Out of the Closet

I’m not sure if I’m much different from other fly fishers, but over the years, I’ve accumulated a surprising number of rods and reels. Part of this is a result of an expanding interest in fisheries other than trout. Part of it is the serendipity of gifts and hand-me-downs and the rare but too-good-to-pass-up deals at garage sales. And part of it comes simply from fishing a friend’s rod and saying to myself, “I gotta have that.”

But a fair amount of my gear comes from upgrades that are common when we realize that what we’re using isn’t quite up to snuff and that we now have the income to buy better. The question, of course, is what to do with the equipment now deemed outmoded. Some of it I’ve lent out, in the hope of getting friends involved in our sport. More often, I’ve been reusing it for interesting projects and experiments. The first fly reel I ever bought, a true cheapo, I’ve converted into a canoeing outfit — one spool is loaded with a blow line for dapping flies in the British manner, and another spool is filled with lead core and a mono running line for trolling deep. My second fly reel, another cheapo, although a little better than the first, now holds a Scandi head that I’m having fun casting long distances with a single-handed trout rod (a tip of the hat to Rob Ketley for that idea; see our November/December 2009 issue). And this week, I’ll be filling my grandfather’s still-usable Hardy with a thin modern line I just bought that’s supposed to replicate the character of silk and that I’ll pair with his bamboo rods.

Friends of mine who don’t angle think I have too much tackle. They don’t understand. Everything I own has been fished, and my intent is to fish it again. The gear we use is not just a means to a prosaic end: fish on the hook. It also gives us a way to dream, to fulfill hope (every cast, after all, is an act of optimism), and it is the key to an intense interaction with nature that few others are able to experience. No, I don’t have too many rods and reels. I would like to fish everywhere, for everything. I have barely enough.

Richard Anderson