"Fool's Paradise": A Short Book Review

One thing I don't do enough of is read some of the better fly fishing literature out there. In fact, I don't read a whole lot anymore about fly fishing in general, but that has mostly been a product of trying to keep my grades up in college. All my reading that is not related to classes has fallen by the wayside. Thankfully school is out for the summer and just in time I was contacted about reviewing John Gierach's new book, "Fool's Paradise." I jumped on the opportunity and just received the book yesterday. One day and 211 pages later, I'm left wondering where all my time went.

This book was a relaxing down to earth read that was easy to relate to. I have to admit that this is the first of his books that I have read, not because I don't like his writing, but because I just haven't bought many fly fishing books in general. That has been a mistake. For years I've heard people discussing some of Gierach's books and the general consensus always seems to be that the guy can write.

Fly fisherman tend to enjoy thinking at least a little or else they probably would not participate in the sport in the first place. In "Fool's Paradise," Gierach mixes interesting fishing stories with observations on the sport and life in general. He reminisces about the good old days such as when Montana didn't have a posted speed limit. One of favorite mental pictures came after reading the following regarding speed limits in Montana:

"Reasonable and prudent" was the only daytime rule, although I do remember once riding in a pickup that was stopped by a cop who asked, as if he were just passing the time of day, "Don't you guys think a hundred and there is a little excessive when you're towing a drift boat?" We explained that we were going fishing. He asked where and we told him. He wished us luck and told us to "Just take it easy."

There's got to be a good cartoon that could be made from this, and if I was half the talent as an artist that Gierach is as a writer I could probably make something pretty hilarious.

One of the most refreshing elements of the book is the lack of detail on where some of his greatest fishing memories were made. In a day when kiss and tell articles sell major fly fishing magazines, it was a special experience to read a fly fishing author that honored the age old tradition of maintaining silence about a great place to fish when asked to keep quiet by the guy showing him the river. His stories remind and inspire that yes, there really are still places were big dumb trout are the norm...places that are still pristine and bull trout can still be caught without having a federal ranger appearing out of the brush to haul you off to the penitentiary for targeting an endangered species. He also shows that he is just as crazy as a fly fisher can be, telling about fishing when it is excessively cold outside on one of those days where you start to wonder what exactly it is you are trying to accomplish or prove. Stories like this can be understood by just about any diehard and at least admired by the more lazy fisherman who only come out when it is warm.

My only complaint about this book stems from two deja vu moments I had when I realized I was reading the exact same paragraph that had appeared earlier in the book. Of course, it fit well in both places but would have better fit in just one and nevermind which...

One of my favorite chapters was called The New Guy. It brought together all the elements of fishing with a new potential fishing buddy including the telling of all your best fishing stories that everyone else in the group has already heard plenty of times. Best of all, the new guy in question was Jim Babb who is of East Tennessee origin. Making it even more personal was the fact that his brother Walter Babb is the guy that taught me how to fish nymphs in our Appalachian mountain streams.

Overall this was an excellent book which I would highly recommend. I'll be reading it again at a more leisurely pace and probably looking to buy more of Gierach's books in the near future...

New Links

I have added another link that you should check out. It is to the Fishing Fanatic and is the blog of another of my east Tennessee fishing buddies. The most recent post contains a couple of pictures of beautiful South Holston River brown trout, there's some motivation for you...

Tying the Perfect Mayfly

I've finally found the time to finish looking at some DVDs that James Marsh sent me awhile back. School caught up with me and I got too busy to review them but now want to make mention of them.

The titles were "Fly Fishing The Great Smoky Mountains National Park," "Tying Perfect Mayfly Nymphs," and Tying Perfect Mayfly Emergers, Duns & Spinners." I won't go into detail on the one about fishing the Smokies since Hawgdaddy over at the Tennessee Valley Angler did a great review you can check out here which basically says everything I had planned on saying. Great minds really do think alike...

The two tying DVDs were inspirational in a good way and also in a slightly annoying sort of way. I say annoying because they did a spectacular job of reminding me how basic my fly selection often is and even worse, how disorganized my fly boxes tend to become. If you want to learn just a few basic patterns that you can tie in different color combinations to much virtually any mayfly in the country then you really need to check out these DVDs. They not only show you how to tie the 14 basic patterns but also include recipes to match any mayfly hatch you may encounter streamside. The main downfall of these DVDs is the same for any tying program. The information is crucial and necessary and there is no better way to learn than by watching, but when it comes down to it, watching people tying on a video is not that exciting. However the organization that this will bring to your fly boxes and tying will be ample reward for the time spent watching. In the process, all but the best tiers will probably discover some new idea that will prove useful in their general tying as well.

I watched these while I tied which I found to be just about perfect. You can pay enough attention to gain the quality information contained in them but still accomplish something else useful at the same time.

These programs are perfect for use in conjunction with the "Hatches Made Easy" that James Marsh has on his Fly Fishing the Great Smoky Mountain and Yellowstone websites. If you haven't stopped by those sites in awhile, be sure and check them out. He has been making daily additions detailing the various hatches so there is plenty to see...

Caney Fork

Today I finally made the trek down to the Caney Fork for a few hours of fishing in the rain. The river is in great shape, and as long as we don't get too much rain the generation schedule should only get better. Best of all, there are plenty of quality fish in the river now after several months of higher flows. The fish are strong and healthy and hopefully a little dumb although today didn't prove that latter point at all. Unfortunately no big fish were landed, but the 10-14 inch rainbows were still a blast regardless. The fish I didn't land were the ones I will be going back for. I had strikes or briefly fought 3 fish in the 16-18 inch range and saw several that were much larger. Next time the outcome will be different...

Tomorrow I'm making the drive over to the Smokies for the day. It should be fun and I'll try and have a report up as soon as possible if anything exciting happens and probably even if it doesn't...

Busy

School's out!!! You would think that I could go fishing even more but not so. Probably my grades will reflect the abundance of fishing lately, but it was definitely worth it. Between moving home, graduation weekend for friends (mine will be later this year), and thinking about a summer job (why can't I just go fishing instead of doing something less important like working?), the fishing scene has been really slow. With a trip to town to search for that all-important job looming in my immediate future, the chances of fishing aren't all that great. On the other hand, THE CANEY IS FINALLY WADEABLE meaning that I might have to prioritize. Clearly, checking on the status of the river is much more important than landing that job. I can always put off work, well not always because it costs a lot of money just to get to the river, but perhaps one trip to the river is needed before I work too hard...

Twice the Fun

What's better than catching a fish? That would be catching two fish, at the same time that is... The white bass and hybrids were slamming baitfish in the shallows last evening. The fishing was just plain silly. Basically, it was as easy as waiting for a school of fish to come by busting bait, toss my flies in, twitch them a couple of times, and hold on. I had multiple fish on more than once but only actually landed one double.

Late in the evening, some slightly larger fish started coming up. I stuck one really good one but couldn't get a solid hookup. Finally I got a good one on and after a solid fight I landed a good fish. The rain was starting to pick back up about this time so I called it a day...one of my better ones lately...

New Poll

I'm trying to get a feel for how often everyone visits my blog. Do you check daily and are always disappointed with the lack of daily updates or do you only stop by once in awhile to see what's happening? I'm debating putting more time into this blog but want to know if it is worth it. Just vote over on the poll and let me know how often you stop by...thanks!!!

Back on the Tennessee

My curiosity has got the best of me the past couple of evenings. I've been heading down to see what is happening and today was finally a good one! Things started off quickly with a fish on within 3-4 casts and it never really slowed down all that much.

The highlight of the day was my first crappie which has been one of my goals for fishing down there. All that's really left now is a smallie and a striper. I'm about ready to give up on the striper until next winter but we'll see. The smallie is another story, and I should be able to get one of those but time will tell.

The Skipjack are still around. Last night I hooked what probably would have been my best one yet but it threw the hook a minute or so into the fight. Tonight I found a good spot where the action stayed hot for the last hour or so of daylight... Hopefully I'll have time to try again here in the next few days but with finals next week, that may be difficult. Also, it is possible that the Caney Fork might have a wadeable window this upcoming weekend. If it does, I'll be heading down to see how the fish our doing...

A Walk in the Park

That's exactly what I did this past Sunday. The weekend was spent camping at Elkmont which was great as always albeit a bit expensive. They seriously need a student rate so poor college students like myself can enjoy some time in the park without breaking the bank. I guess I just need to start backpacking instead of car camping...and now I'm off topic...

One of my favorite ways of fishing is to hike in on a day trip, sometimes up to 15-16 miles roundtrip. Sunday's goal was not that optimistic. I'm out of shape after a lazy winter so 10 miles roundtrip seemed reasonable. The trailhead at Elkmont was reasonably busy when I arrived at 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning. An hour later, I was 4 miles deep in the backcountry and ready to start fishing. The stream temperature was about 48 degrees and the clouds hinted that the air temp might not climb much as the day progressed.


A double nymph rig seemed reasonable considering the conditions and I tied on a GRHE with a softhackle dropper and a couple small split shot. After a couple fruitless casts, an energetic rainbow hit the Hares Ear and the day progressed nicely in similar fashion. An hour later I had caught 10 fish and was getting hungry. During lunch I began noticing that every time the sun poked through the clouds bugs would start flying up from the stream. After I started fishing it began to make sense. The rocks were all covered with newly hatched yellow stoneflies. It was too cold to fly quickly so they were waiting for the warmth of the sun to take to the air.


This revelation brought out my trusty Tellico nymph as the new dropper and the catching continued. Not long after lunch I hooked and lost the best fish of the day, a brown pushing 11 inches. I missed a nice brookie as well but the rainbows kept coming to hand at a steady pace.


Somewhere after 30 fish I began to wonder if they might hit a dry and out come a yellow Neversink Caddis. The fish must have been starving, because they attacked it with reckless abandon. The time was slipping away unfortunately so I finally called it a day and started the trek back to the trailhead with another amazing day on the water under my belt. By 7:00 p.m. I was on the road back to Chattanooga with a great sunset in front of me and a relaxing weekend behind...

Big Trout

That's right, big beautiful rainbow trout. Unfortunately I'm not the one that caught them. There's nothing quite like battling a large trout on a fly rod and Tom Chandler over at the Trout Underground seemingly hit the jackpot on a private pond making the rest of the world (or at least those of us that fly fish) envious in the process. Definitely check it out, but I warn you that anything related to work or school will be difficult to near impossible as you start daydreaming of that upcoming trip where maybe, must maybe, you will battle your own monster trout...