In the realm of nature writing there exists the sub-culture of fly-fishing, a literary arena that has produced, perhaps, more books and essays than any other sporting endeavor. John Gierach, the author of Trout Bum and other delightful works, is considered by many in the fly-fishing world to be the foremost practitioner of the subtle art of blending the angling obsession with a lively prose that is highly entertaining, often educational, and sometimes enlightening. The arrival of each Gierach book generates considerable excitement in the fly-fishing community, moderate applause in the general realm of outdoor writing, and almost no recognition from the literary arbiters of good taste. So who is this man and why has he been ignored by the world of literary criticism?
If one were to ask Mr. Gierach this his answer might be a shrugging of the shoulders and a quick tossing of the bamboo rods into the truck (always American, preferably still sporting a carburetor), before he heads off on another angling odyssey. Then again, Gierach the curmudgeon might reply, “Don’t know. Don’t care.” After all, one of the subtle pleasures of the fly-fishing life, and it a life addiction for many, is the anonymity of the craft. They don’t call it the ‘quiet sport’ for nothing. In Dances With Trout, Gierach offers a possible explanation, noting the allure of West Yellowstone, the Mecca of fly-fishing destinations. “I’ve been told that angling notoriety is the best kind in that, although certain people may know who you are, you can still walk down any street in any town in the country without being recognized – except maybe in West”. So maybe it’s the subject matter.
Perhaps it’s an East/West rivalry; snobs versus cowboys.
Gierach himself isn’t sure as he explains in Even Brook Trout Get The Blues, “Rods [bamboo] are like books. I can usually tell quality from junk, but the idea of rightness is harder to pin down and impossible to defend. For instance, if you happen to like John Updike’s novels better than those of Jim Harrison, as some deluded easterners do, what could I possibly say to make you feel otherwise”. Whatever the reasons, some signs of recognition are out there beyond the cloistered community of fly-fishers. One notable example is the listing of Gierach’s, Sex, Death, and Flyfishing in an University of New Mexico honors seminar entitled, “Gone Fishin’: Fishing, Literature, and the Human Connection” right along with classics by Hemingway, Izaak Walton, and Norman Mclean”.
“Catching a fish,” says Sam Cook, “has always been a surprisingly wonderful thing, and I’m not sure we know why” (qtd. in Cunico). In a literary career that has produced fifteen books and over three hundred magazine articles, John Gierach has spent most of his life attempting to answer this simple question and anyone who is familiar with his work knows that no one does it better.
If one desires to understand the ethereal, eternal appeal of angling then look no further; Gierach is your man. He is a master of the art of writing simple, yet evocatively beautiful essays on the joys of the fly-fishing life and the allure of the outdoors.
His seemingly effortless style, though painstakingly crafted, takes us away from the toils of modernity and refreshes the soul by cleansing it with images of pure, clean mountain streams and the philosophical questions that invariably accompany such snapshots of the natural world. To read Gierach is to understand how the pursuit of the cold-blooded trout can unleash the hot passions at the wonderment of nature, the warm reflections of the mind, and the cool existential meanderings of the soul.
Yes, he writes about fishing, but the subtle subtext of his stories contain so much more. Gierach is the sagacious, cosmic, old fart, the hopeful cynic, the optimistic reporter, the savvy commentator, and that irascible uncle we all wish we had to make us laugh, to teach us a few lessons on how to catch a fish, and to tell us to follow our heart’s desire in the face of a world more than a little irate at the sight of those “lost” souls who just want to fish as much as possible. Gierach’s example transforms the derisive label of “bum” into a positive definition of one who has achieved success in ways quite foreign to the world of consumerism. Tired of the rat race? Get out and try fly-fishing or at least read a little Gierach and watch out if you don’t get more than a tad envious.
So who is this gifted author who has remained under the radar of literary criticism, and why should we “discover” him and his considerable gifts to the literary community? John Gierach was born in 1946 in the Midwest and grew up in Illinois, Minnesota, and Ohio. In the late ‘60s he moved to Colorado and never looked back. “I graduated from Findley College in Findley, Ohio, with a major in philosophy and a minor in art and English – and absolutely worthless degree,” he says. “And I came west mostly because you could – you could do that back then, when you were 20 years old and it was the late ‘60s”. His body of work reflects both his formal education and the bohemian lifestyle he pursued in his exciting Western environment.
Despite his protestations of the futility of his education, Gierach’s writing reflects his studies: the metaphysical musings garnered in a life of on-stream reflection, the efficiently balanced style, tidy and tight, and his artistic renderings of nature. Despite his label as fly-fishing’s definitive “Trout Bum,” Gierach’s original literary ambitions were of a loftier sort. In fact, his little-known first book is a poetry collection. In his interview with Tom Bie, the editor of Drake magazine he states, “I never thought I’d become a fishing writer. I thought I’d be a poet or novelist or something. I started writing about fishing because I was doing a lot of fishing anyway and I figured, ‘Hey, why not do this’” ? Gierach’s impressive and extensive body of work indicates he has ably answered his own question. Edward Abbey found inspiration in the stark landscapes of the Southwest. Annie Dillard found inspiration along Tinker Creek. John Gierach’s magic springs from the waters of Colorado, Montana, and Alaska. Even a pilgrimage to Scotland shows up in his work.
The appeal of Gierach’s work is three-fold. To anglers everywhere his essays provide practical advice on the mechanics of putting a fish into the creel, or even better, catching it, and then releasing it back to its watery home. To those somewhat off the beaten path, his words provide more than a little inspiration to listen to other voices, to see the world in terms beyond the pragmatic, to understand that life is more than just money, possessions, and whatever murky definitions of success are in vogue at the time. In Sex, Death and Flyfishing he muses, “we sometimes begin asking the great questions that can kill time so nicely: sex, death, and fly-fishing; the meaning of life and sport; are we real participants or just observers, and what kind of difference does it make”? There’s a certain beatnik appeal to this guy. Kerouac was on the road; Gierach is on the stream.
For writers of all genres, Gierach’s output shows his remarkable ability to create individual gems out of a basic thematic formula – “Joe and I go fishin’, huntin’, campin’, etc.” Despite the apparent straightjacket of his material every story is unique, another interpretation, another take on life. His audience knows the routine, but is always amazed at the performance. It’s different each time. The cliché about writing about what you know takes on new meaning when considering Gierach’s subject material, since he is the story. He notes in, The View From Rat Lake, “There’s a good deal of latitude in outdoor writing. It’s the original gonzo journalism, after all, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson notwithstanding”. However, his writing never treads the dangerous water of self-indulgence. In fact, he a self-deprecating kind of guy, winking at the world and himself.
So Gierach’s life adventures are his material, but everyone’s wary of a “fish story”. After all, anglers of all walks are notorious liars, or at least colorful stretchers of the truth. It’s an inescapable fact of the addiction. Gierach, a huge fan of Jim Harrison quotes from his book Brown Dog, “There is something in the air here that makes us lie a lot. For instance, if you catch three brook trout you say you caught fifteen, and if you caught fifteen you say you caught three”. And what of Mr. Gierach himself? He says, “A man I’ve fished with for years was once asked if all my stories were true. He said, ‘You bet they are- in a way’”. Working within the somewhat vague boundary of fishing, Gierach is able to move beyond these limits and write quite movingly, and uproariously, about life. Yes, Gierach is a fishing writer, but he is much more than this; he is a terrific stylist and any writer would benefit from a foray into his work.
His gift is turning the prosaic tasks of catching a fish into reflective stories that go far beyond just angling. His literary style is an endearing combination of folksy reminiscences, generous doses of his quirky, yet endearing humor, a sparse and efficient delivery, and a seemingly effortless ability, that is in fact, the product of innate talent and an honest-to-goodness Midwestern work ethic. As any writer knows, the art of writing simply, yet evocatively is quite difficult. The result of such efforts can be quite forced and simply awful, or in the case of Gierach, beautifully rendered in compact, stylishly memorable studies in the art of efficient word play.
Paul Geurnsey, the editor of Fly Rod and Reel magazine sums up John Gierach’s considerable influence:
John is the angling voice of his generation. He is probably the best known fly fisherman in the country next to Lefty Kreh. His sense of irony and introspection is outstanding and he is a very authentic, very American writer. In fly fishing there is a strong streak of snobbery. But Gierach will turn in a column about fishing for carp or something and he’ll actually help bring some his readers down to earth.
Geurnsey further notes that hopeful writers who submit to his publication are often attempting to imitate Gierach’s unique style. He adds that, “Nobody can, of course, but they all try.”
One thing Gierach isn’t is a snob. Always a down-to-earth, good-ole boy, he enjoys poking fun at the purist and the crowds of sports who descended upon America’s waters after the stunning success of Robert Redford’s movie of Norman McLean’s A River Runs Through It. There is a sense of tradition to the sport, however, and Gierach is a connoisseur of fine bamboo rods noting that a bamboo rod-maker friend of his believes that, “fly-fishing is a sport in which fish are caught properly only in a certain way, often against all odds, and that using rods made from a weird kind of grass that grows in China seems somehow appropriate”.
Of course, the terms proper and correct can be arguable in the angling world. And as anyone who has even barely scratched the financial surface of the sport can tell you; fly-fishing isn’t cheap. There will always be the blood of the aristocrat flowing through the sport. “Purity by nostalgia is an interesting idea, but the logic is inescapable. To do it right you’d have to live in a cave, hit your trout on the head with rocks, and eat them raw. But, so as not to violate another essential element of the fly-fishing tradition, the rocks would have to quarried in England and cost $300 each”.
The Gierach touch is thus, the epitome of the angler/writer approach. Noting the connections between the short emergence of a mayfly hatch and getting your magazine article done, he states:
It seems to me that dry fly fishing is a lot like writing. There’s room for great artfulness (not to mention the constant danger of self-indulgence), but in the end it’s usually best when it’s hard nosed: Start at the beginning, say what you have to say, and stop when you come to the end. The paragraph that begins, “And so, the sun sinks slowly in the west. . .” should always be deleted. There are even deadlines.
Gierach’s advice for colorful writing is cautionary though as he dispels the myth that you shouldn’t miss your beloved while off chasing fish. “Regardless of what you’ve heard, it’s entirely permissible to miss the girlfriend . . . but you do have to watch it when you have a pen in your hand. If you’re not careful, all your sunsets will be orgasmic, and all your trout will be pulsing and throbbing”. For Gierach there’s a strong connection between good writing and good fishing as he explains in the introduction to Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders, a recent compilation of some of his favorite stories:
I think writing is a lot like fishing, especially when it’s about fishing, as most of mine is. Both take curiosity, patience, persistence, lots of time, some skill, a willingness to put things together in odd ways, an appreciation of the process itself (regardless of how it turns out), and faith that it’s all somehow worthwhile. What sane person would spend a whole day writing a paragraph that reads like it was dashed off in thirty seconds? The same kind who’d fish for one big trout all morning just so he can look at it and release it. (9)
The persistence of the fly-fisher is certainly reflected in Gierach’s writing. Having written weekly columns locally in Colorado and nationally, The New York Times, he knows the value of just doing it. “Being a weekly columnist is grueling, but it’s a good job for a writer. If nothing else, it’s steady work, and it also keeps you in shape…You know that whatever else happens in a week’s time, you’ll write one reasonably coherent, 800-word story, and in most cases you’ll go fishing at least one extra time so you’ll have something to write about”.
The connections between fishing and writing appear periodically throughout Gierach’s work. He acknowledges the struggle between the familiar and the new where anglers and authors are concerned. Both are, “restless, always sniffing out something unfamiliar to compare with what we think we already know” (13). Gierach offers a final analysis of the connection:
I think a good fishing story is like any other story: It either gets at something that wasn’t immediately apparent or it gets at something obvious in a way you never thought of before. Beyond that it’s honest, plainspoken, and avoids being a bill-board for the author’s ego. Of course that last one is the trickiest, because your own motives are always the hardest to see and because without a pretty healthy ego you wouldn’t be writing in the first place. (12)
Gierach the author knows what it takes to succeed in the hostile and difficult world of publishing. In short, it’s all about effort for him. But we as readers know he has been blessed with a gift. He is often quite modest about his angling ability (we don’t really believe this, of course) but there can be no doubt that his writing is top-notch. He is an expert and perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in his use of humor. When you read Gierach you laugh, often out loud, no matter where you happen to be at the time.
For example, in his hilarious chapter on “Expertizing” he gives us the routine of doing it properly without being exposed as a fraud, “Expertizing means acting like an expert. Not necessarily being an expert, mind you, but acting like one. There’s a difference”. One key is to avoid an audience, a certain forum for embarrassment and exposure. Asked to give a presentation at a Trout Unlimited Banquet, Gierach was introduced as a master practitioner of the art of fly-fishing; he was wary. “I had never fished with this guy either. I walked to the front of the room and looked out on dozens of familiar faces, fully half of whom knew the same streams I did and could fish circles around me blindfolded. They applauded. This is much more profound than simple stage fright” (52-53).
Continuing Gierach notes that pretending to the throne involves the proper language and costume. “Naturally, the most effective way to expertise isn’t to hold forth in front of an audience (unless you actually happen to be a genuine expert) but to do the exact opposite, that is, keep your mouth shut and just assume the pose.” An old hat, vest, and patched waders, preferably transported in an “…old, unwashed pickup truck (this gives the impression that you’ve been all over hell, mostly on dirt roads).” He also notes the utility of gray hairs in the beard, glad that his have arrived, “naturally at my jowls (prematurely, of course), thus saving me from having to sneak into a beauty parlor in dark glasses to have the thing frosted” (53).
Noting the danger of speaking too much, Gierach adds, “but when circumstances force you to speak, say very little and be as vague and enigmatic as possible. If that’s hard for you to get a handle on, go down to the video store and rent some Gary Cooper Westerns”. Finally, he offers the following, “And, as a well-known (and genuine) fly-fishing expert once told me, ‘Be damned careful what you say for fear of being believed. If you say you can catch more trout if you fish with your wanger hanging out, somebody will try it.’ I rest my case” (55).
Sex is a topic that dots the pages of Gierach’s books. He draws some interesting parallels between the frustrating pursuit of Atlantic salmon – a fish biologically pre-disposed to not eat anything on its homeward journey to spawn, perhaps the most frustrating fish on the planet – and the similar frustrations of the pursuit of sex:
You put yourself through this because some fishermen say catching an Atlantic salmon on a fly is as good as sex, even though you know in your heart it isn’t. I agree with a friend of mine who says that if fishing is really like sex, then he’s doing one of them wrong. For one thing – as the salmon fishers tell it – either you catch a fish way too soon, before you’re fully able to appreciate it, or you have to wait much longer than you think should have to, so that when you finally hook and land one the elation is tempered by a profound sense of relief.(Dances With Trout 102).
And of course, Gierach makes the connection between a frustratingly difficult salmonid and one’s first initiation into the mysteries of the opposite sex, “It reminded me of when I was a kid and some grown man would decide to take me aside and give me the kindly lecture on women. He’d fall into this vague, humorous mode, trying not to let on that, although he had considerably more experience than I did, he still didn’t know what the hell he was talking about” (102).
Gierach the humorist has been likened to Mark Twain in waders. But, the centerpiece of his work always returns to the “Why?” of the angling obsession. In this respect, he’s a Thoreau waving a fly-rod. He’s a modern descendant of Emerson’s take on the transcendental wonder of the beauty of nature and man’s place in it. In his introspective essay, “Enough Fish,” after countless hours on-stream, he concludes:
Maybe what you ask yourself at a time like this is, ‘Why am I doing this?’
Challenge? Excitement? Relaxation? Ambition? (or lack of ambition?) To ‘get away’? To get away from what? Is it all just an excuse to drive hundreds of miles on strange roads, drink, eat poorly, not bathe, and come across generally as some kind of harmless, aging beatnik? And if it is, so what? You couldn’t do any of this without the fish, but how large a part do the fish actually play? More than one outdoor magazine editor will tell you, “We’re not too interested in ‘why I fish’ stories.” As I once heard it put, ‘Our readers already know why they fish and they don’t care why you do.” (Rat Lake 192)
And maybe this is the secret; there just may not be one definitive answer to life’s meaning, but spending as much time as possible engaged in the seemingly adolescent pursuit of trout and other fish is a helluva rewarding way to contemplate all the mystery, while escaping from most of the frustration. As Gierach notes, “It also occurred to me, for some reason, that I now had just about everything I’d wanted when I was fourteen years old and was just starting to hang out with the men I admired and wanted to be like” (Even Brook Trout 222). Finding your own personal niche in the vast world is one key to happiness and John Gierach is a fine example of success, not so much to others, but for himself. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
There is a saying, “Many enemies, much honor.” In Gierach’s case, he has many admirers but still little recognition. Perhaps, this is the way it should be. Above all else, the quintessential flyfisher just wants to be left alone to pursue his odd obsession. Gierach notes the wisdom of Robert Traver on why we spend so much time fishing, “not, because it’s so important, but because everything else we do is equally unimportant” (Brook Trout 217). The paradox, and there are plenty of these in fly fishing, is that Gierach is such a great writer; others may finally understand what all the fuss is about. Let’s just hope that he continues the fine work that is his trademark. Besides without Gierach’s terrific stories, we anglers would go stir-crazy throughout the winter waiting for trout season to open, while feeling quite sad that “Gierach Season” is finally over.
Written By: Mark Lynch
Works Cited
Bie, Tom. “Interview with John Gierach.” Drake Summer 2002. 31 March 2003
Cunico, Juliette. Course Syllabus for “ ‘Gone Fishing’: Fishing, Literature, and the
Human Connection.” 2 April 2003.
Gierach, John. Dances with Trout. 
—. Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders.
—. Even Brook Trout Get the Blues.
—. Trout BumSex, Death, and Fly-Fishing.
—. The View From Rat Lake
—. Trout Bum:
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