The Trout Underground has a great interview up right now with the world famous John Gierach. The whole thing is fascinating and you should read it all (go now, do it, I will wait). I was particularly interested in this exchange:
Q: You refer to what I’ll call “fly fishing’s class wars” a bit more here than in prior books.
I think I notice it more. I’m more aware of it because I end up stumbling into this other end of it. For the longest time I was just this little blue collar fly fishing hippie, and as I get more well known, I’m suddenly in these places I never dreamed I’d find, or in some cases even existed.
If you’re a writer — hell a thinking human being — you’re bound to ask yourself exactly what this means. And what’s my role, I’m here as a guest, and I paid for the plane ticket, but this trip would have cost a $100K if I’d paid for it, which you couldn’t even do.
As something of a populist, how am I supposed to feel about this?
So yeah, you think about this stuff. It’s just odd. This is how some people do it. We’re all some kind of populists out here in the west, and you have to ask why isn’t this public water?
I don’t know if I have an answer.
Reading that makes me like Gierach even more. And also envy him a little more.
