The Rest is Noise

Recently, while exploring fly fishing blogs and adding to this sites collection of preferred links, I started pondering what I and others were adding to our sport. Then while browsing further an answer slowly came to me:

The rest is just noise.

Sounds arrogant, doesn’t it? Read on…

The early exposure I had to fishing and hunting literature was by reading back issues of Outdoor Life from the 1960s and 1970s that my father collected and saved. In those days, short stories, both fiction and non-fiction, and adventure tales actually had substance. People actually read back then. Substance and quality were appreciated more than flash, and people had attention spans long enough to digest a two thousand word article. Twitter would have been laughed at.

I remember lying on my dad’s bedroom floor for countless hours imagining what mountains must look like, or what I would do if I were treed by a grizzly. The short stories were imaginative also. They had a way of engaging the reader and drawing him into the story. In my imagination, I traveled the world fishing, hunting, and exploring.

Then I lost track of the natural world as I grew older and pursued other things.

When I took up fly fishing, I began to read everything I could get my hands on. I subscribed to multiple magazines, bought how-to books and destination guides, and began reading John Gierach, Nick Lyons, Seth Norman, Thomas McGuane, Roderick Haig-Brown, etc. Here were real treasures.

After awhile, the magazines began to bore me. There was a conspicuous lack of substance and quality writing. They were all flash, or ‘noise’ if you allow me. The articles began to repeat themselves: “Hopper Tunity!”, “Midge Magic!”, “Five-weight shootout.”, yada, yada, yada… They seemed to be written by the same people that produced motor-sports magazines. Pictures replaced words. I would eagerly turn to an article, misled by the front cover blurb into thinking it was going to be a feature story, only to find some sophomoric and cursory treatment.

So, I dropped the subscriptions, and began to collect old magazine articles from the 1970s again.

Then I began this blog, and discovered like-minded persons out there that wanted and demanded quality. They keep blogs on fly fishing as varied as our fishing is. Conservation, wild fish, history, literary reviews, fine quality gear, river journals, and adventure tales are covered with taste. Here was a whole new world.

Browse down the links on the right side of this blog.

The Quiet Pool, where Shane often covers conservation and details Oregon’s trout and steelhead fisheries. He writes beautifully, and is a traditional angler with respect and reverence.

Singlebarbed, which is some of the most humorous and yet very inciteful writing on the subject.

Cutthroat Stalker, where Scott writes about his favorite trout and their habitat, as well as excellent literary reviews on the subject of fly fishing.

Dr. Andrew Herd’s exhaustive history of fly fishing site. I get lost here for hours at a time.

Colin Innes, who keeps the very important research site Vintage tackle and Salmon Flies of Aberdeen. A source of original research and history painstakingly and lovingly assembled.

Tony, who created the site Stream Thought about fishing and thinking, complete with book reviews, trout science and more.

Eccles over at Turning over Small Stones is an Englishman living in Pennsylvania. He writes deep meditations and observations about our sport.

Jeff Kennedy and his fly paintings and drawings is another site dedicated to fine art. Jeff is a professional illustrator who paints beautifully.

The Angler’s Life List, a site dedicated to wild salmonids.

Tom Chandler at the premier site The Trout Underground never fails to inspire or call our attention to something interesting or important.

These are just a few examples of what is out there somewhere. Each site has several things in common that tie them together. First is quality content. Second would be some artistry. This can be in many forms. The third is respect and passion. On these sites and many others that I have yet to discover, one can find gems of writing, art, philosophy, and thought that are often missing from many other blogs and publications. I found these sites through accident, as well as other blog links, and comments on this blog.

I have not linked to the large commercial fly fishing blogs. I am tempted to, but then comes a post full of foul language, boasting, or some other odious trait that I doubt if readers of The Classical Angler would appreciate. The bigger something gets and the wider the circulation, the more scrubbed over or dumbed down the content has to be in order for it to sell.

So, for those that long for the days when the Art of Angling Journal showed up in their mailboxes, or who cannot wait for the new Gray’s sporting Journal to arrive, these blogs will help fuel your fire between hookups with epic fish. Enjoy.