Cowboy Trout: Western Fly Fishing as If It Matters

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Overview

Fly fishing intersects western history in so many ways that it is surprising that more writers--besides historians--have not sensed its rhetorical and scholarly opportunities. As fly fishing's practitioners grow in economic power, political reach, ecological awareness, and clarity of need, those intersections will only become more compelling.

In the fine tradition of angling books that celebrate fly fishing for the way it invites readers into unfettered ecological settings and connects them to the wonder of rivers, Paul Schullery's masterful Cowboy Trout raises to a new level of power the old saying that there is more to fishing than the catching of fish. The heightened sense of a wild place--not merely of the water but of a whole landscape-has turned out to be fly fishing's greatest gift to the West and to those who pursue fish in its rugged embrace.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780972152273
Publisher: Montana Historical Society Press
Publication date: 4/1/2006
Pages: 288
Sales rank: 460,456
Product dimensions: 5.90 (w) x 8.90 (h) x 0.90 (d)

Meet the Author

Paul Schullery, a former director of The American Museum of Fly Fishing, is the author, co-author, or editor of more than thirty books on natural history, conservation, and sport. His previous fly-fishing related books include American Fly Fishing: A History (1987); Royal Coachman: The Lore and Legends of Fly Fishing (1998); and Shupton's Fancy: A Tale of the Fly Fishing Obsession (1995). Paul has received numerous awards and honors, including an honorary doctorate of letters from Montana State University, and the Wallace Stegner Award from the University of Colorado Center of the American West. He lives in Bozeman, Montana.

Read an Excerpt

On July 3, 1889, a young Rudyard Kipling, just then observing, writing, and fishing his way across the United States, stepped from the train in Livingston, Montana, which he quickly judged to be "a grubby little hamlet full of men without clean collars and perfectly unable to get through one sentence unadorned by three oaths." But he loved the countryside, especially the Yellowstone River, which, "hidden by the water willows, lifted up its voice and sang a little song to the mountains." Later that day, as he was riding the park branch line south through Paradise Valley, a sympathetic stranger saw him eyeing the river and told him to "Lie off at Yankee Jim's if you want good fishing." Kipling could not resist.
"Yankee Jim" George ran a toll road through the canyon now named for him, at the south end of Paradise Valley, and did a brisk business with tourists on their way to and from Yellowstone Park. He also took in the occasional guest at his "log hut" overlooking the river. Kipling described him as "a picturesque old man with a talent for yarns that Ananias might have envied," but happily announced that he did not exaggerate the qualities of the river on those hot, sunny days.
Rudyard Kipling was on his way from India to England and was soon to become one of the planet's most celebrated figures. He may seem anything but a typical man of his time, but in one way he was. Among serious fly fishers, he would have pretty much represented the average guy, and his tackle would have revealed just how cosmopolitan that average guy was.
His rod was probably made of "Calcutta" bamboo from India, split and glued into an excellent casting instrument by one of many British or American rodmakers. His line was almost certainly silk from India or Persia, plaited to perfection in some European or American tackle factory. His leaders would have been silkworm gut from Italy, Sicily, Portugal, or (most likely) Spain. His flies could have contained feathers and furs from six continents, tied on Irish, English, or Norwegian hooks, in patterns representing several centuries of British fly-pattern theorizing.
Kipling demonstrated that quite early in what we now might think of as the "frontier days," fly fishing in the "Wild West" was facilitated by a global trade, numerous multinational industries, and the efforts of individual laborers, craftsmen, and artisans in a dozen or more countries. Even in Kipling's time, when you fly fished the West, you brought the world with you.

Introduction: Can fly fishing make you a westerner? (1) "Ye Gods! that was fishing": An old sport comes to the New West (2) Fly Fishing in Western Culture (3) Yellowstone I: Sport, Science, and Subsistence in 1870 (4) Yellowstone II: Edward in Wonderland (5) Dark Stones and Devil Scratchers (6) A River Runs Through It as Folklore and History (7) Cowboy Trout (8) Fly Fishing As If It Mattered Acknowledgments Endnotes

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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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Cowboy Trout: Western Fly Fishing as If It Matters

Overview

Customers Who Bought This Also Bought

More About This Book

Overview

Related Subjects

Product Details

Meet the Author

Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Rating Distribution

Cowboy Trout will 'hook' any reader

Should be considered 'must' reading