I Don't Know Why I Swallowed the Fly : My Fly-Fishing Rookie Season

Actually, Maxwell (former natural history columnist for Audubon) knows very well why she swallowed the fly--for the rapt feeling of connection with her homeplace, the outdoors, and her departed father--and she tells her tale with both levity and flair. Maxwell has always liked to fish but had preferred saltwater fishing, savoring the briny serenity of the ocean. Then she got caught up in the hyperkinetic world of fly-fishing, an ``Attention Deficit Syndrome . . . with hooks,'' the art of matching an invisible hatch with a fly tied to an invisible leader in pursuit of an invisible fish, a sport requiring ``raw skill, and instinct, balance, strength and concentration undilute.'' Her mentor and nemesis is Guido Reindhart Rahr III, whom she met on a fishing trip, a whim, to Outer Mongolia's Sharlon River, hard by the Siberian border. Back home, together they explore the Deschutes River, getting to know both the fish and the ``grand, green Pacific Northwest.'' Maxwell is a serious fly-fisherwoman--she wants to know how to make the throw, how to read the water--but her eye is forever roaming the scenery, to which she gives substance on the page: hawk-colored shoulders of basalt, ``the drizzled, chilled elegance that turns fishing water into champagne,'' the Pacific Northwest's malachite beauty. Her thoughts range about, taking in quantum electrodynamics, the reportedly diminishing sperm count of late-20th-century men, her father's face, which she sees in the sky--all of which provide a wild tangibility to her nature and the mysteries of fly-fishing. Equally entertaining is the parade of oddballs she meets, like Len, who'se only endearing qualities are dyslexia and a bad haircut. A nifty collection of fly-fishing vignettes, the happy result of ignoring ``the ghostly voices of fly fishermen past, begging me to take up stamp collecting.'' (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In the manner of the best how-to books, Maxwell's account of her fly-fishing rookie season is as much about a quest for discovery and understanding as it is about learning to cast. And it's as much about her own life as it is about fly-fishing. There's plenty for avid anglers to appreciate in her often humorous, always informative account of passing through the "futility rites" of her chosen sport on several of the West's great trout and steelhead rivers. Those looking for a strict diet of roll casts and double-tapered lines might be disconcerted, though, by Maxwell's tendency to interrupt even her most enthralling fishing stories with lengthy digressions on the morality of killing fish and game, the kinship between sensing the "fishiness" of a stretch of water and understanding quantum electrodynamics, or, most often, the consequences of her father's inability to express his love for his daughters. Like fly-fishing itself, Maxwell's book isn't nearly as straightforward or easy as one might expect, but it rewards the effort it demands. Dennis Dodge

The author, who has written about the outdoors for sundry magazines, focuses her first book on flyfishing. The 11 chapters describe her first year's experience trying to learn fly-casting and how to catch fish on several Northwest rivers. Maxwell fished in the ocean with her father in her youth, and her love for water was rekindled when she saw the grace and beauty of a well-cast fly line. Her early efforts are humorously frustrating, but she does eventually master the technique and catch some steelhead and trout. She also has some wide-ranging discussions with colorful guides who instruct, inspire, and motivate when rugged water and weather test her mettle. Most of Maxwell's writing is thoughtful and well crafted, but there are occasional lapses into distracting purple prose. An optional purchase.?Will Hepfer, SUNY at Buffalo Libs.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.