March 12th, 2001

In the Big Inning
By James Castwell


Once upon a time...a very long time ago, when the world was new, a man lived in a nice garden. It had a small stream and many trout and he would watch them by the hour, and he was happy and all was good. Except he could not catch them. At length, he complained to the owner of the garden about this problem and asked for a 'ghillie,' which he would name Steve. The owner misunderstood and made him a 'girl,' so he didn't name her Steve. From the start she was at his side, but to no avail. She could not catch the fishes in the stream either. Almost like magic, from a tree came the answer. The limbs conforming into an object which was later to be viewed as both a boon and a bane to mankind, a snake with an apple in it's mouth. A 'Diamondback with a Cortland! Seeing it she now understood and armed with her new gained knowledge she gave it to him and he waded into the stream and he caught fishes! He also realized he got very cold doing this, so he invented clothes. And thus trout fishing was invented and clothing. They climaxed the event with song and dance and ate hardy of the trout which they wrapped in fig leaves. Now, with the passage of time, two offspring emanated which gave birth to the Fly-Fishing revolution; namely, Cane and Able; the fathers of Bamboo rods and Fly Reels. So it was from the very beginning that fly-fishing has been with us my little one, for as you can see by the very nature of the names in the book, it was Fly-Fishing which was the first recreation. Some would have us believe that it was baseball when they quote, "In the big inning..." How foolish they are. Now, go to sleep like a good girl and grandpa will take you fishing in the morning. We need to dig our worms and be on the pond early if we want to catch some big ones. Jc ... ~ James Castwell

Till next week, remember . . .

Keepest Thynne Baakast Upeth

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