MORE THAN MATCHING THE HATCH

November 16, 2009

Matching the Hatch was already a big deal by the time I became seriously involved in fly fishing. The book that made this a common term in fly-fishing vernacular was first published in 1955, and the author Ernest Schweibert was THE big name. He was raised in the Chicago region and as a kid spent many summers on the Pere Marquette River in Michigan. The story goes that he caught a trout at age five, was totally fascinated by the magnificent coloring of the fish and just never got over it.

I loaned my copy of "the hatch" to a friend who didn’t return it. Years later I picked up a soft-cover version at the local second hand book store. I was not lucky enough to possess Nymphs, Salmon of the World, or the two-volume Trout. Ernie was educated as an architect, but had a keen sense about all things trout. He personally drew the illustrations for the very detailed nymphs’ book, as he did for the other books that he wrote.

Ernie Schweibert probably influenced more fly fishers than any other one person. His book on matching ones fly to the insects on/or above the water made more people aware of the conditions around them when fishing, and by following the instructions in the book, one could really improve the quality as well as quality of their fishing. Unfortunately the earlier book, A Modern Dry Fly Code (1950) by Vince Marinaro, (which Schweibert acknowledges in "the hatch") did not get the publicity or following that "the hatch" received.

Personally I did not know about Marinaro’s book until twenty some years later when I first met him on the South Branch of the Au Sable River near Grayling Michigan. I did have my own copy of ‘the hatch’ however, and it went with me where ever I fished. Had it not been for Ernie Schweibert’s first book I would never had an interest in or learned about insects at all. Entomology was not my field, but it became very important to my fly fishing - more precisely catching.

I ran across a speech Ernie gave at the opening of the American Museum of Fly Fishing, 2005. I know we all fish for different reasons - and in fact you may have difficulty in explaining exactly why you fish.

Here is Ernie’s.

"People often ask why I fish, and after seventy-odd years, I am beginning to understand.
I fish because of Beauty.

Everything about our sport...is beautiful. Its more than five centuries of manuscript and books and folios are beautiful. Its artifacts of rods and beautifully machined reels are beautiful. Its old wading staffs and split-willow creels, and the delicate artifice of its flies, are beautiful. Dressing such confections of fur, feathers and steel is beautiful, and our worktables are littered with gorgeous scraps of tragopan and golden pheasant and blue chattered and Coq de Leon. The best of sporting art is beautiful. The riverscapes that sustain the fish are beautiful. Our methods of seeking them are beautiful, and we find ourselves enthralled with the quicksilver poetry of the fish.

And in our contentious time of partisan hubris, selfishness, and outright mendacity, Beauty itself may prove the most endangered thing of all.” Ernest Schwiebert - 2005 Dedication of the American Museum of Fly Fishing, Manchester, Vermont.

And how about you? Why do you fish?

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