© Photographer:Geir-olav Lyngfjell | Agency: Dreamstime.com
It is almost Spring, in the United States and throughout the world, to many outdoors enthusiasts that signifies that the centuries old sport of fly fishing is rapidly approaching. Since the 13th century the art and science of fly fishing has endured and evolved as the thinking man’s sport. More recently brought into the American psyche by the highly romanticized spotlight shown on it by Brad Pit and Sir Anthony Hopkins in “Legends of the Fall”, fly fishing came into the limelight and took it’s rightful place as the gentleman’s sport, and has gained even more status as we entered the 21st century.
Generations of anglers, including those depicted by Norman Rockwell would insist that the first great American sport is and remains fly fishing. It is a sport as thoughtful, skillful and tranquil as a fine poetry. Yet it pits man against nature. I would refine that thought by saying that man is in the enviable position of both being in nature and having it move past him. Man through guile and a mountain of patience pursues his victory, his sustenance and indeed his reward in the rivers and streams of America. His ultimate aim is to catch and enjoy the bounty of nature; many times to share his day’s labor with family, the lucky friend or two, to tell the stories of the ‘ones that got away’. This blessed soul, does all of this situated in the most splendid country God has graced us with on this earth. This sport is not one of brut force, or a team effort, it is infinite patience, stalwart determination and the knowledge and respect for ones opponent honed over 7 centuries of interaction. The opponent, directed by their ingrained genetic code to eat, survive and reproduce, our direction is indeed the same … Noble goals.
In his text, Radcliffe, a renowned scholar and historian on the subject of fly fishing tells us that he adapted his translation from Lambert’s Angling Literature in England (1881) wherein he says and I quote.
“I have heard of a Macedonian way of catching fish, and it is this: between Borœa and Thessalonica runs a river called the Astræus, and in it there are fish with speckled skins; what the natives of the country call them you had better ask the Macedonians. These fish feed upon a fly peculiar to the country, which hovers on the river. It is not like the flies found elsewhere, nor does it resemble a wasp in appearance, nor in shape would one justly describe it as a midge or a bee, yet it has something of each of these. In boldness it is like a fly, in size you might call it a midge, it imitates the colour of a wasp, and it hums like a bee. The natives generally call it the Hippouros.
These flies seek their food over the river, but do not escape the observation of the fish swimming below. When then the fish observes a fly on the surface, it swims quietly up, afraid to stir the water above, lest it should scare away its prey; then coming up by its shadow, it opens its mouth gently and gulps down the fly, like a wolf carrying off a sheep from the fold or an eagle a goose from the farmyard; having done this it goes below the rippling water.
Now though the fishermen know this, they do not use these flies at all for bait for fish; for if a man’s hand touch them, they lose their natural colour, their wings wither, and they become unfit food for the fish. For this reason they have nothing to do with them, hating them for their bad character; but they have planned a snare for the fish, and get the better of them by their fisherman’s craft.
They fasten red (crimson red) wool around a hook, and fix onto the wool two feathers which grow under a cock’s wattles, and which in colour are like wax. Their rod is six feet long, and their line is the same length. Then they throw their snare, and the fish, attracted and maddened by the colour, comes straight at it, thinking from the pretty sight to gain a dainty mouthful; when, however, it opens its jaws, it is caught by the hook, and enjoys a bitter repast, a captive”.
Seven centuries later and the sport continues to beckon the fisherman to the streams and rivers to pit his skill and equipment against nature in its most pristine form. From such an ancient and noble history, comes the sport of the inwardly directed soul… fly fishing. Today we have amazingly complex and highly engineered tactical gear to accomplish what Macedonians did centuries ago. Today there is even catch and release, because for many who are passionate about the sport it is the capture not the consumption of ones opponent that leads to the feeling of accomplishment.
It is in the rich history of the way our fore bearers fished and the reminder of that legacy that vintage sporting equipment strikes a cord. There can often be found a wise and knowing smile on the face of the owner of vintage sporting equipment as they gaze upon their collection of vintage pieces. On some level they revel in the evolution of the sport, nostalgic about the past, connected to the ones who used the equipment when it was cutting edge and grateful for the improvements made over time.
After all it is in our technology where our future lies. No thinking man could deny that the building blocks and most satisfying accomplishments are in our past. History after all is not only our birthright, it is the steel which tempered by time, forms and shapes our future. To those who understand this, the skillful collection of vintage fly fishing equipment is not only a passion it is a link to our past and a celebration of the future of the sport of fly fishing. As I said to see and revel in the artistry and utility of a creel is to understand this sport at it’s most basic level.
