|
I suffer from extreme Seasonal Affective Disorder
(SAD). When the striped bass season ends, I am
extremely affected and disordered. "Whenever I
find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever
it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever
I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin
warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral
I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an
upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral
principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping
into the street, and methodically knocking people's
hats off-then, I account it high time to get to sea
as soon as I can," observed Ishamel. And fish for
striped bass, I would add.
Unfortunately, it will be four long months before
I feel the tug of a linesider on the 9 weight, and
there's not much I can do about that short of driving
to the Chesapeake. I try to fill the void with
other interests, like skiing (for you Florida guys,
skiing is attaching two long planks to your feet and
sliding down snow covered mountains. Mountains are
these big mounds of dirt and rocks and trees, and
snow is this cold white slippery stuff that falls
from the New England sky in the winter). But my
psyche is such that, rather than enjoy skiing, I
see it as an apt metaphor for my life-going downhill
fast. And this morning I awoke to a foot of snow on
the ground, and the salt-water estuary in front of
my house frozen solid. I half expect to see a polar
bear lumbering among the floes. It is during what
F. Scott Fitzgerald called the "real dark night of
the soul" that you turn to that which comforts you
most. No, not family, nor faith, nor friends, but
fly fishing catalogs.
Having once been a subscriber to fishing magazines,
I'm on every sportsman's mailing list imaginable,
to the point of getting a signed photo of George
Bush, along with a letter asking for my support
even though I grew up in Chicago and am descended
from a long line of Democratic ward heelers and
union organizers. But along with the dire warnings
from the NRA about my waning Right to Bear Arms,
I receive a significant number of fly-fishing catalogs.
I mentally divide the catalogs into different
categories according to their use. For the
longest time my favorite was the Redington
Tackle Company, not for the equipment, though
it is fine, but because it featured a friend
of mine in fishing poses that only a non-fishing
photographer could have conceived. One full-paged
photo was so silly that I had it framed and presented
it as the prize for the most unusual catch in the
gag fishing tournament I host every year. The
awarding of this prize would always earn me a
good-natured cussing out from both the recipient
and the subject of the photo, but since Redington
has been absorbed by Sage this particular image is,
regrettably, no longer used.
There are those catalogs from which I actually
purchase something, such as Orvis. Within its
covers, amongst the pages filled with beautiful
fishing photos, you can find everything a fly
fisher could possibly want. The copy writing
leaves something to be desired, with too many
items described as 'adding twenty feet to your
cast' (we joke that purchasing any two such items
will allow you to cast forty feet without lifting
the rod), and in one recent spread a rod was
described as excellent for 'multi-tasking,' a
sell-out to the MBA Wall Street crowd. But the
quality of the equipment is undeniable, and I can
sit for hours staring at the beautiful glossy
photos, imagining the purchase of a high-end rod
to use at one of the exotic locales featured in
the booklet.
The L.L. Bean fly fishing catalog ranks right
alongside Orvis. I own a number of Bean rods
and reels and the quality is undeniable and
backed by the best guarantee in the business,
yet for some reason Bean always ends up playing
Salieri to Orvis' Mozart. But the catalog provides
a welcome respite on a cold winter night, and I
will sit in front of the woodstove, thumbing
through its pages and always manage to find
something I need (well, probably want is more
accurate, but why quibble?)
There are also catalogs that, while I don't buy
from, I'll use as a reference. The Umpqua Feather
Merchants catalog features pages of glossy photos
of beautiful flies, and though recipes aren't
included, you can usually discern the dressing
from the picture. I peruse them all; Feathercrafters,
Dan Bailey's, Abel, and while I'm unlikely to make
a purchase, they fan the fly-fishing embers that
smolder during the off-season.
The magnum opus of catalogs is the Cabela's
seasonal catalog. Though more hunting than
fly-fishing, it's as enjoyable as a hefty,
well-written novel and provides a welcome
escape in the throes of winter, and portends
upcoming wilderness adventures.
"Fly fishing catalogs are good enough in their
own way, but they are a mighty bloodless
substitute for fishing," Robert Louis Stevenson
might say. But thumbing through pages of catalogs
can provide a modicum of solace until I am once
again chest deep in the Atlantic, casting large,
colorful flies to voracious striped bass. ~ Dave
About Dave:
Dave Micus lives in Ipswich, Massachusetts. He is an
avid striped bass fly fisherman, writer and instructor.
He writes a fly fishing column for the Port City Planet
newspaper of Newburyport, MA (home of Plum Island and Joppa Flats)
and teaches a fly fishing course at Boston University.
|
