Standing in a River Waving a Stick

by John Gierach Narrated by David Colacci

Overview

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers



With his inimitable combination of wit and wisdom, John Gierach once again celebrates the fly-fishing life in Standing in a River Waving a Stick and notes its benefits as a sport, philosophical pursuit, even therapy: "The solution to any problem-work, love, money, whatever-is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be." After all, fly-fishing does teach important life lessons, says Gierach-about solitude, patience, perspective, humor, and the sublime coffee break.



Recounting both memorable fishing spots and memorable fish, Gierach discusses what makes a good fly pattern, the ethics of writing about undiscovered trout waters, the dread of getting skunked, and the camaraderie of fellow fishermen who can end almost any conversation with "Well, it's sort of like fishing, isn't it?" Reflecting on a lifetime of lessons learned at the end of a fly rod, Gierach concludes, "The one inscription you don't want carved on your tombstone is 'The Poor Son of a Bitch Didn't Fish Enough.'" Fortunately for Gierach fans, this is not likely to happen.

Editorial Reviews

Register-Guard

[The] prose flows across the page at the same graceful tempo as a well-cast fly line. Cover-to-cover, chapter and verse, it never falters, never stops.
—Jessica Mazwell

San Antonio Express-News

This is the next best thing to standing by a beaver pond full of trout on a perfect spring day.
—Patti Ross

New York Times

As fine a representation of outdoor writing as you're likely to find — wise, funny, and well wrought.
—Jeff MacGregor

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Everything from bears to the mysterious ways of ornery trout comes under the attention of Gierach in this lighthearted collection of essays, which is less concerned with the craft of fly-fishing than with the gestalt. Gierach (Another Lousy Day in Paradise, etc.) does hold forth on tying flies, watching bugs and other aspects of the fisherman's art, particularly the equipment. Fly-fishing in remote areas calls for packing such necessities as an emergency fire-starting kit, a sweater and a coffeepot. For Gierach, fishing in the backcountry often leads "to excuses to stage an elaborate coffee break in a stunningly beautiful place miles from the nearest road, which makes the coffeepot as crucial as the fly rod." He is at his most interesting--and interested--when he turns into a riverbank philosopher. In the end, getting the fly to the fish may be a goal but not necessarily the essence of fishing, notes Gierach, who admits that he prefers to eat wild red meat and fowl--even though fish is brain food "and I could use the help." Readers won't find Gierach's favorite streams and ponds (he deliberately doesn't tell) or how to tie a #20 Olive Parachute, but they will get a folksy earful on how fishing is similar to the way a dog follows its master "with nothing much in mind except to see what's gonna happen next." (Apr.)

Library Journal

Gierach is the favorite author of many fly fishers, and even of some nonanglers who just like his sense of humor. His earlier books include the very entertaining Dances with Trout (LJ 4/1/94) and Sex, Death, and Fly-Fishing (LJ 5/15/90), and this is another fine collection of amusing essays mostly about the fun and frustration found in fishing with a fly rod. He and his companions like to spend most of their spare time in or alongside a body of water mulling tactical options for hooking (and then releasing) large trout, but they seldom take themselves too seriously--it's just fishing, after all. Nonetheless, Gierach's pithy observations and musings about nature (including human) will delight readers nodding in agreement at the wisdom that lurks behind Gierach's seemingly offhand prose. Highly recommended.--Will Hepfer, SUNY at Buffalo Libs.

NY Times Book Review

...[A] mostly terrific collection....as fine a representation of outdoor writing as you're likely to find — wise, funny and well wrought.

Kirkus Reviews

The philosophical trout bum is back in cold water up to his hips with a collection of 22 pieces that take him all over the Midwest. Gierach's 11th book (Another Lousy Day in Paradise, 1996, etc.) is a mellow excursion through familiar waters, both literally and figuratively. In this volume, he offers essays on fishing in his local trout stream, on looking through his fly box in the off-season, and on his experiences in Montana and Canada. As he has in almost all his previous books, Gierach offers a gently funny and easygoing take on life at the business end of a flyrod. At the heart of this compendium is a running theme not too surprising for a man who's growing both amused and tormented by the encroachments of middle age (Gierach is 48): he feels the push-pull attraction-repulsion of home and away. Should he fish his local waters more? What is he missing when he's not on the road? A faint air of melancholy creeps into Gierach's writing, as great old streams fall victim to overdevelopment or over-fishing. Indeed, the best piece here is a musing on the ethics of outdoors journalism: do we tell everyone where that great secret spot is and thereby ruin it for ourselves and our friends? Technical fishing talk abounds, too, but you don't have to be a hard-core fly-fishing enthusiast to glean the best of Gierach, just someone who likes good writing. Thanks, Mr. G., for another wonderful day in paradise. (Author tour) .

From the Publisher

Jessica Mazwell The Register-Guard (Eugene, Oregon) [The] prose flows across the page at the same graceful tempo as a well-cast fly line. Cover-to-cover, chapter and verse, it never falters, never stops.

Patti Ross San Antonio Express-News This is the next best thing to standing by a beaver pond full of trout on a perfect spring day.

Jeff MacGregor The New York Times As fine a representation of outdoor writing as you're likely to find — wise, funny, and well wrought.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170752416
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	02/26/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: The Happy Idiot

Lately I've been thinking about what makes a good fly-fisher, possibly the last fair question of the twentieth century that might actually have an answer. I mean that in a purely technical sense, as in someone who's pretty good at catching fish on a fly rod. The other stuff -- the humor, graciousness, inner peace or whatever -- is important and may even turn out to be the whole point, but I'm not sure you can learn that part. I'm beginning to think it either comes by itself with time, or not.

On the other hand, I think you can learn to be a good fisherman (at least I hope so), and it's probably easier to get all philosophical about it when you actually catch some fish now and then.

The best way to pick up the nuts and bolts of something like fly-fishing has always been face to face with someone who already knows -- whether it's a teacher, a friend or a kindly stranger -- and there can be a lot to learn. Twenty or thirty years ago, when it was becoming fashionable for fishermen to use the Latin names for bugs, outdoor writers joked about getting a doctoral degree in fly-fishing. Now, with introductory to advanced classes, seminars, demonstrations, books and videos on everything from casting to fly tying, certification of casting instructors and such, you can damn near do that, although how much study you need before you're qualified to hook and land a fish is still an open question.

In fact, there are times when fly-fishing seems to be suffering from the same malady that afflicts the rest of society: too many so-called facts and not enough real experience, but I have to say the quality of information on fly-fishing is better than mostperson who'd naturally become a great caster, then that's how he comes at it. If not, maybe he becomes an adventurous wader to make up for it, slogging to within fifteen feet of the spot someone else will cast all the way across the river to reach. It's rare for even the best fishermen to be experts at everything, but one way or another, they all get the fly to the fish.

And things change over time, too. I'll probably never be a truly great fly caster, but I'm better than I used to be, I do work at it and there have been a few fish I've caught only because I managed to make a great throw. But then I've only gotten to be a progressively better caster as my trick knee has gotten trickier (it's been known to pop out of joint when pushed sideways by a strong current). I guess I'm just taking up slack, although I prefer to think of it as systematically replacing the brute force of youth with adult finesse.

Then again, even though I do cast a little better, I can still get around in the water well enough, too. Years of extreme wading taught me how to pick easier routes through bad currents, and I've actually developed a meditation technique that lets me lower my center of gravity when I'm in the water. So maybe you can do a little better than just break even. With luck, it can be like quitting drinking without entirely losing the sense of fun you learned while you were smashed.

I've also noticed that a lot of good fishermen have the uncanny ability to immediately turn any conversation to angling with a fly rod, on the theory that the essence of anything is in how it's either like or unlike fishing, and they often do it so deftly they don't even stretch the point.

My friend Pat Leonard is in the mu sic business and he's pretty successful at it. (Many good fly-fishers also seem to be very good at something else, too. I'm not sure why, although I have some half-baked ideas.) Anyway, it's become kind of a joke with us to crack any subject by pretending to search for just the right analogy and then finally saying, "Well, it's sort of like fishing, isn't it?"

The other day Pat was talking about the agonies of writing music, I said, "So it's sort of like fishing, then," and he said, "Well, yeah, except on a bad day your piano doesn't swim under a rock and stay there until you go away."

Pat's real successful, as I said, but after too many years spent as a trout bum, I can't help thinking of him as a fisherman who works part-time as a famous record producer to support his habit. Then again, he's enough of a fisherman that he might agree with me.

I also have to say that the best fishermen I know are fanatics -- although most have been that way for so long that a kind of eerie calm has settled over them, so it's not always obvious -- and they also spend a hell of a lot of time fishing. Some can do that because they have a lot of money. Others don't have much money because they spend a hell of a lot of time fishing. It's like getting the fly to the fish: one way or another, they get it done.

That's probably the most important part of getting really good at this. Tom McGuane once wrote, "Angling is extremely time consuming. That's sort of the whole point," and it's occurred to me a few times, when I've gotten into some local political battle or idly wondered how I'd be paying the mortgage in the next ten or twenty years, that God must have invented fly-fishing to keep old hippies from getting rich or ruling the world.

But then some of us who have it bad for fishing either don't hanker that much for money and power or don't care to do what it takes to get them. All we really want is bigger trout, better rods and a happy sex life.

I guess the one thing all great fly-fishers have in common is, they seem to have figured something out that's eluded the rest of us. Spend much time around one of these guys and you begin to suspect that whatever it takes to catch fish, it's not quite what you thought it was. But the hidden truth behind that is, it took them years on the water to arrive at it. It's not just fishing, either. Ask anyone you know who's very good at anything if there's a shortcut to spending half a lifetime learning the ropes and letting something indefinable slowly sink in.

Of course the hidden truth behind that is, just putting in the time is no guarantee. You also have to have passion and curiosity and then learn how to satisfy both, but at the same time not take it too seriously. I've been known to get downright mystical about fly-fishing, and I really do believe that you're as likely to find the meaning of life in catching fish as anywhere else, but I've also learned that spiritual quests can be disappointing, as when you go off to search for your spirit animal, only to find that it's a bunny rabbit.

It's probably better to just do the thing because it seems worth doing for its own sake, and if something more comes of it along the way, fine. Some of the best fishermen I know really want to catch fish, can be disappointed when things go badly and have an ego, a competitive streak, and all the other regulation human failings, but most days they seem to fish the way a do g follows its master: with nothing much in mind except to see what's gonna happen next.

Over the years I've been lucky enough to have fished with a precious handful of great fly-fishers: people who could catch at least some fish when no one else could get a strike, or who caught more and bigger fish when everyone else was getting their share, who did that on a pretty regular basis, who seemed to do it almost effortlessly and who usually didn't brag or strut or otherwise beat you over the head with their success.

It seems like I've spent a lot of time trying to copy what better fly-fishers were doing, and it's surprising how often that hasn't worked. You know the drill: Your partner is just hammering fish. He generously gives you the secret fly pattern, he tells you what size tippet he's using and what kind of drift he's trying for, maybe he even trades spots with you. He continues to hammer fish. You still can't buy a strike, and his kindness only makes you feel more dimwitted than you felt before.

So what the hell has he got that you don't? Whatever it is, it's just too elusive. You can't steal it, and he can't give it away. The more you watch him, the more he seems to just be letting it happen instead of making it happen (the smug bastard), but when you try to just let it happen, it doesn't. If you come right out and ask him what he's doing, he'll either say he doesn't know himself, or he'll tell you something too simple and obvious to be of any use. (Spencer Tracy once said the secret to acting is "Learn the lines and don't bump into the furniture.")

Still, I think I've learned from these guys. Now and then it's been something you could include in a list of A Hundred Tips for Lunker Trout -- some good advice on casting, a fly pattern, a better knot -- but mostly it's just the feeling that you have to come at this in your own way.

I know I'm a long way from greatness, but I am beginning to come at it in my own way. I can go through the basic motions pretty well, don't rely quite as religiously on specific fly patterns as I once did, have worked out ways of compensating for some of my most egregious weaknesses and have come to count heavily on timing because it's a hell of a lot easier to catch fish when the fish are biting.

I also pay close attention to small details, not because any one thing is likely to be the Big Answer but because I think if you methodically string lots of little things together and then stand back and look at the whole picture, the light will eventually begin to dawn.

But I know there's more to it -- or maybe less -- if only because that sounds like good advice. If I really had it, I'd be able to say something that was completely useless in a kind of Zen-like way.

But at least I share two articles of faith with the great fishermen: I believe that the solution to any problem -- work, love, money, whatever -- is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be. And I'm also certain that on the day I become a truly sublime fly-fisher, all my failings will be overshadowed and all my demons will swim under rocks and stay there until I go away.

Copyright © 1999 by John Gierach

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