Casting and Mending

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” That notion, that fishing is about more than catching fish―that it offers tranquility, reflection, and recovery―is at the heart of scores of programs across the United States that use fly fishing to promote physical and emotional healing. Healing for people with cancer, for veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and physical disabilities, and for those in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. Casting and Mending: How Therapeutic Fly Fishing Heals Shattered Minds and Bodies tells the story of several of these programs, including the voices of breast cancer patients, veterans, and recovering addicts as they reflect on the often life-changing and life-affirming experience of fly fishing. Casting and Mending also traces fishing in history and popular culture as a source of solace and redemption; explores the science of the healing effects of nature; and makes a case for fly fishing as an instance of “flow,” an optimal experience that leaves a person stronger, more confident, and refreshed.

Pat Scanlon is a professor emeritus in the School of Communication at Rochester Institute of Technology, where he taught for thirty-three years. He has published on a variety of topics, from Elizabethan literature to plagiarism to fiber optics. His recent articles on local history and fly fishing have appeared in several magazines. An avid fly fisherman, he volunteers as a river helper for Casting for Recovery, which offers free retreats for women with breast cancer. He lives in Rush, New York, with his wife, Joanne.