The Contemplative Angler

As some have assumed that I have a ready knowledge of fishing, I regularly get mail asking such questions as:

What is "fishing with nymphs"?

I will therefore address this burning question. There is typically a grevious misunderstanding about fishing with nymphs. First, as to the type of nymph. You should choose the nymph according to the type of fishing. Please peruse the following list:

Types of Nymphs and Major Nymph Names
Nymphs (pl. nymphai) are mythological nature spirits that appear as beautiful young women. They are divided into types:

Dryads (forests)
Naiads (springs and rivers)
Nereid (the Mediterranean)
Oceanids (the sea)
Oreads (mountains)
Limoniads (meadows)
Limniads (lakes, marshes and swamps)
Napaea (valleys)
Although long-lived many nymphs can die. Nymphs can cause metamorphoses and can change women into nymphs.

Or have we merely misplaced ourselves? When I was a beardless youth, the "outdoors" was exemplified by magazines such as Fur, Fish, and Game with cogent advice on how to survive for three weeks lost in the mountains in a blizzard with only a pocket knife, a ball of string, two matches, and a Hershey bar -- always a Hershey bar. We learned from these cellulose sages the proper way to set snares, skin rabbits, clean trout, and the myriad methods of fire-starting...

or
The Essential Articles, Adjuncts, Appurtenances, and Apparel
for the Successful Angling of Trout
By
Percy Blythe Sydney-Todd, III ODS

Well, Overmywaders (OMW) came to me last week and said he needed me to "blog" for him, just this once. I said I had never done it; had of course heard of it in my youth at Eton; admitted to knowing a sweet Nellie or two; but was not inclined so. He graciously informed me that "blogging" was simply writing about something, that all you really needed was a good subtitle and you are right as rain. As you can see, I have achieved the primary objective -- ODS is not really a title, but rather something the chaps used to call me. They told me it stands for "Offally Decent Sort"...

Well, according to Charles Cotton in The Compleat Angler (1653), the answer would be, for most of us, myself among the number -- "No!". Charles said that "He who cannot kill a trout of twenty inches with two [hairs from a horse's tail], deserves not the name of angler."

According a 20" brown trout the usual estimated weight of 3 pounds 7 ounces and the two hair leader a generous 2.5 lb. test, add to that the lack of a reel (only a fifteen foot rod and fifteen feet of line), and I know I could not land that fish. Of course, I've never been so tested.

However, three hundred years later the American fly fisherman took to the stream ...

Some of the great fly fishing traditions have been left behind, neglected in our historical closet with the large bottle of Cod Liver Oil and the tin can of worms you meant to free when you got home, twenty years ago. Few are the brave souls who will even mention the wonderful angling moments of the past, much less repeat them.

Pipe smoking was as much a part of the piscitorial pleasure as the casting and catching of the wary trout. You had your felt hat, your ill-fitting waders, a fishing jacket, all necessary angling implements -- and your pipe. Now, standing in mid-stream while holding both flyrod, pipe, and matches was achievement enough, but the infernal device was always going out just as a wind whipped some stoneflies onto the water. If that weren't enough, how many pipesmoking fishermen, concluding that the late-day shower would soon pass, inverted their pipes so that the rain wouldn't put out the fine glow of Sail tobacco? And what was the inevitable result? The entire pipeful of glowing coals fell out of the pipe bowl -- into their waders -- provoking a colorful jig toward deep water.

Some might call me "fat". Such a description, besides its inaccuracy in describing my girth, has little emotive value to me. Now, had they called me "portly", I would have assumed a jolly countenance and general benevolence in a truly Pickwickian manner; "rotund" would have me feeling ponderous, weighty, substantial; and "morbidly obese" would have caused me to instantly expire or at least endure that expectation.

Such is the astounding power of words. Each combination of letters which constitute a word carry their own value, their own cultural potency. Thus, imagine my delight when I discovered that the Fish and Wildlife Departments of most of Canada's provinces have, perhaps unintentionally, converted the acronym C&R (typically "Catch and Release") to assume the relatively benign designation "Catch and Retain".