The Devil and Mental Disease
By Michael "The Boxcar" Widener
All victims of the no-name disease are liars and thieves.
Let us face the truth and embrace the darkness associated
with fly-fishing and/or fly-casting. To honor and paraphrase
Green River guide Emmett Heath, "what the guide said yesterday
or an hour ago does not necessarily apply now" is applicable
to us all. It is not that victims of the no-name disease
lie intentionally; it is just that the truth seems to change
on a continual basis. Dementia caused from chasing the truth
is "fun" to me.
For example, upon your arrival to a stream, I come up to you
in a friendly manner, a total stranger and inform you that
EHC #16-18 in olive and tan are the choice of the day. Then,
you go down stream a little way and run into another caster
who is yelling for you to tie on a BWO #16 and get into the
water. Later you run into yet another caster who informs you
that there is not a fish for fifty miles. Did those folks
lie to you? Probably not, but that is the beauty of the
no-name disease. Everyone was having "fun" at what they
were doing. Even the caster who was thrashing the water
and who was without benefit of a single fish would probably
say he would be no other place. I know this to be true since
I was he at one time.
Originally and ownership is also a severe detrimental mental
factor only if one allows it to become a problem. I have to
smile at people ("fun") who desire to have a fly or technique
named for them. I can see having a desire to have a monument
like a building or ship named after one's self, but a fly?
Good grief, I would rather burn calories finding and catching
fish or read a good book rather than seek notoriety by having
dead animal parts named for myself. I suspect that an unhappy
childhood may have something to do with this urge (and possibly
the desire to eat and pay bills). I still have to laugh when
reading Mary Orvis Marbury's Favorite Flies and Their Histories,
1892, of testimonials that the Cherokee Indians were tying
comparadun-like deer hair flies generations before the
nineteenth century (descriptions of flies with deer hair
strips pointing away from the hook point). Hence, I doubt
the true unique originality of anything that combines hook
and feather together.
I will be honest and say I have had "fun" with flies among
my peers. I am certain that I will have to atone my sins
before the Great Maker on day. I love to be with someone,
and gingerly take a separate box out of a pocket and announce
a secret fly. My favorite is my Major Mike's Secret Emerger
that works like a charm on a local tailwaters (unless your
fishing with Grizz, then it does not work at all). Am I
the originator? Heck No! I got the basic pattern from a
western guide that probably got it from . . . well, you get
the picture. It is like trying to trace the "begets" in the
Old Testament of the Bible, you just cannot get there from here.
I will just close this one by saying that you can really hurt
your mental health badly by trying to be famous over something
like a ball of thread and feathers.
Be careful what you tell people. Having loitered entirely too
long in my local fly shop, I was put to work as an employee.
This experience has been an eye opener for me. Almost daily,
individuals walk in and announce with great voice and conviction
that they have hooked and landed trout in great number that always
seem to be at least twenty inches in length. I fish the same
water and come up with nothing over fourteen inches as supported
by the state stocking report (after a major fish kill). So, I
just stand there and say nothing since the customer is always
right while all the time I am thinking El Toro Crappo on you buddy.
Yet, I find great joy ("fun") in listening to people who give
public orations of their adventures. I just wish anglers and
fellow victims would learn to count and measure things with
some minimum degree of accuracy. ~ Boxcar
Lighter Side Archive
|
