By Joel Thurtell
This is nothing more than a peeve.
But it’s a peeve that has bugged me — literally — for years.
I write about it now because, well, it’s Sunday morning, the coffee is strong and hot, The New York Times was getting a bit heavy with news about fraud at Goldman Sachs, no US options against a nuclear Iran and Mexicans moving here to evade drug violence at home. I turned to the Times Magazine and read Deborah Solomon’s Q & A with Jane Fonda. It’s all about Fonda the Fitness Queen and I’m wondering if there’ll be anything about Vietnam when one short sentence trips me into blog-mode.
Fonda has just told Solomon about her ranch in New Mexico. She adds: “I like to fly-fish.”
Now, I have nothing against fishing with flies, which is to say, little manufactured insect-like morsels of bait with hooks embedded.
I have nothing against fishing with worms, either.
Or minnows, or grubs, or leeches or a chunk of soap.
Anything that gets the fish to bite.
But when I tell you I like to fish, do I say, “I like to minnow-fish”?
Or maybe, “I like to worm-fish”?
Or “grub-fish” or even “soap-fish”?
I like to fish with Rapelas, the name of a manufacturer that markets chunks of balsa shaped and painted to look like little fish with hooks dangling below and behind.
Do I go “Rapela-fishing”?
When I was a kid, my favorite lure was the “River Runt,” made by Heddon.
Did I go around telling people, “I like to River Runt-fish”? I like to “Heddon-fish”?
I like to fish.
Period.
I like to fish, even if I catch nothing, zero, naught.
Recently, I heard a speech by an author who told the audience she likes to fish — with flies.
Why is it that people who lure fish with little tufts of hair feel compelled to advertise the kind of bait they use?
After I catch a fish, I might allude to my bait.
“Mepps Number Three,” maybe, or “minnow, hooked under the lip.”
I never have fished with leeches, but I plan to try it this summer.
In Ontario, where I do my fishing, US citizens are not allowed any more to catch minnows. Used to be, we would net minnows, the absolutely most effective bait for bass, pike or perch. Only Canadians can net minnows now, and if I want to fish with minnows, that is to say in fly-fisher speak, “minnow-fish,” I have to buy them from a Canadian. I’ve tried all sorts of substitutes, and haven’t caught much lately when I went out worm-fishing, Rapela-fishing, Daredevl-fishing or Mepps-fishing.
That Canadian law is more than a peeve. It is a true pain in the keister.
Maybe I should try fly-fishing.
Which brings me back to my subject: Why is it that people who fish with these little puffs of feather or whatever that they think resemble some insect or other in mutation must trumpet the fact to the world?
Why can’t they just say they go fishing, like the rest of us mortal fisherfolk?
Is there something better, higher, more spiritually uplifting about fly-fishing?
Are fly-fisher people morally superior and thus more enlightened than peons like me who use whatever bait catches fish?
I once stopped at a fly-fishing store — yes, there are such specialty boutiques — and realized that to join this fraternity I’d have to shell out lots of bucks.
Once upon a time I wrote a newspaper story about a guy who made bamboo fly rods and sold them for thousands. Thousands of dollars, not flies.
There is something definitely exclusive about this fly-fishing thing.
I certainly am more comfortable using my old spinning rod and reel and forking over some cash for worms or artificial lures or even minnows.
I can’t afford to belong to the fly-fishing club.
Maybe that’s what annoys me when a member of the sorority brazenly announces that she is more than a fisher person. They have to tell me they do it with flies.
A bit of one-upsmanship.
Next thing you know, they’ll say they don’t like to eat fish!
Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
