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A Review of Marjorie Swann’s Environment, Society, & The Compleat Angler

April 17, 2024

In 2023, scholar Marjorie Swann published her impressive book Environment, Society, & The Compleat Angler. Swann provides some rich social context to Izaac Walton’s famous text, The Compleat Angler, or The Contemplative Mans’ Recreation (she addresses numerous editions, including the first 1653 printing). In light on this context, Swann also offers a new analysis of what she calls “one of the most innovative and influential environmental texts ever written” (Swann, 8). Ultimately, she argues, Walton offers, through his book, “an audacious model of a new king of community in which man’s love of the natural world–not fealty to the church, the state, or the family–becomes the foundation of both individual identity and social order.” As a fan of Walton’s book and as someone whose identity is tied to his fly fishing and time spent outdoors, I must agree with Swann.

The Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture asked me to review Environment, Society, & The Compleat Angler for Volume 18, 2024 of their periodical. You can read the open access review on the Journal’s website here for my more thorough appraisal of Swann’s book. And you can purchase the book itself at the Penn State University Press website. At this time, you can purchase a hardback (ISBN: 978-0-271-09519-6) or electronic version. No doubt many libraries have the book on their shelves as well.

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The Holiday Season

December 30, 2023

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Evening at the Cabin

September 26, 2023

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Rare Angling Texts

August 3, 2023

We are fortunate to have a massive collection of angling literature at Washington State University, where I work. There are housed in the Manuscripts and Special Collections. Following, is a brief is a brief description of the “Wildlife and Outdoor Recreation Collection” that contains most of this literature.

The Wildlife and Outdoor Recreation Collection includes the donations stof three fishing and angling collections including that of Roy Hansberry, a WSU graduate (Class of 1931), which contains some of the significant editions in the history of angling including Frederic Halford’s Dry Fly Entomology (1897), Alfred Ronalds’ The Fly Fisher’s Entomology (1913). James Quick gave his collection of 1200 volumes devoted to fly fishing for trout and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest and in 2008, Joan and Vernon Gallup donated a magnificent collection of 506 editions of Izaak Walton’s The Complete Angler, including all 17th century

https://libraries.wsu.edu/masc/rare-books/

Recently, I was asked to participate in a video about one part of the above collection–that donated by Jan and Vernon Gallup. Also in the recording is Dr. Trevor Bond, the Associate Dean of Digital of Digital Initiatives and Special Collections. I am sharing the video here. Take a look, and consider visiting these amazing texts in person someday.


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Winter

March 28, 2023

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Typical Afternoon near Home

September 19, 2022

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Runoff and Wind

May 30, 2022

June is the midsummer month, yet in the temperate latitude of southern England and the British Columbia coast it is not full summer; growth is still fresh and young, and the rivers still have the flow of stored-up winter snow or rain.

Roderick Haig Brown, A River Never Sleeps (Easton Press, 1996), 151-52 (First published in1946 by Lyons and Burford).
Rods at the Ready

Above, Roderick Haig Brown writes of the water conditions near the Pacific Coast in the 1940s. It is much the same this year in the Inland Northwest. While it is only May 30, the forecast tells me our stormy weather will continue on into June and the foreseeable future. Normally during runoff, I am happy to stillwater fish from a canoe, but there seems to be high winds every time I consider it.

In this age of regular northwestern grass and forest fires, it is frankly crazy to complain about wet weather. Still, I am getting pretty stir-crazy, and I’m rapidly running out of excuses to work on house projects. This may explain why I’ve finally take a few minutes to write here, as I haven’t for so long. Do know that I plan to write more frequently, even after the weather settles and start a new list of home improvement projects.

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Cycles

September 26, 2021
  • Home Water
  • The Big Cutthoat (that’s a 6 wt rod)
  • The Mobile Grizzly Warning Device
  • Feeling Younger than He Looks

During my birthday this year, I was able to fish my home water. I had enough time alone to get to my favorite hole, which requires some hiking and stream crossings. Needless to say, this hole is my favorite because I have made some of my most memorable catches there. Sure enough, I caught a huge cutthroat there once again during this recent visit. It occurred to me that I have now been fishing this spot for decades. Such a realization is sobering, for a guy who feels relatively young, but it also brings a sense of gratitude and pride.

Back at the cabin, over the ridge, I had been reading the new book Home Waters: A Chronicle of Family and a River by John N. Maclean. The author, while very accomplished in his own right, is the son of Norman Maclean. Norman, of course, wrote A River Runs Through It. I have previously mentioned that my cabin is in the Big Blackfoot River drainage, that my father was a Presbyterian minister, and that my family is rooted in Missoula and Helena. Readers of A River will therefore understand why the book resonates with me. As John Maclean’s new book focuses upon his family and his time in this same area, it resonates with me as well. Home Waters is well-written and the younger Maclean paints an accurate and familiar picture of Western Montana. In the text, he reflects upon his father, his uncle Paul, their relationship, and his own place in the Maclean family.

As I often do, I also found myself reflecting upon my father, my uncle–both very troubled in their own ways, and the rest of my family after I set the book down and went fishing. It’s easy to focus upon the negative aspects of family history or less-than-pleasant events in my own life. But, as indicated earlier, I simply felt gratitude during this outing–gratitude that my father, despite his faults and failures, introduced this place to me, my mom, my sisters and, by extension, our spouses and children. We often hear about how many phenomena in families are cyclical. In such discussions, we tend to focus on negative phenomena. But the good stuff can by cyclical too. Like the return to a favorite spot.

Admittedly, the quality of this return depends upon the health of the stream, which has seen growing fishing pressure during the years I have fished it, but we’ll deal with that topic another time.

Home Waters, by John N. Maclean (Harper Collins, 2001), with Jack Boehme “Balsa Bug” and Norman Means (Paul Bunyan) “Bunyan Bug.” Boehm and Means were famous fly tiers from nearby Missoula. Means’ Bunyan Bug is featured in A River.

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Loons

June 8, 2021

The other morning, I woke up early at our cabin to let one of the dogs out. Besides the dog, a pair of loons were awake and calling to one another. Later, during the day, I enjoyed seeing them diving for fish on the lake.

Loons often remind me of my uncle, Maury. He was an unusually kind man but also a troubled one, who struggled with mental health challenges and the lasting impact of profound child abuse. Its a little difficult to know just what his youth was like. My father has not been very helpful in piecing things together, either, as he seems to have coped with the childhood threat of violence by becoming a pathological liar. Regardless, my uncle passed away years ago, and my father already difficult relationship with the truth is complicated by dementia.

Happily, my uncle married a woman who stuck with him through thick and thin. She gave many of my uncle’s possessions to me when he passed. Among these was a painted ceramic loon. When I first received it, I turned the loon over and found a note for my aunt inside. Clearly, my uncle had given the loon to his wife as a gift. The note reads, “To Ruby, with love from a guy that is kind of Looney sometimes — Maury.” The words are both sweet and sort of sad.

My aunt also gave to me, as well as to my father, my uncle’s writings. These offer a bit more insight into his life, as the bulk of these comprise an unpublished poetic autobiography. Many of the poems pertaining to his youth are set at Lake MacDonald, in Glacier National Park. He and my father partly grew up there at a family property. No doubt, both of them saw plenty of loons on the lake in front of the property. I’ve seen many loons there myself.

In his poems, my uncle describes his times at Lake MacDonald as pleasant–as times when he could escape some his parents’ abuse, perhaps enjoying the protection of his grandmother and other relatives. I’m sure, then, that he gave that ceramic loon to his wife in a genuinely loving spirit, recollecting the beauty he might have witnessed during these times and associating it with his marriage.

I have been looking through the poems lately. Some, of course, are heart breaking. They describe the “vulgar” abuse he experienced (this is what his called it, in a penciled edit of a poem). But others describe the beauty and joy found in Glacier. Among these are a couple of fishing poems I share here. I have yet to find a loon poem.

Rainbow Dreamer

I believe:

There’s a pot of gold
To be found
At teh end of a rainbow

And I believe:

There a rainbow trout
To be caught
At the end
Of a fly fishing line.

Fishing Pleasure

I have known
The rush of pleasure
That felt good three times.
It was the feeling
that came with the catching,
the sharing, and the eating
of fresh water trout.

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The Ice-out Cometh

February 24, 2021

Like many other parts of North America, my region is covered in snow. The temperatures have been low, and there is another storm on the way. I am not complaining, however, since the snow pack in our area was below average, and we needed a boost. I know the lakes and mountain streams will thaw eventually. And I’m looking forward to the first days on the opening lake; it’s a good time to troll flies for trout.

Having grown up at a lake, where my sisters and I still share a cabin, I really enjoy still-water fishing. Certainly, I prefer casting dry flies to rising trout. But when the conditions make that impossible or fruitless, I’m happy to troll a fly, as I paddle the canoe around and enjoy the scenery.

There is a long tradition of trolling flies in the U.S, particularly in the Northeast. Angling historian Paul Schullery addresses it in chapter ten of his excellent book, Royal Coachman: the Lore and Legends of Fly-Fishing (Fireside Books, 1999). Yet, there are not many contemporary sources devoted to the practice. One of the few is Trolling Flies for Trout and Salmon, by Dick Stewart & Bob Leason. It was first published in 1982 by Stephen Green Press. Maine Outdoor Publications published a second, facsimile edition in 2011. With some effort, you can find the latter at a reasonable price. The book includes some history, techniques, and fly tying instructions with color plates of classic patterns.

Good luck with whatever fly fishing you can do right now. If you find yourself with too much idle time, check out the books mentioned here. All of Schullery’s many texts are great, by the way. Also, please forgive my twisting of Eugene O’Neill’s play title. Speaking of which, you might enjoy some of his work too (though I don’t).

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