As a kid I spent many a winter’s evening reading fishing stories in copies of my father’s Outdoor Life and Field and Stream magazines. As a young man I was inspired to write my own stories. I remember well the first time I ever saw one of my stories in print. That was a long time ago. Over the years since I have continued to be inspired by a number of very good outdoor writers.
John Gingrich is a self-described trout bum, an affectionate nickname for dedicated trout anglers, particularly those who practice fly fishing. His books, which include Trout Bum (1988), Sex, Death and Fly Fishing (1990), Dances With Trout (1994), Another Lousy Day In Paradise (1996), Death, Taxes and Leaky Waders (2000), No Shortage of Good Days (2011) and All Fishermen Are Liars (2014) are all brilliantly witty, wise and wonderfully perceptive insights into fly-fishing, the natural world and the life of an angler in general. They are just the thing to get most ardent anglers through the long winter months.
Roderick L. Haig-Brown has always been one of my favourite angling authors. He was a fly fisherman, a magistrate, radio broadcaster, university chancellor and conservationist who lived in Campbell River, BC. He was also a prolific writer. The Seasons of a Fisherman is a marvellous collection of his four classic “seasons” books: Fisherman’s Spring (1951), Fisherman’s Winter (1954), Fisherman’s Summer (1959) and Fisherman’s Fall (1964) all compiled together for the first time in one single volume.
This book is far more than just a book about fishing and the trappings and traditions that go along with the sport of fly-fishing. I have read and reread all four of the season books many times. Each page draws me back to a simpler time – to an era when fishing was not so high tech and time spent casting a line was time spent communing with nature and breathing in the peace and tranquility that comes with standing on the banks of a river. In my mind I have stood alongside Haig-Brown and watched as the early morning mist rose from the water. Together we have waited, alone with our thoughts – waiting too for everything to explode on the other end of our lines. While I may not have ever met Haig-Brown, in a way I have come to consider him a sort of fishing partner – standing upstream just out of sight, but not our of thought.
Dave Stewart was an angler and outdoor writer who I knew and respected. The Last Cast is, as Dave always put it, a collection of adventures and misadventures. It is, in actual fact, a collection of heartwarming and humorous exerts from his famous Last Cast column, which appeared for some 50 years on the last page of BC Outdoors magazine. I was an avid reader of Stewart’s column long before I met and got to know him. I can still hear his voice when I read his words. And I still get a chuckle out of all the predicaments that he managed to get himself into over the course of a lifetime.
What The River Knows, by Wayne Fields winds its way through the northern wilderness, all the while exploring one man’s journey through middle age. The book tells of summer days spent fishing the runs and riffles of fast flowing streams, as well as, some of what the flow of life brings to each our way.
It is a celebration of nature in all its glory, and, one man’s attempt to comprehend all the delights, triumphs and anguish that has marked his journey through life so far.
As a steelhead fisherman, who has gone steelheading a fair number of times with only moderate success, I have learned to forget my failures and live vicariously through someone else’s successes, through a series of fishing journals written by BC writer, angling historian and steelheader Art Lingren.
This winter, while snow covers the landscape, I shall be holed up in my warm house, trying to finish off my own book about fishing, hopefully to be out this coming spring, entitled Time On The Waters.
