I learned last week of the death of John Gierach, a writer whose work I’ve admired for years. His subject was invariably fly fishing, but his messages were always far beyond just the nuts and bolts of the sport and his experiences on the water.
He had written more than 20 books and countless articles for various sporting magazines, including Trout, the official publication of the group I’m heavily involved in, Trout Unlimited. He is credited with coining the phrase “trout bum,” which is one of the titles of his books.
He died Oct. 3 of a massive heart attack at an age dangerously close to mine.
I’ve come to appreciate his careful selection of words, his clever humor, the timing in his writing and the close attention he paid to detail — particularly of the natural world around rivers, lakes and mountains.
Most of what he wrote was about his experiences fishing around the world, but mostly in Colorado where he lived. But always interlaced with his writing was philosophy. Take, for example, this passage from his essay “Trout Candy” in his book “Even Brook Trout Get the Blues.”
“Fly fishing, you see, is supposed to be a very difficult and painstaking business in which success can be rare and fleeting and with complex philosophical undercurrents. That’s the sport’s main attraction and why so many of its practitioners are such misanthropes. We don’t actually hate society, we just feel like we’re plugged into something bigger, better and more interesting, so that the more alienated we become on one hand, the more at home we feel on the other.”
As I said, most of his writing was based on personal experiences, but he did venture into fiction on occasion.
One of my favorite John Gierach fiction pieces is also in his book “Even Brook Trout Get the Blues” and is entitled “The Poacher: A Fictional Fish Story.” The story involves the fictional narrator’s friendship with a larger than life character named Harvey who enjoys the thrill of fishing — uninvited — in private waters to catch lunker trout while risking being caught or even shot at by irate landowners.
Harvey is a philosopher himself.
“Organizations,” he said, “are by definition organized, and therefore both predictable and ineffective. Clear thinking and effective action emanate from a political party focused enough to have only one member.” Harvey then goes on to describe himself as a “Jeffersonian Zen Buddhist Agrarian Anarchist. There are few committee meetings.”
Harvey convinces the narrator to try fishing at a fabulous private lake which he has scouted earlier in his red pickup. He later confesses that he even cut the lock to the property the day before. On the day of the secretive fishing excursion, he drives a different vehicle — a heavily banged up and bandaged Land Rover — to the property and hides it behind some obscuring bushes. Prior to this, he had assured the narrator that he had obtained the landowner’s full permission to enter the property. The reluctant narrator, after catching some giant trout on the lake soon forgets about the danger of poaching. But then both are spotted by the landowner who is literally hopping up and down mad on the other side of the lake before chambering two rounds in his rifle and firing it threateningly into the air.
Harvey quickly concludes they’ve caught enough fish for the day and says it’s time to head home. The two perps escape without harm but are later confronted by the incensed landowner and a sheriff’s deputy at Harvey’s home. The landowner claims to recognize them both and says they snuck into his property in a red pickup. They claim no knowledge of the incident and point to a disabled red pickup in the back yard of Harvey’s house. Cleverly, the day before, Harvey had dismembered the truck’s transmission and scattered its innards on the ground next to it. That way, in case someone wanted to point to it as evidence of a mode of illegal entry, they would find it completely immobile. Harvey then fabricates a story that he was fishing in plain view of the world by a bridge on public waters earlier that day and the narrator quickly invents a claim to have come to Harvey’s house only moments ago “to borrow a pair of pliers.” With no solid proof, the Sheriff convinces the landowner to tuck his tail between his legs and go home.
After another such adventure involving an irate landowner, the storyteller concludes: “So that’s when I stopped going fishing with Harvey.”
And of course, they go on another similar memorable escapade not long afterwards.
As said, it’s great writing in my humble opinion. The stories are short and full of entertainment, some genuine fishing tips and spiked with doses of humor and philosophy. I’d recommend any of his books, which are available in paperback on Amazon.
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