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Anonymous
Posted August 10, 2006
Cowboy Trout will 'hook' any reader
Paul Schullery¿s Cowboy Trout: Western Fly Fishing as if it Matters is not another fishing story about the big one hanging on the wall or the even bigger one that got away. Rather, this collection of seven essays explores the ways fly-fishing shaped the attitudes, identity, and culture of the West, especially in Montana and the Greater Yellowstone region. Fly-fishing was not a new sport when it first came to the West in the mid-nineteenth century, but since that time, according to Schullery, a distinctive western style emerged. Cowboy Trout demonstrates how westerners made fly-fishing their own without abandoning the traditions of angling¿s long history. In the first essay Schullery looks at our ideas of ¿sport,¿ comparing modern catch-and-release fishing with the seventeenth-century practice of tying a pike¿s tail to the foot of a goose (both alive and both very unhappy) for the entertainment of English noblemen. Two other essays describe the fishing in early-day Yellowstone National Park¿from the time visitors fished to avoid the threat of starvation to the time when the visitors themselves became a threat to Yellowstone¿s fisheries. In another essay, titled ¿A River Runs Through It as Folklore and History,¿ Schullery recalls his own somewhat controversial reactions to Norman Maclean¿s fly-fishing classic. The essay ¿Dark Stones and Devil Scratchers¿ describes the evolution of the artificial salmonfly. This giant, orange-bodied flying bug hatches in early summer out of an aquatic nymph form in western rivers and causes a trout feeding frenzy. Yet because the salmonfly was unknown in the East, early anglers had to imitate the bug using traditional patterns tied on big hooks. But fly tiers in western Montana began crafting their own imitations, like the ¿Bunyan Bug¿ with its hand-carved and -painted wood body (made popular by Maclean¿s A River Runs Through It after its original popularity among Montana anglers), the ¿Mite¿ series of woven hair flies developed by a Missoula wigmaker, or the ¿Black Creeper¿ tied to imitate the aquatic salmonfly nymph. Today, some of these flies can still be found in flyshops alongside more recent attempts to imitate the same bug. The newer flies often combine natural materials with the latest in fly-tying technology, like rubber, foam, and shiny plastic, yet the classics still seem to catch fish just fine. In this and other essays, Schullery¿s extensive research and witty writing style convey the tales, tricks, tackle, and techniques of legendary western fisherman such as George Grant and Warren Gillette. This history helps today¿s fisherman connect to local traditions whether he is floating past the rain-spattered rocks from the basement of time that line the Big Blackfoot, stripping a streamer along the undercut banks of the Big Hole, or tossing a salmonfly imitation behind the pier at Varney Bridge on the Madison. Cowboy Trout¿s message that fly-fishing has influenced western identity as much as westerners have influenced fly-fishing gives comfort to those seeking a greater role than mere sport for fly-fishing or those who need justification for the disproportionately large amount of their life spent fishing, though if this latter group shares Schullery¿s great love of fly-fishing, they should need no justification.
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Anonymous
Posted August 6, 2006
Should be considered 'must' reading
Enhanced with 30 illustrations, a bibliography and an index, Cowboy Trout: Western Fly Fishing As If It Matters by Paul Schullery (former director of the American Museum of Fly Fishing) is a 288-page book that is basically devoted to answering the question posed by the author in his introduction: 'Can fly fishing make you a Western?'. Schullery writes with an articulate flair about flying fishing in western culture fly fishing in the Yellowstone country in 1870 fly fishing in the Yellowstone country in the 20th century, fly fishing rivers in folklore and history, fly fishing as sport and to put food on the table spiritual aspects of fly fishing demystifying some 'sacred cows' of fly fishing, and how the life lessons of fly fishing have historical reached far beyond casting a line in a pond, stream, lake or river. Cowboy Trout should be considered 'must' reading for anyone who ever threw in a line off the back of their boat, waded hip deep in a stream, or just sat on a river bank and waited for a nibble.
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