(Mary Ellen – SWMBO – emailed me this last night and asked that I post it.)
On this Valentine’s Day I will channel Ma Orviston and share a piece of my mind about you crazed chasers of fish. There are many things I love about fly fishing, as I have seen it reflected in the men of my family who pursue it…so here are thoughts from a different perspective:
- You fly fishermen will go to tremendous lengths (periodically making road trips of legendary length to reach fishing nirvana) just to get outside and breathe the free air.
- You value beauty, and don’t get your ideals from TV.
- In general, fly fishers think. While you’re out there communing with the music of the river you ponder great things. How else can you explain the likes of Norman McLean, David James Duncan, Zane Grey, Mark McGlothlin and whoever wrote the Curtis Creek Manifesto?
- I love you because you would spend a million hours on a dory masterpiece, and then fill it with two little kids and a reluctant mom and row us all over creation with a smile while two 2’ plastic rods cast away ceaselessly.
- You are a romantic, always looking for the next fish to rise…
- You would (and did) spend endless hours building the love of the river into Jake – chucking numberless river rocks and listening to the music of the river in motion.
- Fly tying material constitutes treasure.
- I love that you would drive me all over the wide spaces of Montana just so I can see places Ivan Doig has written about (and maybe to check out the odd fishing access).
- You get fired up talking about fish, fishing, fish stories, fishing trips, gear, flies, wooden boats and beer.
- You would teach a long-ago me how to cast in the Jackson Hole churchyard, then celebrate more than I did when I caught my one and only trout on the Firehole.
I love you because fly fishing, whenever and wherever you do it, makes you happy. And happy is good chi!
Happy Valentines Day from SWMBO to MY fisherman and to the rest of you too!
