Now downstream from the Kalkaska Trout Festival, where there were few if any fish to be found, I think it’s time to instead find some keepers in some reading.
Recent casting has brought up two winners, including “The Optimist” by David Coggins, where both education and geography illustrate the many ways fishing can turn to metaphor.
Subtitled “A Case for the Fly Fishing Life,” Coggins reminds us how “life interferes with the best angling intentions,” which is certainly true if not original. Such interference, however, can also mean adventure by way of surprise.
From his Wisconsin upbringing on bass, to his early attempts at trout on Montana rivers, and onto Patagonia, England, and more, Coggins shares his adventures and his lessons on places and in prose sometimes elegiac, such as when he reminisces about Midwestern neighbors Dave and Carter, early mentors who “might have been described as difficult men, and probably were,” but treated Coggins kindly, teaching him both patience and practice.
Other times, such as when he recounts an early experience with Western guide, Coggins turns droll, as when he reminds us, “Most embarrassing stories begin with ‘I never do this sort of thing…’” just before explaining how he broke a prized fly rod when he also broke the first rule of rods: “Never set a fly rod down flat on the ground–always prop it up.”
Wherever Coggins travels, “The Optimist” reminds anglers there are plenty, if simple, reasons to chase fish.
Another recent keeper is “Fishing the Wild Waters” by Conor Sullivan, a Coast Guard veteran, equally well traveled in both geography and fish species.
Sullivan starts with a cautionary tale about fishing alone. In “New England: Hallowed Waters,” he tells of purchasing his first boat, “an older, but reliable 1988 Invader” which lacked “curb appeal,” but was nonetheless his “ticket to getting offshore to the tuna grounds.”
What the boat could not do, however, was overcome a rookie mistake of assuming that a sizable tuna would come to the boat easily. After four hours of fighting, Sullivan “was feeling the effects of exhaustion and likely the early signs of dehydration.” It only turned worse, as he did eventually boat the beast, but as he tried to bleed it with a serrated knife, the fish swung its massive tail. “My hand was almost ripped in half,” he explains, the blade slicing to the bone with Sullivan “alone, fifteen miles from shore.”
Mistakes lead to lessons, though, and Sullivan uses his tuna lesson to chase after salmon and halibut in Alaska, marlin in Hawaii, and a good many other species wherever his duties point him. His prose is more reporting than ruminating, but his stories still convince readers of the virtues of devoting time to passions.
“Fishing the Wild Waters” and “The Optimist” are both filled with globe-trotting adventure, and both ring true for readers who share the same passions. Like any such tales, however, those who know, know, and those who don’t know are not likely to find reasons to explore.
Perhaps this is why a friend said recently he won’t write about fishing anymore, as it’s all been done already. And maybe it is true there’s nothing new to be said where angling is involved, but for those who fish, and who think about fishing when not on the water, books about fishing are always a welcome upstream alternative.
Good reading.
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