At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman
John Gierach, Simon & Schuster, NY 2003 This book is classic Gierach and good reading. It features his BFF, Mike Clark, who is a self-taught bamboo rod maker, now living in Lyons, Colorado, near Gierach, who meets Walt Carpenter, who worked for two of the greats in bamboo, Leonard and Payne, and then built his own rods using the old F.E. Thomas Milling machine. He mentions his favorite light bamboo rods: a 7’9” Legacy by John Bradford, a 7’9” by Mike Clark, and an old 7 ½-foot F.E. Thomas Special, circa 1940—all two-piece 5 weights, which is not what I would consider light, but he is a dyed in wool dry fly fisher with larger favorite flies than mine. And there are stories about his other buddy, A.K. Best, who talks about his mentoring under Koke Winter. And an old guy, who said to Gierach, “Boy, I’ve forgotten more about fishing than you’ll ever know.” Or the retort that “Fly-fishing can be upscale and exotic if you want it to be and can afford that, but at base it’s homegrown, backyard stuff: something people used to do when the chores were done; a way of goofing off that was barely justified by a couple of fresh fish for supper.” There is more than great characters and quotes, such as discussion of Muriel Foster’s Fishing Diary and videos on fly fishing which “seems a little like movie sex: fun to watch, but a long way from the real thing” wand which can amount to “information without proper instruction.” I like the comment of the fly shop customer who asks how long to get really good at this and Gierach responds, “Ten years, if you fish three or four times
