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Go Fish

By Beacon Staff

More than catching fish, I enjoy the gracefulness of casting, the fiddly detail of tying on a fly and the meltdown-inducing task of untangling a line from riverbank brush. Put me in a float tube in a mountain lake on a warm day, and I won’t care a whit if I don’t get a single rise. Especially if there are huckleberries to be picked afterward.

I’m not one to study up on fly fishing by reading how-to guides, and I’m certainly not going to sit down and watch a show about who can catch the most or biggest fish. So the following suggestions are irreverent, quirky and more about life than fishing.

“The River Why” by David James Duncan In this witty and intelligent coming-of-age tale, Gus Orviston meets a pretty and surprising young woman, becomes independent, and settles the bait-fishing versus fly-fishing debate.

“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” After a sheik decides to bring fly fishing to the desert, Britain’s top fisheries expert (Ewan McGregor) and the sheik’s representative (Emily Blunt) unwittingly charm one another while attempting to turn this impossible dream into a reality.

“Fishing with John” This little-known TV series features actor John Lurie taking his famous friends on fishing trips. They don’t catch much. But when John takes Tom Waits fishing in Jamaica, during a conversation about where to store a fish, Tom says, “Catch a fish, put it in your pants.” If there’s any fishing motto I could take as my own, it would be his.

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