Must-Reads in Classic Fly-Fishing Literature, with Michael Checchio
Podcast Transcript:
Tom: Hi, and welcome to the "Orvis Fly Fishing" podcast. This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer. And my guest this week is Michael Checchio. And Michael has been reviewing classic fly-fishing books for many years in "California Fly Fisher," and recently wrote kind of a roundup of what he believes are the best classic fly-fishing books. I get this question a lot, you know, particularly during the wintertime, I get this question from people who wanna go back and read some of the older stuff. There are a lot of fishing books out there. There's a lot of fly-fishing books out there, and they don't know exactly where to start. So, Michael presents us with an excellent list of a varied bunch of authors, definitely.
And most of the times, I agree with Michael's list, so I guess that's why I had him as a guest. But it's a fun podcast. And if you've been interested in delving into some of the classic fly-fishing literature, not just really old stuff, but newer stuff as well, I think you'll enjoy this podcast. And before we do the Fly Box, I just wanted to give you a heads up that there's a bunch of really desirable products on sale on the Orvis website, things like H 3 rods, which I don't know if they've ever gone on sale before. Recon rods, ultralight waders and boots, some of my favorite, the under wader pants, which, you know, wintertime coming, are gonna be valuable for winter fishing and early spring fishing, and also a bunch of lines and reels. So, check out the Orvis website for the stuff that's on sale. And you might wanna leave a hint for a Christmas present for your loved ones...or from your loved ones, I should say.
All right. Let's get to the Fly Box. And the Fly Box is where you send me questions and I try to answer them. You can email them to me at
Well, Robert, let me answer your second one first. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty straightforward. You can just tie your leader to an immovable object or one that doesn't move very much and raise the rod tip and see how much force it takes to tighten that line with, you know, different lengths of line on a short cast. It's gonna be very quick and not very hard on a longer cast, especially if you have some slack in there, you might have to make a harder hook set. But setting the hook is just tightening the line enough to sink the point of that hook. And it often doesn't require that much force. Now, there's certain species that have a very bony jaw, things like things like northern pike, muskies, pickerel even, tarpon for sure, where when you set the hook, you wanna try to move the rod a little bit to the side when you strike.
You wanna move it to the side because they have a bony upper jaw. And, you know, by moving it to the side and using the butt of the rod a little bit more, you'll be able to use more force to sink that hook. And you wanna try to get it in the corner of the jaw. That's the best place to put a hook. Now, in a long cast, it isn't really gonna make that much difference, although moving the rod while strip setting, and we'll get to strip setting in a minute, moving the rod while strip setting is gonna allow you to use more force. And it's a motion off to the side, it's not an overhead motion because you just can't get as much force with an overhead strike, and you often pull the fly away from the fish.
So, when to use, you know, what we call a trout set or an overhead strike, whatever, and when to use a strip set. And there's a pretty simple rule to follow. If you are stripping or manipulating the fly through the water, in other words, streamer fishing and most saltwater flies, you're moving the fly, when you are actively moving the fly, you want to use a strip set. That overhead strike or trout strike just doesn't sink the hook properly, it often pulls the fly away from the fish. You just don't get a really firm solid hook set. So, anytime you're moving a fly, and this would be, you know, stripping a little nymph in a pond, this would be stripping a streamer in a trout stream, this would be using a subsurface bass fly, you wanna strip set.
The times you want to overhead set or trout set are obviously dry fly fishing for trout, nymph fishing with an indicator or a dry dropper, you wanna use an overhead set. And, you know, with poppers, usually, you wanna use an overhead set too. With a, you know, bass popper, you wanna use an overhead set because if you strip-set it, you're often gonna encounter too much resistance with that popper. So, in salt water, you know, the one time that you may wanna overhead set is when you're fishing a gurgler or, you know, some sort of hard-bodied popper. You can hook a saltwater fish with a trout strike. You're not gonna hook as many, but you can.
And you know what, it's a reflex that you develope. And it's gonna take a while, and you're gonna trout set. You're gonna forget and you're gonna trout set when fishing saltwater. Don't worry about it. The guides see it every day. If you do it time after time, after time, they're gonna get a little frustrated. But if you occasionally make a trout set, no big deal. Here's an email from Eric. "A lot of the dries I fish range from size 16 to 22. Normally, I pinch the barbs, easier to pull out of the back of my head But for the really small flies, does it make more sense to keep the barbs? I can see two arguments with a fine tippet and more break offs that come with 6 to 7X, the fish loses a barbless hook more easily. That said, if it doesn't break the tippet, the fish loses the barbless hook more easily. I'm fishing in an East Coast tailwater where all the fish are wild and most of them are between 14 and 20 inches. "
Eric, that is a judgment call. And you're right, on the smaller hooks you're not gonna do as much damage by leaving the barb in. You know, those little barbs, even on a size 22, will hold pretty well. And so, if you're worried about losing a bigger fish, you may wanna keep the barb on. I pinch all my barbs even on the small flies, and I think it's good practice. I can think of a number of times when I left a barb in a small fly, and it still took me quite a bit of handling to get the hook out, especially if the hook goes a little bit deep. So, I would pinch them all. You know, you lose a few with barbless hooks, but that's part of the game.
John: Hi, Tom. I'm calling from Toronto, Canada, and I've got a question about Great Lakes chinook salmon and steelhead. I fish a lot of the Lake Ontario and Lake Huron tributaries during the winter and fall for the steelhead. And of course, there's a ton of chinook salmon in these rivers too. During this time, it's not uncommon to hook steelhead smolt that I imagine are previous years young of the year. They take the same kind of flies that steelhead and resident trout take, and it's usual occurrence to hook and land these fish. What I haven't seen, at least to my knowledge, are chinook salmon smolt. I find this interesting because in a lot of these rivers, it seems like for every steelhead, there's almost 100 chinook in the fall that come up to spawn. I imagine a good portion of these fish spawn successfully and produce a ton of offspring. So, where are these fish? What is the life cycle of chinook parr and smolt? And why does it seem like we're not hooking them as fly anglers? Thank you so much.
Tom: Well, John, I can think of two reasons why you're not catching chinook smolt. One is that perhaps those fish are not spawning successfully. If they're not, you're not gonna see any smolt in the river unless somebody stocks them, and they're gonna be out of there quickly. The other reason I think, and this is probably more likely, is that salmon spawn at a different time of year than steelhead. So, they're gonna be spawning in September, October, November. And those fish are gonna hatch out in the spring, they're gonna hatch out of the egg. And salmon smolt typically don't spend as much time in a river as steelhead smolt. So they're gonna bolt out of there pretty quickly. And, you know, unless you're fishing in the spring, you may not see them.
So, I suspect it's just because they have a different life history that you're not seeing any salmon smolt. Here's an email from Matt. "I'm a longtime listener, and would like to start by saying thank you for all you and Orvis have done for fly fishing. I want to give a shout out to the Orvis Pro rain jacket. Last year, I spent 10 days fishing in Scotland and it rained the entire time. But with my Orvis Pro jacket, I didn't even feel the rain or the cold. Very solid product that saved my fishing trip. I have a question and a product suggestion. First, my question, it's about lengthening a leader by adding to the butt end. I have heard you mention this several times, and I was wondering, what size mono do you use? I'm concerned that the mono I add to the butt section will be stiffer than the fly line."
"Second question is a product suggestion, or maybe question. Why doesn't Orvis make a travel 10-foot rod? I find myself fishing more and more with a 10-foot rod for all sorts of applications, yet when I travel, I can never bring it with me because of the length. I think a 5 or 6-piece, 10-foot rod would be a great addition to the Orvis catalog." So, regarding your first question, Matt, the best thing to do is when you buy a leader, it's gonna tell you what the diameter of the butt section is on that leader. And if you're gonna lengthen the butt, you just buy yourself the same diameter material and hopefully the same brand because different brands have, you know, different degrees of stiffness. But just buy the same brand the same diameter that is listed on the leader package.
Now, you can probably go one size heavier too. So, if your leader butt is 0.021, you can probably go to 0.023 on that extension. An easy way to tell if it's too stiff is just to kind of flex the fly line and then flex the leader butt material, and if they're about the same flexibility, then you're gonna be okay. You never wanna go to a smaller diameter, obviously, than what's on the butt section of your leader because that's gonna create a hinge. So, I hope that answers your question. Regarding your product suggestion, you know what, you don't really need a 5 or 6-piece, 10-foot rod. If you go to the Orvis website, the size large Carry-It-All rod and gear carrier will handle up to an 11-foot 4-piece rod.
So, that gives you a nice carry-on piece of luggage, or checked, either way. But it'll give you a piece of luggage that will handle your 10-foot, 4-piece rods. Here's an email from Andrew from Pennsylvania and Vermont. "I've got a couple tips and a question. You've often had podcast listeners ask about using natural materials from animals they've harvested or about substituting materials. One thing I think is important is that they wet material when thinking about using it. Very often, materials look different when wet, usually darker, but not always. They should keep that in mind. Second, learn to cast with your offhand, usually left-handed. Yes, practice is great, but it's not just the same in handling the line. I try to make a habit of casting left-handed when I'm in my canoe and just fooling around for panfish. It's great practice, not just casting, but for line handling when you hook a fish. At least for me, casting isn't the issue, it's the line handling."
"Now a question, it may seem like a crazy one, and I'm certainly not complaining, I'm just wondering. When I fish a certain section of one of my favorite Pennsylvania limestoners, I've never caught a fish under 11 or 12 inches. Most are in the 14 to 16-inch range with 18 to 20 inchers not uncommon, all while browns. I participate in a state electro shocking survey of that same stream a mile above the section I'm wondering about and there were plenty of smaller fish and frys, so I know they're around. Where are the smaller fish? Do they not frequent the same areas as the larger fish? I know the larger fish will bump the smaller ones out of prime lies, but do they do that in whole stream sections? I've never experienced this in any other stream. Again, not complaining, just wondering."
Yeah, I wouldn't complain about that stream, Andrew. And thank you for those two great tips. I totally agree with you on casting left-handed. I can cast left-handed, but my line handling with my offhand really needs a lot of work. So, that's a good thing to practice. Yeah, you know, the younger fish, particularly the fish under about 6 inches long are gonna inhabit different areas of the stream. You know, often when you find a lot of big fish in a river and no small fish, the smaller fish are living in the tributaries and then dropping down as they get bigger. But they'll live in different types of water. They really need to be in places with lots of cover. So, you know, in an area where you find a lot of trout fry and parr, you're gonna find them in places with a lot of woody debris and just, you know, bushy stuff that predators can't get into.
I know in my stretch of river, I will periodically put small trees in the water with lots and lots of branches. They get washed away in the next spring flood, but for, you know, at least the summertime, I'm allowing the younger fish to have a refuge to get away from both bigger fish and from predators like mergansers and heron. So, they're gonna be in shallower water, you know, to try to stay away from the bigger trout and the, you know, bass, if there's bass in the stream. And they're also gonna be in very brushy areas that, you know, sometimes we don't fish. So, they're gonna be in different stretches of the stream. In some places, you'll find big trout and little trout side by side. Some places, they're gonna occupy different areas depending on what kind of habitat you have there.
Here's an email from Abe. "I'm a Dutchman living in Slovakia. It wasn't until I moved to Slovakia a few years ago that I discovered the beauty of fishing on a fly. I'm completely hooked now and trying to catch up at double speed. I spend most of my free time in the Slovak rivers, and I'm blessed to live only 10 minutes away from a great trout stream. I started with a 5-weight rod, mainly dry and wet flies. And soon after, I got myself an 8-weight for streamer fishing in the early season when the river's here is still high and cloudy. This summer, I moved towards Euro nymphing and invested in a 10-foot 3-weight rod with much lighter setup. This immediately paid off, and I started to catch more brownies in the riffles and larger trout in the pools and seams. In the late season, there is a lack of rising fish, so this technique boosted the excitement toward the end of the year."
"This month, however, the sunset's lower, there are more cloudy and windy conditions, and the water is less smooth. On the rivers where there are no trees on the banks, this heavily reduces sight on the leader and sighter. At times, I hardly see where the line penetrates the surface, and I'm basically fishing half of my drifts in the blank. I'm able to see the rod tip and hold a tight line, but I can't really witness the sighter movement. It still enables me to set the hook on feeling and land some fish, but I'm pretty sure I'm missing a lot of bites. I'm guessing you are familiar with a situation where you are passing in front of the sun, your line gets outta sight. What would you do or what would you recommend doing in such a situation?"
"And I have another question, if you allow me. The fishing season in my local river in the east of Slovakia has ended on the 1st of October. There's brown trout and stock rainbows here, and I catch both 80% of the time on my bottom nymph. I mostly fish two nymphs and often a heavier sleek pattern, like a size 16-frenchy nymph below and a bit more rough pattern, like a size 18 hairs or above. You have to know that the flow is above average, so you need a bit of-weight and a smooth pattern to penetrate sufficiently. In the north, the season continues until the end of December, and there, rivers are deeper and wider and house a lot of grayling too, and the fish are generally bigger. The graylings are also more active in the cold water, but now I catch most grayling on the bottom fly and rainbows on the top one."
"Do you consider this a coincidence or do trout behave and feed differently when they're sharing the water with grayling or other species? I'm asking this because the patterns grayling prefer are a bit different than the bow's preference, and this might change my setup. Looking forward to hearing from you. And thanks again from me and other fly-fishing fans here in Slovakia." Well, thank you, Abe. Regarding your sighter, there are a number of things you could do. First of all, you may wanna change the color of your sighter. There are some tricolored and bi-colored sighter that you can purchase. And you know, when you have, when you have three different colors in your sighter, you may be able to see one of them easier depending on the light conditions.
The other things you can do, there's a wax that you can put on your sighter. Maybe a couple little smears of wax in various places to help you see the waxes in a fluorescent color. And also, Scientific Anglers is now selling some pens that you can use to color your sighter. You know, sometimes you may wanna make that sighter black instead of white or a bright color, depending on the light condition, particularly with a lot of glare. So, there are a number of things you can do. The other thing you can also do is at the end of your sighter, put a small indicator on there, a really small indicator that hardly affects your casting or your drift at all. And you can just watch that indicator and, you know, fish it like a dry dropper or an indicator. So, lots of things you can do. Keep experimenting, and depending on light conditions, you may have to switch colors.
Regarding your question about grayling and rainbows, yeah, grayling tend to fish closer to the bottom than trout. Trout are more likely to be feeding above the bottom or in the middle of the water column. And this is particularly true with hatchery rainbows. So, I would say, yes, you wanna, you know, put your grayling fly as the lower fly and your rainbow fly as the upper fly. This is pretty common.
Mike: Hey, Tom, this is Mike out of Miles City, Montana. A few questions for you today. So, my uncle a while back gave me some fly-tying material. And I'm very grateful for it all, but in it came a bag of colored assorted bucktails that he had bought. And I opened up the bag, and it was kind of a nasty smell in them. And when you look, the skin was kind of gray and you could snap it like chalk, and it's kind of odd looking. So, I ended up buying a new bag and sort of the same deal with the new stuff where just the skin looks kind of off and has a weird odor. So, I'm asking if I'm being unlucky with materials or if that's sort of the standard with bucktails. And if it's the standard, I guess I'm just curious why they don't treat them the same way they do, say, elk fur or moose fur where it's flexible. I think it'd be a little easier to clip off the right amount you want. But if it's a manufacturing thing, I suppose I get it.
Lastly, on the topic of bucktails, I've gotten really into tying bucktail streamers, the classic, you know, Mike Valla-style streamers there. And I noticed that there aren't many of them in fly shops. So, I'm just curious, is it that it's an antiquated pattern or style? Is it other things are just better? I mean, I'm gonna fish them regardless. I just think they're neat. But any insight on that, I'd be appreciative of them. Just curious. Anyway, thanks for all you do. Stay safe. Take care. Bye.
Tom: Well, Mike, I'm afraid you're gonna probably have to live with that smell and bucktails. Certain bucktails are just more odiferous. You can try washing them in warm water and soap and then letting them dry thoroughly. That may remove some of it, but some bucktails have more tallow and fat on them than others. And sometimes the person who prepared the bucktail has not cleaned it sufficiently. You don't have that problem with deer hides because they're tanned and the tanning process removes all that odor. Tanning is a good thing. And deer hair hides because it prevents bugs from inhabiting the skin and it also makes the hides a lot easier to work with when you're looking for a particular piece of hair. But you can't do that with bucktails. You can't tan bucktails, and they don't tend bucktails.
So, I'm afraid you're gonna have to live with that odor or give them a good washing and see if that helps. Regarding bucktails, you know, Phil Monahan, who writes and edits the Orvis blog and a lot of the catalog copy and so on really likes bucktails. And he fishes them a lot on the battenkill when other people are fishing, you know, big articulated streamers or scalping patterns. Phil fishes a lot of traditional bucktails, and he does quite well. So, I think there's still a good solid choice for a streamer fly. They're more subtle than some of the wiggly, articulated or, you know, fluffy flies. But there are times, particularly in clear water, in low water when a slim little bucktail is a good pattern. I don't know why they're not more popular, they probably should be, and they're certainly great fish catchers.
Here's an email from Mike from Ontario. "I'm a long-time listener, and this is my first time sending in a question for you. I've been fly fishing for about four years now, and I'm in the market for a new rod. I recently picked up an Orvis 10-foot 308 Recon in a Euro outfit and absolutely fell in love. I also have a 9-foot, 6-eight and counter, which was my first fly rod. My question today is regarding the 10-foot, 7-weight Recon. I understand that its main design was for Great Lake steelhead. Steelhead is one of my favorite fish to go after. Our general trout season closes September 30th. With my work schedule piling up, I've started to shift my focus to spring and was wondering if the 10-foot, 7-weight Recon would also be good for throwing streamers in big rivers out of a drip boat. I plan on using a 7-weight floating line with the occasional pilot leader to help my flies get down. I appreciate your time and look forward to hearing your response on an upcoming podcast."
So, Mike, absolutely. The 10-foot, 7-weight is a great streamer rod. In fact, I use it here in Vermont when I'm fishing from a drift boat quite often. My 10-foot, 7-weight is kind of my all-round medium heavy rod. So, you know, when I'm fishing for carp, smallmouth bass in lakes or rivers, streamer fishing with bigger streamers, I use that 10-foot, 7-weight a lot. So, yeah, I think it'll absolutely be a great rod for throwing big streamers out of a drift boat. At least it works for me. Here's an email from George. "I picked up a new 8-weight Helio's 3D fly rod. Planning on using it on bonefish casting weighted size-4 flies in the mangroves outta Grand Bahama. Is there a substantial difference in castability, say, at 40 to 60 feet with the Helios D, or would I have been better off with Helios F?"
Well, George, that is a really subjective question. And I think, in my opinion, in 40 to 60-foot casts, either the D or the F is going to be a great rod for bonefish. The advantage of an F would be that they load slightly quicker because they are a little bit softer. It's a different taper. And, you know, if you're doing a lot of 30-foot short cast, gotta pick it up and throw it. Or if you need little bit more delicacy because the line speed is a little bit slower on the F, you know, on a flat calm day for bonefish, when you're getting pretty close to them, I would say the F would give you an advantage. On the other hand, if you have to throw beyond, say, 55 or 60 feet to bonefish and you got some wind, probably the D would be a better rod.
The D is gonna handle the wind better, it's gonna handle bigger weighted flies a little bit better, and it's gonna handle the longer castle a little bit better. But 40 to 60 feet, boy, they're pretty close. It's either end of the spectrum where one of those rods is gonna be an advantage. So, I think you picked the right rod in the D. Here's an email from Ken. "I just finished listening to the podcast with Charlie Robinton. I was most interested in a part where you address ferrule fitting. I have a bamboo rod where when put together, there is still about an eighth inch of the male section still outside the female section. I've cleaned the female ferrule with rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip, then rubbing the male section with bar soap. This is the method I've seen more than any other to address this issue. I still can't get the ferrules to fit tight. Also, it is extremely hard to separate the two. Any suggestions to get the proper fit or is that eighth-inch close enough? Also, I've used this method on two other bamboo rods, and after a few tries, it worked."
So, Ken, to answer this, I wanted to go to our bamboo rod expert. So, I checked with Sean Brilliant, Orvis's bamboo rod maker, and here's what he has to say. No way, three-quarter engagement is a sure way to end up with a broken tip, or at best a damaged, bent, ferrule, not good enough. 100% is what is needed. So, he's saying there is, no, you gotta get those ferrules to fit to where they kiss each other, to where there's no gap in the ferrule. And Sean goes on to say, "Typically I find it isn't a male ferrule slide being the problem, so let's just call it gunk is built up inside the female, especially with old school anglers thinking they need wax or the old nose grease prior to putting a bamboo rod together. I find all kinds of stuff in female ferrules, from grass, to thread, tinsel, scraps of mono, and chunks of wax or soap."
"A better practice is to make sure both male and female are cleaned. Rubbing alcohol does a good job of cleaning the gunk off. Remember to do both male and female." And then he goes on. Triple-0 steel wool is the next step. If the above isn't successful Female, twist a Q-tip sized tip with 000 steel wool, so 0000 steel wool. Push steel wool swabs all the way into the female ferrule. Twist from bottom of ferrule out pulling any debris out of the female ferrule. The twisting motion lightly polishes the inside of the female. Test fit. If above fails, move to male ferrule. Make a tight Q-tip diameter of 0000 steel wool and begin rubbing in the area that doesn't insert 100%. I like to make a nice tight coil, wrap around the area that doesn't go into the female, and twist 10 to 15 times., then test the connection. Repeat several times to polish off any patina that is built up. Be sure to test the fit after each use of the steel wool."
And then he goes on to a note. "Any wax or soap on a male ferrule slide actually builds up the male slide's dimension. This is a good practice if one has a ferrule that slips or a slightly undersize. If one wants to lubricate a ferrule, a quick Q-tip swab with petroleum jelly works, but a very light application must be used, wipe on, wipe off kind of thing." All right. So, there's the word from the expert on bamboo rod ferrule maintenance. And if that still doesn't work, if it's an Orvis rod, we do repairs on Orvis bamboo rods. We don't repair non Orvis rods. So, if it's not an Orvis rod, not much we can do for you. But it is an Orvis rod, you can send it in to Sean and he can check out those ferrules and make sure they fit properly for you.
Josh: Hey, Tom, Josh Hawkins from Greenville, South Carolina. Love the podcast. Great resource for working out or driving to the stream. I'll try to keep my question as brief as I can. I'm a trial lawyer, so I'm a little bit long-winded by nature, but I'm gonna try to be succinct. My question's about southern Appalachian brook trout. I've become so interested in southern Appalachian brook trout lately that I've been going to North Carolina just about every other weekend to search for different drainages where I can find these spectacularly colored little fish. And I've noticed that in certain streams, the populations appear anatomically more similar to stock fish. They're not stock fish. I know they're not stocked for reasons I won't get into. But the southern Appalachian brook trout in most streams have a very, you know, distinct, vibrant, vivid coloration.
And then one drainage in particular in North Carolina that I found has naturally occurring in brook trout, but they don't appear to be of the same strain. I think what happened is the population was put there at some point in time and consisted of northern strain brook trout, and that's why they appear slightly anatomically different. But I want to ask somebody who knows about it, and I think you're probably the best resource. I've been able to find anything informative about the topic online. But to sum up a, I guess, probably convoluted, not-so-succinct-now question, is it possible to tell the difference between naturally occurring native Appalachian brook trout and northern strain of brook trout that were stocked at some point, but have naturally reproduced in the strain? Is it possible to tell those two strains apart if they have both been in a given strain for several generations? Thanks.
Tom: Josh, this is gonna be a difficult question to answer because without DNA analysis, you really can't tell what strain of brook trout you have. But you should know that while brook trout in different streams, sometimes just one valley over, will look very different anatomically, it probably is based on food supply, water chemistry, the color of the water, the color of the bottom. You know, fish can change their shade pretty quickly. They have chromatophores in their skin, and they can change their overall shade very quickly to match the bottom so that they're better camouflaged. So, there is no way that you're gonna be able to tell by looking at physical characteristics whether you have a stock fish or a wild fish, or whether it's a northern strain or a southern strain. We've gotta leave that to the DNA scientists.
And I actually kind of questioned whether there were ever northern strain brook trout stock there. I mean, there may have been, but it doesn't make sense when there were hatcheries that raised brook trout in the south, they probably used southern strain brook trout, I would imagine because they were readily available. And to transport a northern strain down south really wouldn't have made too much sense. So, I may be wrong on that. They may have stocked northern strain brook trout at one time. But anyway, you and I aren't gonna be able to tell. We're gonna have to go to some scientists to get the DNA analyzed.
All right, that's the Fly Box for this week. Let's go talk to Michael about classic fly-fishing literature. So, my guest today is Michael Checchio. I've been reading Michael's book reviews in a magazine, a newsprint magazine called "California Fly Fisher" which is one of my favorite, actually, periodicals. And unfortunately, I didn't realize, but I just read the last issue. The publisher and editor, Richard Anderson has decided not to continue with it. Print is difficult these days, and I'm really sorry to hear that. But Michael, in this last issue, you had a great piece on classics revisited. And I get this question a lot in my podcast, people saying, "You know, what fly-fishing literature should I read? What are some of the older books and the more modern books? There's a lot of them out there these days. What should I read?"
I really like the way you kind of analyzed what makes good fly-fishing literature. And so, why don't we start there and just have you talk about what makes good fly-fishing literature?
Michael: What makes good fly-fishing literature is the same thing that makes any good writing have something to say and say it. well. I apply the same standards for fly-fishing writing as I would for fiction and literary nonfiction. There's kind of a maximum rule that is frequently quoted in different writing workshops. It's show don't tell. I'm not looking for so much as explanation as I am for the rendering of the experience. I want the writers to put the reader in the water with them and to experience all that they see and feel when they're out there. I mean yes, of course, this is, you know, fishing writing, it has to have a lot of instructional material because most people are turning to these books to learn something not to have an artistic experience. But the very best writers, even if they're writing instruction manuals, are going to be able to, you know, put the reader in the scene. I think it's really important that good fishing writing is very visual because fishing itself is extremely, you know, a visual sensation.
Tom: And you said in your piece, in your article that you are a re-reader. So, think it makes your impressions more valuable because you go back and you read and you reread things that you like. And I think that really adds a lot of value because most of us are gonna read something once and then move on.
Michael: Yeah. Well, I'm at that stage in life where I'm doing more rereading than reading of new books because I'm not sure if I wanna invest, you know, a lot of time in something that might be mediocre when I can go back and experience something that I've enjoyed in the past. But for me, one of the criteria I ask to judge a book, I say, "Is this book re-readable? Do I wanna read this again?" And there are a lot of books I have gone back to in fishing, even some instruction books that, you know, I just enjoy picking up and sitting down and going through them again.
Tom: And you said something in your piece that really resonated with me. It was that when you read a piece of fishing writing, you don't want... I'm not gonna put this right, and I have it right in front of me, but I don't wanna read it, but you said something about internal versus external writing. Do you wanna explain that?
Michael: I was talking about literature and fiction. I think the world outside is a lot more interesting than the world that's limited to our doorstep, and I kind of go for books where the author gets us outside of ourselves and brings us into the big world. I'm not a big fan of Solipsism. There's a lot of literature, a lot of fiction out there where the characters seem to be a little too self-absorbed for my taste. And I think the outward way is the way to go.
Tom: I think you described it as navel-gazing.
Michael: navel-gazing. Yeah. There's not much interesting going on in there as far as I'm concerned.
Tom: No. And I think that we all have our own navel-gazing about fishing, but do other people really wanna know about it? I don't think so. I don't want to know what someone's thinking really. So, you know I guess I liked your article because I agree with your analysis. So, let's talk about the types of historical literature because you kind of put those when we talked the other day into two broad groups of valuable historical fly-fishing books.
Michael: Well, some of them are just interesting curiosities. You get the idea of, you know, what the fishing culture was like in the past. And some of these people were pretty interesting. You know, Izaak Walton, of course, he wrote the famous, "The Complete Fisherman." Walton was a royalist who fled London for the country during the English Civil War. And what he wrote, "The Complete Angler" was a kind of pastoral idol that was taking place within a period of terrible political turmoil. And he was saying that essentially this is the way to live. You look for peace, you look for beauty, you look for the spiritual dimension of life. And, you know, he doesn't mention the war or the politics or the turmoil in the book, but that's there in the background.
Tom: I dunno, it sounds a little like navel-gazing to me.
Michael: Well, he's saying, you know, to look out into the world of nature that is all around us. We try to take our lessons in life from that.
Tom: Okay. Well, how about some other examples, maybe a little more modern than Walton of just interesting historical fly fishing periods?
Michael: Well, the books that most interest me and draw me to them are literary fiction. Perhaps the most famous book of all is "A River Runs Through It" by Norman McLean. You've read that, right?
Tom: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Michael: Well, "A River Runs Through It" is one of those books where the fishing stands for life. And the author is suggesting that if we submit to its disciplines and rhythms, maybe we can attain some of the grace necessary for good life. And if we recognize that the natural world is a gift to be used wisely, we will have mastered the most important lesson of all. He talks about the art of fly fishing. And what he's suggesting in the book, to my reading, is that fly fishing can show us how to wade into the unpredictable stream of existence and face whatever life is gonna bring us with humility, and gratitude, and grace. It teaches us a way to do something in accord with nature. And if we do something well enough we're gonna get a fair amount of moments in our life where it can feel like a work of art. And this just doesn't apply to fishing, it can be some other discipline, some other art form that's going to help us, bring us into the world.
Tom: And you have high praise for McLean in your article.
Michael: Yeah. I think he wrote the best sentences of any English author since Shakespeare.
Tom: No kidding.
Michael: It's a remarkable novella. I've said that it kind of, you know, restores the missing pieces of her world. What was your reaction when you read it?
Tom: Well, not being a scholar of literature as you are, I found it to be just a great story. I honestly, this is just me, I don't think it inspired me about life as much as it just entertained and enthralled me. And I don't think I analyzed his writing then because I read it a long time ago when it first came out, I think. Nick Lyons recommended it to me. And I don't think now, if I were to go back and reread it, which I haven't done, I think I would've studied his syntax and his way of turning a phrase a lot more carefully. But I didn't, so I just loved the book.
Michael: Every sentence and it feels like a miracle. It's just amazing that somebody can write at that level. But that's what he's talking about in the book, mastering an art form. It can be fly fishing, it can be, writing prose, but it's something that gives us a discipline, that we submit ourselves to, and it's a way of being fully in the world.
Tom: But showing us that, not through navel-gazing, but through telling a story. And then second on your list was "Big Two-Hearted River" by Hemingway. Now, Hemingway has his fans and his detractors. Tell me why you placed Hemingway so high on your list.
Michael: I think he was a peerless short story writer. I think that he's able to give us the freshness of the physical world. I think he's at his best when he's rendering immediate experience, and he's at his worst when he is being pompous and philosophical. I think when he just, you know, brings us into this scene and we experience the way everything looks and feels. I don't care for Hemingway when he's being authoritative, when he's trying to show that he's the smartest, most knowledgeable man in the room.
Tom: So, you have a kind of a love-hate relationship with Hemingway?
Michael: Well, I'm not a fan of his novels. I like his first novel, "The Sun Also Rises," and I don't care for some of the other ones. I like the short stories. I like his memoir, "A Movable Feast" about living in Paris. And the writing has a great deal of freshness and vitality to it. And he sort of lost that in some of his later works. By the way, I would mention that in his novel, "The Sun Also Rises," there's a fly fishing scene in it where the protagonist and one of his friends is fishing for trout in a river in Spain. And when I read that as a young man, the way he rendered that scene, it immediately made me want to take up fly fishing. Actually, that short story, I mean, that scene in that novel inspired me to pick up a fly rod and teach myself how to fly fishing.
Tom: Wow. Wow. Interesting.
Michael: I came to it through reading through books. I didn't come to it by, you know being a little kid and having somebody show me how to do it. I started fly fishing when I was in my mid-20s. This was back in the 1970s. And where I lived in Southern New Jersey on the seashore there, I didn't know any other fly fishermen, and I had no one to tell me how to do this. So, I would go up and having been inspired by the Hemingway story, I would drive up to a trout stream in northwestern New Jersey, and I would look at the people doing this and I thought to myself, "Here are these people on this river with these fly rods casting." And it looked to me to be the most graceful thing I'd ever seen and I really wanted to participate in it.
Tom: Okay. So, next on your list in fiction list was "Ninety-two in the Shade" by Thomas McGuane. Tell us why that is such an amazing book.
Michael: Well, he's a writer who has almost perfect pitch, and a lot of his sentences are high-wire acts. "Ninety-two in the Shade" is very much of its time in that there's a real counterculture vibe, but it was written in the 1970s. And it has an antic sensibility. You know, the people in the book are like the authors, they're kind of mavericks and very independent, and, you know, they're looking for something meaningful. And they're kind of coming up against a culture that is very commercial and absurd and crazy, and they're looking for a fine way to find peace and meaning. Have you read the novel?
Tom: Oh, Yeah. I've read everything Tom McGuane has written.
Michael: It's a really crazy story where, you know, this fellow, his name is Thomas Skelton, and he's probably done too much drugs and he's trying to get himself together, and he goes back home to Key West, and he wants to kind of clean out and, you know, calm himself down by going out onto the ocean on the flats and being a fishing guy, but he runs afoul of another fishing guy who's very territorial. And one thing leads to another, and there's just this amazingly comic buildup to what actually turns out to be a very deadly feud.
Tom: Yeah. And McGuane actually lived that life.
Michael: He did that.
Tom: He and Jim Harrison and Jimmy Buffet and Guy de la Valdene, they lived that life in Key West.
Michael: He was writing, and he was earning some money by being a flats guide.
Tom: Yeah. Wouldn't it be cool to be guided by him?
Michael: Yeah. I can imagine what it was like down there back in the 1970s. It must have been a really crazy scene.
Tom: Well, there's that film that was made, I forgot the name of it now, but Guy de la Valdene made it. No, he was involved with it somehow. God, I forgot the name of it, but it's been re-brought back. It's a documentary about...
Michael: I think it's called "Tarpon."
Tom: Yeah, I think it is. I think it is called "Tarpon." That's wonderful, wonderful period piece to watch.
Michael: Well, one of the things I really like about McGuane's book, that he captures the visual nature of the marine life, the quality of the light, of the sense of, you know, something numinous within, you know, all of that sea life, that permit and the tarpon that are ghosting on the flats. It's one of the most visual books I've ever read, and it just has a great voice.
Tom: I love that, every sentence was a highwire act. That's a great way of putting it. And then next you had, in fiction, you had "The River Why" by David James Duncan.
Michael: Right. Well, "The River Why" is again, like "The River Runs Through It" in the sense that it's a book where, you know, the fishing is a metaphor for life, but whereas McLean's novella is a tragedy and there isn't a misplaced word or an ungainly phrase in it, Duncan's novel is a sprawling comic tale with a lot a drunken wordplay in it. And it kind of reminds me a little bit of Tom Robbins's novel. It's very playful. And, you know, we all know the story, Gus Orviston is this young man who kind of flees from it, this functional family. And he's gonna live in a cabin by a river, and he's gonna do nothing but fishes branch out to the exclusion of everything else.
And of course, this is a disaster. It's a comic disaster because fishing, you know, by itself to the exclusion of everything is not gonna be a panacea for his problem. And ultimately, through a series of, you know, comic misadventures, the character comes to learn that, you know, it's not just fishing, but also through the love of a woman and the love of the people in his community that he finds a way to be in the world, in harmony with it. I think it's a wonderful novel. People have always said that the great novel of the Pacific Northwest is sometimes a great notion by Ken Kesey about a very independent logging family, but for me, the great Pacific Northwest novel is "The River Why."
Tom: Great. Sorry, go ahead.
Michael: There's something, a very interesting fact about that book. He couldn't find a mainstream publisher for it. This was back in the 1970s. And he couldn't find a mainstream publisher for it. So, he sent it to the Sierra Club which published nonfiction Sierra Books and Sierra Club books. And people there decided that they were going to make "The River Why" the first novel they ever published, you know, the first work of fiction. So, that's how it came into being.
Tom: Wow. Interesting. And then in nonfiction, you have a list. And I have read all, but one of them. Actually, yeah, I read all, but one of them. So, let's start your nonfiction list with, in my opinion, the finest nonfiction that's ever written about fly fishing, and I've mentioned this time and time again, is "The Longest Silence" by Tom McGuane.
Michael: Right. Everything I said about, you know, his novel, "Ninety-two in the Shade" certainly applies to these essays when it comes to the quality of the writing and the sense of... You know, every line in the book seems to be a continuous creative act and a miracle in writing. I'm trying to think of anybody who's written better about fly fishing than McGuane and his friend Russ Chatham comes very close to him. But, you know, this would be my desert island fishing collection.
Tom: Yeah. And then speaking of Russ Chatham, the second on your nonfiction was, "Angler's Coast" by Russ Chatham, who was an amazingly talented, both writer and artist. He was quite a guy.
Michael: You know, he was one of the best fly-fishing authors. I think he was the country's premier landscape painter. And he ran a publishing... He was a publisher, I think it's Clark City Books that has wonderful standards and received a lot of critical praise. And he also, for a period of time, he opened up and ran the Livingston Bar and Grill, which was almost universally praised as the best restaurant in Montana. And Russ noted that when he was in high school, he got all D's, and his teacher said he was not living up to his potential. And he told an interviewer once that the reason he was successful in painting, in fishing, and in the restaurant business, and in publishing was because he had a terrible attention deficit disorder, and he could only focus on things that were emotionally interesting and fulfilling to him.
And these were the things he was crazy about. He was crazy about painting, and he was crazy about fly fishing. And he didn't have any money, and his paintings at first weren't selling, so he turned to writing about fly fishing. And he'd never been formally trained as a writer, but he was an avid reader because he was passionate about reading. And he had a few friends like Tom McGuane, who could give him a few writing tips. And I think, you know, his essays, I think he's in... You know, you might consider fly-fishing literature to be a kind of narrow niche in the big world of publishing, but I think he's in the top one. I think Chatham is in the top 1% of all the fishing writers who ever lived.
And I really, really believe that he was, you know, certainly the greatest living landscape painter in America when he was here.
Tom: His stuff is beautiful.
Michael: You know, if you look at his paintings and his lithographs, you see all of this emotion that's kind of frozen into this tremendous calm. It reminds me a lot of the landscape paintings from China 1,000 years ago in the sense that there's all that emotion, but everything is also at the same time, totally calm. And I think he is an extraordinary person, and he's a real character. And he was fortunate that, you know, his fishing was done when he was a kid in the 1950s and 1960s when steel...and this was kind of a fisherman's Valhalla in the Bay Area at the time. And he caught the tail end of it before it passed away. And it's all there in that book, "The Angler's Coast." And you know, he fished with a lot of really interesting eccentric characters who was as monomaniacal about it as he was, and he captured that whole spirit of the times.
Tom: Yeah. Kind of the golden age of steel-heading in California.
Michael: Indeed. Indeed. But it's all gone now.
Tom: Yeah. So, you had two books, "Angler's Coast" and "Dark Waters" by Russell Chatham on your list. And then a surprising one, I think "The Curtis Creek Manifesto," which is kind of a cartoony how to fly-fishing book.
Michael: Yeah. It's a lot of the books that attracted me when I was taking up fly fishing back in the 1970s. These books had a kind of culture, counter-cultural vibe, and attitude. And "The Curtis Creek Manifesto," I think is the best prime fishing ever written. And it's a very eccentric work. It looks like, you know, one of those underground comics by R. Crumb, and maybe with a little "Mad Magazine" thrown in with some Victorian clip Art, and even a little bit of Ripley's, believe it or not. But it's an instruction manual. It's not just funny, it's also wise. And it was put out by Frank Amato Books, and it has sold over the time, over the decades, it sold about 300,000 copies. And, you know, it's fun to read. It's certainly easy to read and easy to understand. Best of all, for me, it was easy to pay for, because my first edition of this, the cover price was $3.50.
If you look at the illustrations and you read the pros, there's no over-mention of sex drugs on rock and roll, but you can tell that the book was very much, in the spirit of its time. It has a kind of antic sensibility. And, you know, this is a person who's not a materialist. He's very independent. He's probably anti-authority. It's that whole attitude that people had back there, back in the '60s and '70s, "We're just gonna do your own thing and have fun." And I think it's a marvelous book, and it's one-of-a-kind. There's nothing like it.
Tom: No. There is nothing like it.
Michael: It's also very utilitarian, and it just gives you a very simplified way of looking at something that can really appear to be overly complex to novices when they're starting out fly fishing. I think it's marvelous.
Tom: Great. And then next on your list are two books by Bill Barich, who I think is highly underrated, or, you know, underexposed in the fly-fishing literature. He's a great writer. One is "Hat Creek," and the other is "Deeds Among The Steelhead."."
Michael: Oh, Bill Barich is amazing. I first read him, I came across his essays on "Hat Creek" and "Deeds Among The Steelhead" when it appeared, well, I think in "The New Yorker" And also, "Deeds Among The Steelhead" was reprinted in that really gorgeous fishing anthology called, what was it called again? "The Ultimate Fishing Book?" I think that his character, Paul Deeds, which is a pseudonym for a guy he knows who lives on the Russian River, I think he's one of the most entertaining, eccentric characters ever to appear in a fishing story.
Tom: And this is a true story where the name was changed?
Michael: Yeah. It's nonfiction.
Tom: And then next is "The Spawning Run" by William Humphrey, which I'm sure a lot of people have not read. I was lucky enough to know William Humphrey.
Michael: William Humphrey was a fine novelist who wrote some serious books like "Home from the Hill" and "Hostages to Fortune." And I never thought he got the kind of credit he deserved for being a really first-rate novelist. His story about "The Spawning Run," I think it originally appeared in Playboy, and it's a very long nonfiction article about, you know, his visit to one of these stuffy fishing hotels in Great Britain.
Tom: Okay. And then the next on your list is "Trout Bum."
Michael: By John Gierach. Somebody called him the Mark Twain of fly fishing. I love his dead-pan humor in his books. I love his conversational tone and writing. And I kind of regret that I never got around to doing a column on "Trout Bum." I was always saving it for another day. And I learned quite suddenly that the last issue of fly fishermen, I mean, "California Fly Fisher" was going to be the final issue.
Tom: Issue. Well, you should write that column for another magazine.
Michael: Yeah. I guess I'll have to do that. I think he's wonderful. You know, I first read... Well, I read the book when it came out, and I've been reading him religiously ever since.
Tom: He was a favorite amongst lots and lots of anglers these days. And the next one on your list is "The Same River Twice" by David Quammen, which I am embarrassed to say, I've never read, and I'm a David Quammen fan.
Michael: It's a short story.
Tom: Oh, it's a short story. Okay.
Michael: Actually, it's a short article, it's a column that appeared in "Outside magazine."
Tom: Oh, okay.
Michael: David Quammen writes a science column for them, and he was writing about spring creeks and the nature of spring creeks. But he was also really writing about a relationship he had with a pair of friends who broke up. And he starts by quoting Heraclitus, he can never step into the same river twice for waters are constantly moving on. And he writes about the spring creeks being, you know, a source of rich insect and trout life because they're constant. They don't depend on rainfall, they well up from springs. By then he realized that, you know, nothing in life is constant, everything is always changing. And he thought that, "I always thought a spring creek was a source of the constancy of it. I was wrong. Heraclitus was right." And he was talking about the breakup of the friendship and marriage with his friends.
Tom: Next on your list was "Sporting Life" by Jim Harrison, who was one of my favorites.
Michael: Well, the "Sporting Life" appears in his essay collection just before, "Dark." I think, you know, Harrison is my favorite fiction writer. He and Gary Slaughter are also my favorite American poets. And he's also equally good in nonfiction. He writes in the personal essay style and this particular essay, the, "Sporting Life," he's talking about, you know, how he fished and hunted when he was a kid growing up in rural Michigan. And it contains a line that has been one of my favorite Jim Harrison lines of all time, I'm gonna try to quote it from memory here, "In the restorative quality, there is the idea that as humans, we get our power from the beauty we love most." And that line always knocks me out. And it comes from that marvelous essay he wrote. So, that's probably my favorite fishing essay from Jim Harrison's collection.
Tom: My one regret in doing this podcast is that I never got Jim as a podcast guest. I knew Jim and we could just never quite get it together. And unfortunately, he passed before I was able to get him on. But it would've been a wonderful podcast. It would've been probably my favorite podcast of all times. And then your final one is another David James Duncan. David James Duncan. This one, a nonfiction, "My Story is Told by Water."
Michael: Yeah. It's a marvelous collection of essays. And, you know, he was actually nominated for a National Book Award for this. He didn't win, but he was one of the nominees, one of the finalists, which is nice that that might happen to a fishing writer.
Tom: Yeah. Definitely. It doesn't happen very often.
Michael: Hey, he has a new novel out, by the way. It just came out.
Tom: Oh, really?
Michael: It's called "Sun House." And I haven't read it. And it's supposed to be like 1,000 pages. I dunno if I'm physically up for it yet.
Tom: "Sun House." I'm gonna write that down.
Michael: I'll have to block out a month of my life to read the book. But it's had a long gestation period. I think he's been writing it for at least the last 10 or 15 years.
Tom: Yeah. Occasionally reads something by him in a magazine or something, but he's not been super prolific.
Michael: Yeah. He's involved in a lot of conservation and environmental activism, and that takes up a lot of his time.
Tom: Yeah. Well, good for him. Good for him. Well, Michael, that's a great list. And, you know, people should know that as all lists of best this and that, it's very subjective, but because you're so familiar with the literature and because you do reread things, I think it's a very valid list. And I would urge anyone that hasn't read any of these, if you need some winter reading when you can't be fishing, there's some really good ones to delve into.
Michael: Well, these are the books that may mean the most to me, and I really enjoy them. I get a lot out of them when I go back and reread them. And, you know, I recommend them highly. I think they'll give people a lot of pleasure and a lot to think about.
Tom: Yeah. That's for sure.
Michael: Especially it'd be great if they could score a copy of "The Anglers Coast." I don't even know if it's still in print. Maybe they can probably get it, you know, used on Amazon or something. But the prices of those books are going up now and they're becoming collector's items. And it would be nice if somebody would republish them and bring them out.
Tom: It would, it would. You know, there are a few of them that have been brought back over the years, certainly, but there's some that need to be brought back. All right, Michael. And Michael, were you professionally involved in literature in your career?
Michael: No. No. I was a newspaper reporter in Atlantic City for 15 years, and believe it or not, I was an investigative reporter and I covered the mafia, I covered, you know, financial and political crime and corruption. And I had a lot of fun doing it, but I think I stayed in it too long, and, you know, I quit my job to move out to the West where the fishing is much better than it is in New Jersey. And I taught myself how to write in the personal essay style instead of like a newspaper reporter, something with a little more literary flare. You know, I got a few books published. And really, I'm glad, you know, I kind of hooked up with Richard Anderson at "California Fly Fisher" because he's always liked to publish my essays as well as the book column that I've really enjoyed doing it. I had a lot of fun because I like these books and I'm enthusiastic about them and I wanna share that enthusiasm.
Tom: Well, let's hope another magazine publisher picks you up.
Michael: Okay. We'll see. I don't even know what the publishing scene for fishing magazines is anymore. You know, when I first started out doing this, "Fly Fisherman" was the only fly-fishing magazine that existed. And now there seems to be a magazine for every niche within the sport.
Tom: I think there's fewer now than there was 10 years ago, but there's still quite a few out there. And I can tell you from experience that they're always looking for good writing and that they don't pay much, but you probably figured that out already.
Michael: Oh, yeah.
Tom: But they're fun to do. They're fun to do.
Michael: Yeah. Well, you know, I love fishing and I love reading about it and I like writing it. You know, it's not something you do for money.
Tom: No, it's not. It's something you do for love.
Michael: Yeah.
Tom: Well, Michael, thank you so much for taking the time today. I really appreciate you.
Michael: Well, thank you for inviting me onto your podcast. I really enjoyed talking.
Tom: I read that article and I said, "I gotta get this guy on the podcast because this stuff is too good." So, thank you. And I'm sure a lot of my listeners will thank you for giving them some great advice on what to read.
Michael: Okay.
Tom: All right, Michael. Thanks very much.
Michael: Thank you.
Tom: Okay. Bye-bye.
Male: Thanks for listening to the "Orvis Fly Fishing" podcast, with Tom Rosenbauer. You can be a part of the show. Have a question or a comment? Send it to us at