For my wife’s birthday, I purchased her a new purse. Now I understand that men buying personal things for spouses, such as purses, can lead a guy into a dangerous minefield. However, I was fairly confident on this acquisition, since it was basically the same purse she had received as a gift from her daughter a few years ago, only a little bit larger and in a more subtle color. She had liked the original purse, but it had become a bit tattered and she agreed it was time to “refresh it.”
After she got it, she began removing things from her old purse and putting them in the slightly larger new one. The new one, however, had many more compartments than the old one. So many, that some compartments may have been left vacant after she finished the transfer.
So what do you do if you have this irrational need to make sure every empty closet space, every drawer, every nook and cranny in you car’s interior, every hook on your peg board in the garage and every compartment in your wallet is filled with something? This brings me to my fly fishing vest. It has a seemingly endless assortment of compartments available for accessories, fly boxes, tippets, leaders, fly flotant, sunglasses, licenses, water bottles, nippers, knives, extra Kleenex, bandanas, lunch and whatever else I could stash in it.
My good friend, associate and colleague from my previous work in marketing, Andrea, could probably help me with this dilemma. She was (and I am sure still is) the queen of organization. She told me a story once about her Christmas wish list when she was still in Middle School that suggested an office filing cabinet would be the most wonderful gift she could receive for the holidays. At a large group meeting some years ago, she was the last person standing when people were being categorized by personality. She was sorted out as the most intensely detail oriented and organized person in the group of about 150 people. She admitted to being slightly embarrassed about it, but I thought it was great — we made a great working pair.
Andrea could probably tell me what I could and should put in every one of the 24 compartments in my fly fishing vest, even if I didn’t use what was in them very often.
However, here’s the problem. When you start stuffing so much stuff into your vest, it becomes heavier and heavier, weighing you down and tiring you out as you trudge up the trail to your perfect fishing spot. And it has other ramifications. When I lost my balance and fell on my back last spring while fishing in the Gila, breaking four ribs and cracking two more, I think the shifting extra weight in my vest from all my unnecessary accoutrements contributed to my loss of balance and toppling over next to the creek.
I did pare down my vest after the fall. I got rid of a small metal net to catch stream insects to help you evaluate the hatch in the water. I tossed some tungsten weights to keep your wet fly at the bottom of deep pools. I got rid of fly goop that made your flies either float better or sink more rapidly. I got read of a stream thermometer that would tell me if water temperatures were conducive to fish feeding. I nixed a heavy tool to help you tie the perfect fishing knot. I weeded out my more than 15 different lengths and strengths of leaders. I parted ways with a file to sharpen fish hooks. I got rid of two extra pairs of sunglasses with differing tints in case the available sunlight changed one way or another. I ditched two or three extra fly boxes for patterns that I had never used on the stream where I was fishing. I got rid of some kind of orange-colored goop that may or may not have been illegal fish attractant.
And then I got rid of my beloved “Walton’s Thumb,” a Swiss Army Knife kind of gadget that could cure any problem you had on a stream — trimming fishing line, removing a hook from your elbow, picking out a size 22 emerger pattern from a crowded fly box, screwdrivers to repair your fly reel, and maybe even surgical blades to perform major surgery on your knee after a fall in the wilderness.
It was a magnificent gizmo, weighing almost a full pound by itself. The device was named after Izaak Walton, a 17th century English writer who is viewed as the Godfather of fly fishing because of his book “The Compleat Angler,” first published in 1653.
I now feel guilty about removing it from my vest, although I really can’t recall using it more than once or twice. I looked for it today in my various bags, tackle boxes and other hiding places in my fishing closet, but could not locate it. I fear I tossed it in the trash in my rush to remove all things unessential from my fishing vest.
I looked on the internet and the original versions are now kind of collector’s items, selling for more than $40 on E-Bay. You can buy a similar replacement with the same name, for about $23, but it’s made with much lighter gauge stainless steel and probably weighs about half of what the original weighed. And I’m sure it doesn’t have the character as the original version.
So now, I’m left with a fishing vest with lots of empty compartments, begging to be stuffed with something. I’m thinking I may eventually restuff one of them with an imitation Walton’s Thumb. And maybe wads of Kleenex will made the rest of the now empty compartments look somewhat useful.
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