Northwest.

  But they weren’t raindrops. It took a while to register, but I finally realized I was seeing water boatmen (Corixidae) taking flight or returning to the water with nearly the velocity of bullets. Others were just sticking their ugly little rear ends up for a breath of fresh air to take with them back down below. These fast-moving little bugs carry a bubble of air under their abdomens when they return to the depths, like miniature aquatic astronauts. The air lasts them an amazingly long time before they have to return to the surface for more.

  Water boatmen are often active on warm days in the late spring and early fall. To see them flying in early April was surprising, but it was the kind of day that if it happened in June, you’d expect to see them.

  You don’t hear much about water boatmen. Most stillwater anglers probably aren’t even aware of them. Maybe that’s because even when water boatmen are active, trout rarely seem to get excited about it. In my fly-fishing experience I could remember only a few occasions when trout were feeding selectively on water boatmen.

  One of those times I had tied up a few simple imitations on a size 12 hook, lightly weighted to keep the fly under the surface when it was retrieved rapidly on a floating line. The body was dark gray dubbing with a couple of turns of silver tinsel to imitate the silvery air bubble carried underwater by the insect. A mottled pheasant rump feather over the top completed the pattern, matching the colors of the natural and simulating its long, paddle-like legs. The pattern had worked well
the first time I tried it and I still had a few in my fly box. So when the chironomid hatch finally petered out but the water boatmen continued blitzing in and out of the water, I decided to try one of the water boatmen imitations.

  Nothing happened for the first few casts. It was fun fishing the water boatman imitation, though, because you have to retrieve it in rapid, erratic strokes to match the high-speed maneuvers of the natural. That was a welcome change from fishing the chironomid, which hardly needed to be moved at all.

  Then something grabbed the fly hard and was gone just as quickly, leaving a big swirl on the surface. I took it as a note of encouragement.

  A couple of casts later another trout socked the fly midway through a retrieve, stretching the line like a rubber band. The leader held, fortunately, and the trout was quickly into the air, leaping repeatedly, then duking it out in a series of short runs punctuated by bouts of head-shaking. When I finally brought it to hand, the fly was stuck deeply in its lower lip. Even with forceps, I had trouble removing it despite the barbless hook.

  It went on that way for the next hour. Fish after fish banged the fast-stripped fly, flew into the air, then streaked away. All were in the sixteen- to eighteen-inch class, thick, fat, lively rainbow that were great fun to handle on the little rod. For some reason, they all fought much harder than the trout I’d hooked earlier on the chironomid pattern. It almost seemed as if they were furious someone would try to fool them with a water boatman imitation.

  Eventually, however, the dimples from rising and diving bugs slowly began to disappear. The trout began disappearing along with them. The hatch was over, and so was my day of fishing.