The Secret Lives of Fishermen: More Outdoor Essays

by Jim Dean

Overview

The Secret Lives of Fishermen is Jim Dean's second book of essays celebrating wild places, rural traditions, and the pleasures and often humorous frustrations of fishing, hunting, hiking, and camping—or, as Dean might put it, "messing around" outdoors. It combines essays originally published in his monthly "Our Natural Heritage" column in Wildlife in North Carolina with longer pieces that appeared in other magazines. These forty-six engaging essays are arranged in a loose chronicle of the sporting year, but they seldom follow predictable routes. From a whimsical story about discovering live wood ducks in a cabin stove to a poignant memoir of summers spent in a remote riverside shack, all of the pieces are bound by a conviction that our resources and time are limited and our finest memories are shared.

The title notwithstanding, not all of the essays in The Secret Lives of Fishermen are about fishing, nor are readers likely to discover any shocking secrets—unless they are surprised to learn that fishermen and hunters have myriad interests and seldom measure success by the number of fish caught or game bagged.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807872178
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	04/27/2011
Edition description:	1
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Author of Dogs That Point, Fish That Bite, Jim Dean served as editor of Wildlife in North Carolina for eighteen years. He continues to contribute to that magazine and such publications as Field and Stream and Fly Rod and Reel. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Read an Excerpt

Theodore Gordon on Tobacco Road

This will mark the second opening day following the death, at eighty-eight, of my old friend A. J. Johnson. Somehow, this year I suspect he will be missed more than ever when the rest of us gather at his mountain cabin for the traditional start of the trout season. Last year, I think we tried to pretend that Johnson was still there, just momentarily out on the porch watering the plants. But now it is sinking in that he has not simply gone for a walk up the stream, nor is he in the kitchen stoking the fire in the wood cookstove, sneaking red peppers into the oyster stew, or stirring a highball with the tip of his forefinger, as was his custom.

Though I am fortunate to have been a part of this annual celebration for some thirty years, time is changing the characters, if not the plot. Once we were the youngsters happy to throw our sleeping bags on the bare floor and wash all the dishes. We were the ones who rushed out to the stream at first daylight to beat the water to a froth. Now we're the old-timers who harass the new kids and get to sleep in real beds--even if that happens to be alongside the snoring champion of Forsyth County.

But we all share one priceless gift from our departed friend: Johnson taught us to fish for trout in these remote and tumbling streams, and in doing so, he marked us for life with a healthy disrespect for some of the contrived notions that seem to afflict those who view fly fishing for trout as high religion. In the early years, before Johnson got hold of us, we were newly obsessed by the sport and convinced that trout could be caught only by those who worshiped the two-headed God of Extravagant Equipment and Immaculate Imitation.

Oh, we were insufferable. We studied aquatic entomology, tied thousands of flies, raised our own roosters, bought the latest high-tech rods and reels, waded boldly, waited for nonexistent hatches, fished far and fine, and spent countless hours discussing hydrology, light refraction, and color perception. If Theodore Gordon, Francis Halford, G. E. M. Skues, Ernie Schweibert, or Lee Wulff wrote that it was so, then it was so. And like most evangelicals, we preached to the unwashed and sought converts everywhere. In short, we consumed everything on the table except the main course.

Naturally, Johnson would laugh at us and wade out into the icy stream wearing rotten canvas shoes while fishing with an old seven-and-a-half-foot glass fly rod and a six-foot level leader so stout that he could barely poke the end of it through the eye of a size ten, well-gnawed dry fly with half of its hackles unwinding. He usually fished a Wulff Royal or a Blonde Wulff because it floated well and he could keep track of it on the swift currents. And he would invariably catch the most, and biggest, wild browns. It tore us out of our sanctimonious frames.

Johnson also frequently fished a sinking fly--usually a black ant--on a tippet below the dry fly and introduced this deadly tandem tactic to guides in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming in the early 1970s. Those who have since written enthusiastically about this technique in books and magazines probably have no idea that it can be traced to the dark hollows of the Southern Appalachians.

It took a while for most of us to realize that Johnson was not making fun of the use of reasoned tactics or practical observance--he was just much better at it. He had long since learned that what might be true of trout in a New York Catskill stream, a Pennsylvania limestoner, a brawling Montana river, or even a southern tailwater didn't necessarily apply in the small, clear, nutrient-poor freestone streams of the Southern Appalachians. Wild trout in these waters starve if they don't eat darn near everything all the time. Thus, there is no southern Theodore Gordon propounding a canon on the selective feeding habits of trout precisely because he'd be a damned fool to do so.

And if wild trout in these waters often feed opportunistically--there are always exceptions--they more than make up for it by being the spookiest creatures on the planet. I think wild browns can hear a car door slam a mile away, and they will run like dirt-road lizards if they see you or in any way sense your presence. Furthermore, they usually stay spooked the rest of the day. Thirty years ago, in a moment of supreme frustration, I wrote that wild trout in our streams would eat anything we couldn't get close enough to feed them. Johnson liked that, but it wasn't an oxymoron for him.

One day when we had been alternating pools--he was catching trout, I wasn't--he finally pulled me aside. "Lemme see what you're using," he said. "That ain't no good--leader's too long, fly's too small, and you're fishing the wrong spots." Oh, is that all, I remember thinking. Then he showed me one of his tricks.

He waded into the whitewater at the head of a pool I'd already fished and reached out to gently dap his fly on the swirling eddy at the opposite edge of the current. He was hidden by the foam, and as the fly drifted, it was engulfed by a wild brown nearly fifteen inches long.

"Sometimes the only way to fish a good spot is from straight overhead," he said with a grin. Like the old goat himself, it was simple, practical, effective, and he loved it all the more because few fly fishermen would be caught dead doing it.

Table of Contents

Preface
Theodore Gordon on Tobacco Road
Home in the Range
Back to Bluegill
Reality Bites on Trees
The News from Waseca
Confessions of a Chicken Chaser
The Marshmallow Purists
Sportuguese and Metaphor-pfishing
The Laughing Place
Virtual Fishing
Crazy Fishing
Classical Bass
Revenge of the Snapper
Thinking about Animals, and Vice Versa
Should Mickey Meet Vickie?
Is Getting There All the Fun?
Little Alligator Summers
When First We Went Spinning
Saying Good-bye to a Landmark
Where Are You, Ralph?
A Pair of Ducks Is No Paradox
Dressed to Kill
Fishing Cars and Hunting Trucks
A T'angling We Go
Buzzards, Bass, and Bull
Finishing Touches
Fishing's Fourth Level
Country Store Gourmet
A Pocketful of Pleasure
Mean Streets and Tough Critters
Out on Maneuvers
Bullets Face Forward
The Bird at Hand
The Neuse under Falls
When Honeybuns Go Bad
Occoneechee's River Treasure
Touch and Go Bobwhites
Collections out of Control
Messing around in Swamps
The Pointer of No Return
Still Worth the Trouble
Breakfast for Supper
The Ghosts of Christmas
A Recipe for Christmas
Mercury Birds
Joe's Friends

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Dean takes the reader to his favorite North Carolina laughing places-Emerald Isle, his father's Granville County farm, lakes, trout streams, ponds, mountain cabins and Ralph, his fishing car. Each of Dean's laughing places has stories to tell-of people, dogs, fish, birds, and changing seasons-and Dean tells them in a laid-back Southern way that relaxes and amuses. The Secret Lives of Fishermen is a laughing place of its own.—TasteFull

Dean looks beyond his hooks and flies to capture the cadence of friendly fishing and outdoor adventure. From learning that high-tech rods and lures don't necessarily improve one's ability to catch fish to savoring the 'Sportugese' of his favorite pastime, he offers a wealth of food for thought in his short, spare stories.—Publishers Weekly

Jim Dean is warmhearted and wise—and often hilarious—about people with a passion for fishing. And he loves them in as many varieties as the species he pursues with all kinds of tackle. You couldn't ask for a more amiable fishing companion in print.—Nick Lyons, author of Confessions of a Fly-Fishing Addict

Editorial Reviews

Each of Dean's laughing places has stories to tell-of people, dogs, fish, birds, and changing seasons-and Dean tells them in a laid-back Southern way that relaxes and amuses.

TasteFull

Dean looks beyond his hooks and flies to capture the cadence of friendly fishing and outdoor adventure.

Publishers Week

Jim Dean is warmhearted and wise—and often hilarious—about people with a passion for fishing. And he loves them in as many varieties as the species he pursues with all kinds of tackle. You couldn't ask for a more amiable fishing companion in print.

Nick Lyons

The Secret Lives of Fishermen is a laughing place of its own.

TasteFull

Dean looks beyond his hooks and flies to capture the cadence of friendly fishing and outdoor adventure.

Publishers Week

You couldn't ask for a more amiable fishing companion in print.

Nick Lyons, author of Confessions of a Fly-Fishing Addict

From the Publisher