“In my opinion, fishing then becomes a mirror which reflects all of our being and our values in life – and in return our values determine how we fish. One goes into the other and the boundaries merge… Doing becomes being and being becomes doing; a magic circle with no beginning or end & our hearts always standing where they belong:
~ Lani Waller
If my brain were a storage unit, it would be one without walking space, stacked with hoards of cluttered paraphernalia. That’s how it feels right now anyway, unorganized and overwhelmed, elbowing my way in & around my own thoughts.
I blame it on Roderick Haig-Brown.
See, last year I had taken on the most ambitious project of my life: the authoring of a book summarized as a reflective novel based on the history of our sport, and both its evolution & migration from the United Kingdom to North America’s west coast.
Do not be fooled by this mundane description; it’s about as dry as a robust red wine — flavourful, intoxicating, addictive and sure to stain.
In addition, I had also signed a television show to the World Fishing Network, where I would write a ten part episodic series about the authoring of this book and the research that went into it.
To have a chance at such a zealous goal would demand an abundance of history books, interviews and biological studies to help educate me further on the Atlantic salmon and the ocean-run steelhead.
From a bloggers standpoint, I should have written this post over a year ago, but fear of ignorance and my own premature opinion stalled my pen. So I waited until I had a book or two (or twenty-two) absorbed before recording my thoughts and findings. Needless to say, it may take me a few posts to catch up where I am now in this process…
Prior to today, I’d been puzzled.
How could I share all of the information I was uncovering if I hadn’t yet read enough to philosophize, conclude or piece it all together? Was it irresponsible to reach a basis upon one book — rave about it, write about it, recommend it — only to then read another that would change my mind entirely?
If my book chronicled the journey of a young angler (me) who proves, disproves, learns, experiments and ponders through the wisdom of others, was there room for me to blog the experience along the way?
What if halfway though the project I should discover that I am actually misleading both myself and my readers with disproven theories and irrelevant nonsense?
Could I backtrack through a road of inaccurate bullshit only to begin a new venture down an unsullied path? It was beginning to sound pretty messy…
…Or perhaps that was all part of the fun.
But summaries are left to books and that is exactly what this blog is about; a journey of turning pages that I hope will expose a conclusive core, or at least something of substance.
This said, expect the viewpoints to change, and embrace the differences of opinions that will surely unveil.
Over the next year or so I will be interviewing some people whose stance leans differently than that of others. I shall make note that, in my opinion, such leaning is not likely to tip anyone over. In fact, I find it more likely that such differences might bring about balance and compromise.
Do not seek anger in their words, rather seek delight in their passion — things are going to get interesting.
***
It all started when I dove into the depths of steelhead fishing and its origin. Mr. Haig-Brown, an Englishman who moved to Canada in the early 1900’s, popularized steelheading in the 1930’s, bringing with him methodology and admiration for anadromous species.
I had purchased some books predating the 1900’s and set out on a mission to learn more about steelhead fishing and how it began. The more I researched, the more I discovered that it was the Atlantic salmon anglers who passed their history over to us on the west coast of Canada.
I would alternate between history books and books on writing well, every so often throwing in a fiction to try and stir up my imagination.
One week, after three days of working with 1864 fly shop in Tasmania, the owners Simone and Dan Hackett arranged for me to fish with a celebrated biologist and author in their region — a Mr. Greg French.
We drove through the hills to meet him and dodged wallaby and wombats around most of the twisting bends.
Upon arriving, we found Greg sitting patiently in his small blue car. It was a motionless scene, only the glare from his glasses reflecting the sun as his face scrolled between pages of a book he was reading.
He looked up at us warmly and promptly jumped outside for salutations.
His legs were lean. Like two thin aspens widened by the disruption of burly knots, the outline of his knees protruded through his wet wading tights; thighs appearing to be swallowed by the conceal of loose fitting shorts.
Greg had pleasantly agreed to fish with me on a Tasmanian mountain stream and, if we had time, one of his favourite deadheaded lakes that lay nestled in the hills.
He had an aura and a laugh that brightened the tea trees. They warmed the skies around us — pink, lofty spectators. Fish rose one after the other to our aggressively plopped dry flies, and our hysterical banter echoed through the hills.
A simple man, his wide brim hat was the most excessive thing he sported; his rusted four wheeled tin ca(r/n) following suit behind as a close second.
Greg’s books had caught my eye on several Australian book shelves. His mischievous smile was true to his writing style. Humor, authenticity, intelligence, and unwavering comfort around subjects that make many North Americans uneasy, were all characteristics that showed themselves in his novels and conversations. I liked him instantly.
Between discriminate rises, I told Greg of my ambitions to author a book. I followed up my announcement with admissions of sheer confusion about the process : What exactly was a preface? Did I need an intro? Should I self publish because I’m refusing to write an instructional glob of “been there, done thats”? Could he help me acquire a reading list?
Greg knew little about the fisheries I wished to write about, but he was a wealth of knowledge when it came to literature.
The premise of my book was loosely based on the similarities and differences between Atlantic salmon and steelhead. My opinion was that steelhead fishing evolved from methods and ideologies founded by Atlantic salmon anglers who had migrated from the UK to the west coast of North America.
My plan was to research the history, gear, techniques, biology, behaviourism and economy, then document their associated changes within the sport/industry. What this essentially meant was that I needed to become well read on hundreds of years of history. I rolled up my sleeves and took Greg’s advice to study tirelessly and take my time.
I flew home dizzy with enthusiasm, and thirsty for education… then I dropped over $1,000 at Amazon.
Greg’s recommended reading list:
“Hi April,
It was great fishing with you —
Writing guides
Elements of Style (Strunk and White)
Eats Shoots and Leaves (Lynne Truss)
If you want to write well, reading and understanding these two books is not optional. Breaking the rules is okay (even desirable) but you must always know what rules you have broken and be able to explain to yourself why you broke them.
Novels which contrast different writing styles
The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway) — a sheer delight of a religious allegory, not one word wasted. Note the sparse style: short sentences, simple words, minimal punctuation. I try to model my writing on this style, though since I don’t have Hemingway’s Nobel Prize talent, I have to make my sentences longer and more descriptive.
Cold Mountain (Charles Frazier) — a great love story set in the American Civil War. Long sentences, flowery prose, highly descriptive, lots of punctuation.
The Road and The Crossing (Cormac McCarthy) — Great but bleak stories. Long sentences, virtually no punctuation. Mortals like us can’t possibly get away with using so little punctuation, but it is worthwhile trying to work out in your own head how McCarthy makes his uber-spartan style work so well.
Fishing books
Trout and Salmon of North America (Dr Robert Behnke) — Behnke is the word’s leading authority on trout, and this book give a very good overview of the biology and history of all American salmonids, including steelhead and Atlantic salmon. Your project cannot be properly contextualised if you haven’t read what Behnke has to say.
The Truth About Trout Revisited (Robert Sloane) — This is how one man presented old ideas (and some brilliant new ones) in a completely new way.
Fly Fishing Fundamentals (Rob Sloane) — Old ideas in a conventional style, but this time it is the sequencing and layout that make the book so uniquely accessible.
The River Why (David James Duncan) —Writing from the heart. No one other than Duncan could have produced this work. You need to make sure that no one other than April Vokey could produce your work.
That will probably do for a start. Let me know if you want any more help. Always happy to assist.
Cheers
Greg
PS: If you give me your postal address, I’ll pop a copy of my book Frog Call in the mail for you.”
And mail it he did — a brilliant read and one I suggest to anglers/writers worldwide.
From here my reading list grew — so too did my familiarity with anglers from before my time. In the industry we call these pioneering anglers the ‘old guard’. Men and women who set much of the foundation for this sport, they shared their knowledge, theories, predictions, experiences, and methodologies for people like myself to learn from.
Truthfully, for years I had been hesitant to allow the old guard into my life.
While their books and videos had instilled admiration within me, my first encounter with a famed member of the ‘old guard’ tasted of rancidity, and it soured my youthful palette like a mouthful of thick, expired milk.
This man was legendary in my mind; someone whose knowledge welled deep in his faded blue eyes.
It spilled over the pages of his authored library, before eventually seeping into the thoughts and methodologies of aspiring anglers — aspiring anglers such as myself.
We had been booked together to participate in a weekend event. He made the event hopelessly pungent; venomous slanders towards the uselessness of the ‘new guard’ followed by enough ‘ism slurs to predate medieval times. The experience dug a shallow place in my heart where I happily buried the stench and decided never to visit it again. Consequently, his books (as well as books by other authors from his era) remained dusty and shelved.
Offended and misunderstood, I assumed I was perceived this way by the majority of our elder generation, and therefore did as most young people do when rejected by their guardians — I sought rebellion and veered away from tradition.
His vehement disgust with modern day gear (without any explanation to me) had me diving head first into space-age technology and I enjoyed the ability to deliver talentless casts to the opposite bank while turning over flies of astronomical proportions, and sink tips of equal volatility.
A drag knob set to leash the most violent of bucking horses, steelhead were of little comparison and they shook and turned helplessly against the pull of modern day drag.
Often times my mind would turn to the yellowed pages of fly fishing literature and I would smile softly at the poor fellas who once felt the need to make the sport so difficult.
If only they knew just how simple it could actually be. I had read of the sport’s early stages where eighty foot casts were rare and silk lines were common.
But the storm abated within me and my uneasy, rippling ignorance soon glassed over upon the realization that there was bound to be a sour apple amidst the vast orchard. I sold his books in a yard sale and learned to cherish the books by his peers.
What I would soon find was about to shock me.
To be continued…
For a full list of my reading list thus far, please visit my Instagram page.
