In my family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing, because there were no clear lines. No clear lines between bird hunting and religion either, nor sports and religion.
After a cursory glance this might not seem so. Before my mother’s family gave its blessing to her marriage, my father first had to promise my Sicilian grandmother and Irish grandfather that he would raise their grandchildren in the Catholic faith. Dad agreed, though I realize now he had his fingers crossed.
Still, I recall in my early years we attended mass at Queen of Angels Catholic Church quite regularly. Later, they enrolled me in catechism school on Saturday mornings.
This is when I first became aware of this lack of hard, fast lines in our family. The problem was that I already had something penciled in on Saturday mornings, in the fall at least: playing football.
Now I wasn’t the greatest of players, but I did alright in those early years when we were teamed with kids of similar size and weight. But as far as lines go, football took precedence over religion. In the fall I played first, then hurried over to Queen of Angels to catch up on my studies.
I was young and still trying to sort out the world, but one thing I learned those fall mornings when I strolled into class a couple hours late is that the nuns were not impressed by my gridiron exploits. They never meted out any corporal punishment for my tardiness, but their stern tone made clear I had no hope of gaining teacher’s pet status.
Most of you know from where I stole my line about lines. If you’ve read “A River Runs Through It,” you know lines weren’t casually crossed in the early-20th century Maclean household in Missoula, or at least you know that’s the way Norman Maclean described it.
That household, run by Norman’s father, a Presbyterian minister and fly fisher who taught his sons fishing and fly fishing were but one thing, and that fly casting “is an art that is performed on a four-count rhythm between ten and two o’clock.”
There was no fishing other than fly fishing in that family — fly fishing for trout on the rivers of Montana. Fly fishing of a particular style. Dry flies mostly, though it was also sporting to fish wet flies when the feeding trout weren’t quite at the surface. But I wonder how the elder Maclean might have reacted to some of the modern techniques we’ve since developed to “fly fish” for trout.
Would Euro nymphing, using a leader adorned with a string of hooked ornaments and requiring an inartful lob to cast, pass muster?
How about the pandemic of fly fishers dragging articulated streamers the size of bun-length hot dogs through the troutiest holes of the Big Blackfoot?
How would he feel about naming fly patterns after the naughty sexual innuendos a gaggle of IPA marinated fly fishers conjured up in the wee hours before closing time?
I doubt the good minister Maclean would think it proper to tie an articulated Sex Dungeon to a ridiculously short leader so I could spend the day pounding the bank?
I know this — if I were to meet him, I’d never willingly offer up the intel that I’ve probably caught more trout on a San Juan Worm than any other fly. In my defense, I never fish it alone, but when I’m nymphing, there’s always one of those bait-like red chenille worms in my string of ornaments.
There were few immutable lines in my parents’ family, nor in mine. In both, we operated under general guidelines. Heck, one of my daughters is involved with a bait fisherman, and I’m giving him a chance.
If the good minister had had a daughter, I’m not sure her suitors would have been so lucky.