painted, hand roasted—you can’t buy Fred seems to support Rousseau’s proof
this anywhere, and I wouldn’t want it to that man is inherently good when in a
get out there.”
state of nature.
In my head, that Kanye track starts
playing, “No man should have all
that powAH.”
Thank you, Fred, for affirming
there is still some kind of
morality in the world, even if
it is one felt only for fish.
Fishing that day was a unique experience
because there were three generations
of fly fisherman on the water. There is
empirical evidence that tendency for
art runs in families. Like any art, I would
hazard the guess that fly fishing is also
familial. It’s my further conjecture that
the rate of familial fly fisher accretion is
greater than that of the converse; more
Fred’s esoteric knowledge comes from fly fishers are brought into the fold by
decades of fly fishing. He has homemade their families than are lost from the
everything, even a hook-remover tool, family line.
“Someone patented this design,” he
tells me laughing, “Called it, ‘The Guide’s Joe seems to embody this theory, having
Choice,’ I bet you it was one of my clients.” learned to fly fish from his dad, who in
turn learned from Joe’s grandfather.
He lands his sixth trout and brings it “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t
toward the bank, demonstrating to me fly fish,” he tells me, eyes on the water
the proficiency of his design, “Like that,” reading shifts and ripples like some
he says, and in less time than it took to occult translator. “See there,” he points,
read those two words, another trout “They’ll stack there.”
slips back into the water.
I don’t see.
It’s not the isolated power of the secret
sow bug that moves in Fred, it’s a deep It’s a certain kind of reverence that
understanding and union with nature, binds a fly fisherman to the water, a
with a primordial force like the river—this reverence present to different degrees
union allows the advanced practitioner in all practitioners. I asked Fred about
an intuitive kind of knowledge that, to this almost imperceptible quality, and,
an outsider like me, seems somewhat perhaps not surprisingly, he had an
mystical. And in choosing not to exercise extensive answer.
that power or patent it for personal gain,