Excerpt from the Book

Introduction: Fishing is not an escape from life, but often a deeper immersion into it. —Harry Middleton

MAY 25, 2011—Neighbors tell me the last of the lingering winter chill will be giving way to more pleasant temperatures in the coming days. It’s jested by many on the western shore of Lake Michigan that Wisconsin doesn’t have a spring, instead transitioning directly from winter to summer. At any rate, with frigid 25 mile an hour winds again bearing down on us off of the lake, it’s another good day to either finish off one of several books I always seem to have going or maybe revisit a favorite DVD while assuming that familiar lounging position my wife, Karol, says I’m becoming noted for. I guess, fortunately for me, one of the books won out this day. The choice: The Angler’s Life, one of several books I acquired through the annual members’ book sale put on by the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum before opting out of Con Edison and leaving New York for good last April.

The always-welcome sight of that museum, tucked in behind that picturesque hemlock-and fir-lined stretch of historic Willowemoc Creek, its only access that quaint, singlelane, wood-plank bridge off Old Route 17, just up the road from Livingston Manor—the gateway to the Catskills … Entering the museum, the eyes always seemed to be drawn toward that Theodore Gordon display case—that vintage Quill Gordon dry fly, correspondence to and from Frederick Halford, that old Trout Valley Farm register bearing his signature, his favorite books … and the Lee Wulff display, those famous salmon rods and vest and fly-tying desk as if he just got up from it… and the Dettes … the Darbees … they’re all there on display, and so vivid. And on the way back to the car, that quaint, unassuming museum gift shop patiently awaited your patronage—as fine a selection of fly fishing books and memorabilia as you’d be likely to find in one place, always stocked and orderly … and all just an hour-and-fifteen-minute drive from my then home in Newburgh, New York. What relief that museum and hallowed trout waters surrounding it provided from my otherwise all-consuming daily commute into Manhattan and greater New York City living.

There I go again—reminiscing. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately, replaying the many memorable spring days that have come and gone in my life, in the various parts of this country I’ve temporarily called home over the past four decades. The circumstances, both personal and professional, that occasioned these now frozen bits of time again so clear and, too, the familiar feelings of anticipation, restlessness, and wonder, even certain defining scents and sounds, again filling my consciousness. Yes, that rite of passage has again unmistakably occurred as it has without fail for decades now. You see, I’m a fly fisherman and traditionalist to the core, and trout season has again arrived. And this year, for the first time since leaving Wisconsin in 1974, I’m again a citizen of my native state, and I anxiously await my first fly fishing trip to what I’ve considered all my life to be very special waters—this having been instilled in me by my grandfather, who always reminded me, “Trout fishing in these parts is a privilege granting the responsible angler the best of nature’s resources and an undying desire to return to favorite haunts.”

In the recollection of the trout fisherman
it is always spring. The blackbird sings of
a May morning. The little trout jump in
the riffles, and the German Brown comes
surely to the fly on the evening rise.
(R. Palmer Baker, The Sweet of the Year)

It has been quite a journey since leaving my hometown of Manitowoc for that first postcollegiate career opportunity. It was late afternoon on New Year’s Eve 1974, after several flight cancellations due to snow, that, with a bit of ambivalence, I said my good-byes to my parents and brother and boarded that vintage North Central Airlines Convair 340—a plane affectionately referred to as the Ruptured Goose by my father, who had made a living flying the Goose during his many years as manager of Crane Parts Sales with Manitowoc Engineering Company. I was headed for Kansas City, Missouri, and Black & Veatch, the international consulting engineering firm servicing the utility industry. The Goose would be dropping me off at Milwaukee’s Billy Mitchell Field (a.k.a., General Mitchell International Airport), where I’d be boarding my first commercial jetliner—a TWA Boeing 707 which had also seen its better days—and later that evening would provide my first experience with air turbulence, in retrospect perhaps a sign of things to come.

Having accepted a position in Black & Veatch’s Corporate Mechanical Design Division, I had no idea it would eventually lead to a field position in procurement, which would ultimately relocate me from coast to coast three times under contract with various technical service firms and involve something referred to as the fossil power and nuclear power generation industries—industries I didn’t particularly school for (or aspire to) with a double major in mechanical design and psychology. In fact, I had ambivalent feelings about leaving college in 1974, having been seriously considering a master’s degree in psychology, hesitantly deferring to mechanical design and Black & Veatch, thinking I could always pursue psychology later if the consulting engineering game proved not to be for me. Regrettably, mounting expenses and a general indecisiveness on my part resulted in my never pursuing the psychology option. I opted for the prestige of a high-profile company instead of following my gut and have always regretted it. This was not the first regret on what would become a list as time went on.