As I am sitting at Christmas Eve service, my mind reflects on the past year. Some memorable fish, excellent trips with good friends, and stellar moments on the water. Coupled by bitter-sweetness in the loss of my father and the wish I had more time spent on the water with him. Then I think about salvation. I would like to believe if the rapture were to occur next week, I would have a better than average chance of ‘getting clearance’ — not because of the good deeds I have done or the quality of life I have led, or even the benevolence I have shown towards God’s wonderful creatures; but because I have spent countless days learning patience while casting my 3-weight at dozens of upper-class trout that would have no part of my offerings. Along with the many hours dedicated to helping and sharing my passion with family and friends the art of the fly, maybe this is the repentance for the multitude of hours I formerly squandered in dirty bars of my younger days?

This all began when I received a Christmas card a few weeks back. In it were the words, “Too bad every time we talk, all you can talk about is fishing. Like that’s all there is in life.”

Funny, but not. I have been dwelling on this for days. I know I should not let it rent space in my head, but then other things people have said pop into my brain. Things like, “I had to delete you from my ‘friends’ on Facebook because all you ever post is about fishing or rivers or tying flies.”

I was OK with that and have  not accepted friend requests because they didn’t have proper fishing credentials to be allowed in the circle, so they were permitted to deny my ‘friendship’ status. But the Christmas Card — that struck a chord, and it was becoming a tenant in my head. HAVE YOU MET ME?

Whenever I drive by an empty retail shop,  in my head, I already have the layout for a fly shop, where I can set up the TV monitors so we can have TU movie nights and extra tables for a Tie-One-On! fly tying nights. I have gone over countless inventories for the start up materials needed for a successful shop — it needs a good balance of high-end and entry-level equipment, it needs to have monthly events to draw in people and a warm staff and fresh coffee always brewing. On the flip side I would give up this life in paradise tourist town to live in the mountains along some stream with hopes of starting a lodge or B&B to invite others into my world of addiction. There, I said it. I have admitted I am addicted to all things FLY.

This all began when I received a Christmas card a few weeks back. In it were the words, “Too bad every time we talk, all you can talk about is fishing. Like that’s all there is in life.”

Last week it became all too clear. Channel 34 — Discovery, it was after work and I enjoy a diet coke and slowing down from the hectic pace of taking care of everyone else’s needs and desires. The program was on Addictions. These people were legit crazy. They had given away everything. They would work every angle, every minute, to find a way to their next high. I am grateful I am not like that  [or am I?]  I do think every minute about how to tie that Hendrickson pattern a little better or a stronger material for that upright wing, but will still float it. I go over and over in my head that one cast I sent in the cedar above that 20 incher that sent him/her for cover and how I could get a do-over. For the Meth/Crack/Cocaine/LSD addict — they are “Chasing the High”. A term used  to refer to the first time they used — often unattainable and the cause of their repeated search leading to death, delusion or confinement. I am on a search for that first time, however, I believe in the purity and beauty this addiction has rewarded me with a quality of life I would rather not replace. A short decade ago, I too was living on the streets looking for something — chasing a high that  would not have a beneficial direction for my life. I am thankful I found my way back to the Tying Vise — and making it my only vise, others are not so fortunate.

A newly made fishing friend from FB mentioned on his status something his wife said — and my wife completely agreed. She hinted that their family Christmas photo should be a postcard of her and the two girls and the Dad in the river holding a brown from the Rogue in Rockford. He jokingly said that was cool. I do envision a family photo of my troop, all in waders in the middle of the Thompson or the Blue Rivers, with heavily padded and flocked trees in the background. Someday.

My wife is a blessing, as is my entire family — truly. She doesn’t totally understand the addiction thing. She can have a glass of wine and leave it on the coffee table 1/2 full She is kinda crazy like that. Chocolate and shopping are the only things that might be considered her vices. I only qualify shopping as her addiction because few ‘normies’ actually plan on going shopping at midnight on Thanksgiving and shopping all evening into the next morning with pre-arranged intervals of juicing up with Redbull and Monster drinks. Who would chase sales and deals for nearly 18 hours on end? INSANE! or is it? I have worked all day and gone Hexing into the wee morning hours for nights on end, and when that was over — it became Mousing Time. In the end, it is all about your passion. What is your passion? I am very happy to have found mine swimming in the swift currents of any river that is cold and cool enough to dangle that carrot before my face….

Copyright 2006 by R.D. Mauzy. All rights reserved.

Women seeking the opportunity to improve their outdoor skills are invited to register for the 13th annual “Becoming an Outdoors-Woman” (BOW) program, June 4-6 in Big Bay, 30 miles north of Marquette. The program will be held at Bay Cliff Health Camp, a universally accessible facility, located in a picturesque wooded setting overlooking Lake Superior.

Sponsored by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment, this program offers instruction in more than two dozen kinds of outdoor activities, including canoeing, fishing, hiking, mountain biking, fly-tying, archery, boating, birding, rock climbing and shooting sports. According to Sharon Pitz, the Becoming an Outdoors-Woman U.P. program coordinator, BOW instructors will provide basic and advanced instruction that’s uniquely tailored to each participant’s individual ability – a key reason the participants achieve so much in a short time.

“The best part, for me, is to see all the smiles on our guests’ faces when they have accomplished personal goals or faced down fears in their lives and just want to keep learning even more,” Pitz said. “After a program, most women will comment on how much they’ve learned, how tired they are – but it’s a ?good tired’ – and that they just can’t wait to try out their new skills and come back with friends to learn even more.”

The $175 registration fee includes all food and lodging, as well as most equipment and supplies (except as noted in the registration materials). Participants will be housed in a dorm-style facility with numerous amenities, including a pool, sauna, tennis courts, hiking and biking trails and easy access to Lake Superior.

Becoming an Outdoors-Woman workshops are for women, 18 and older, who wish to learn outdoor skills in a relaxed, noncompetitive atmosphere. The U.P. BOW program also includes special evening programs, such as birding hikes, group bonfires and more.

Early registration is recommended. Class information and registration materials are available online at www.michigan.gov/bow. For more information, contact Sharon Pitz at the DNRE office in Marquette at 906-228-6561 or e-mail pitzs@michigan.gov.

For more information on all of these programs and more, call 517-241-2225, email DNR-Outdoors-Woman@michigan.gov or visit www.michigan.gov/bow.

Copyright © 2009 Gotta Go Fly Fishing. All rights reserved.

Maybe it is all just the evolution of that Hardy girl ad. Do you know the one?

It has come to my attention that something has happened in the margins of the culture of American fly angling which, if you really think about it, should have happened already by now.

But it didn’t.

But now it has.

Before I bring this point up — and for the official record — I’m no prude. I took great delight in discovering that even John Voelker’s camp at Frenchman’s Pond was adorned with a quality canvas nude. My discovery of this fact coincided with another less pleasant discovery, namely the fact that Russ, the owner of Right Brain Brewery in Traverse City, for some reason took down a rather fine and, I thought, quite tasteful life-sized black-and-white nude that he had hung over the bar these last few years. The nude did nothing to add or detract from the taste of his wonderful products, but did give you something to seriously consider while you were sitting at his bar munching on popcorn. Perhaps he felt is was distracting his clients from a full appreciation of his CEO Stout.

It is said that everything in life has its compensations. But I fail to see the compensation in this instance, in particular.

But I digress. The phenomenon to which I would call your attention is the permutation of rather well-produced fly angling calendars featuring bikini-clad young female anglers wearing hip boots (which I, for one, never realized were quite so sexy) and holding fly rods and generally making you wonder where precisely they are pinning their fly-drying patches and hanging their hemostats.

Copyright © 2009 Women in Waders. All rights reserved.

The first calendar of which I became aware was the aptly-named “Women in Waders,” which remains I think the benchmark publication in this area. But to this we must now add two more: “Girls Fly Fishing” and “Gotta Go Fly Fishing” (or is it “Girls Gone Fly Fishing”).

Is it some sort of sign when a sport like fly fishing finds itself on the receiving end of this particular type of attention? I get the part when professional wrestling goes down this road, or when a magazine like Guitar World puts out a cover with a model in micro-sized swimwear holding a Gibson Les Paul and leaning on Slash, but I’ll admit to being surprised to see the same treatment when it comes to fly casting.

Surprised, but not necessarily disappointed.

The truth is that fly angling has taken a turn in a certain direction… Eschewing the tradition of tiers giving flies the names of their fiscally-well-endowed clients (like the Adams), Kelly Galloup’s flies bear names like “Sex Dungeon” and “T and A Bunker,” and younger anglers in the sport are — in my view, anyway — both fishing more aggressively, more creatively, more refreshingly, and more passionately than ever. And part of this, oddly, is treating fly angling as a kind of extreme sport and making it part of an extreme sport culture, though I think in a way that for the most part fundamentally preserves the what is best in the sport’s “original” tradition and ethic. It’s hard not to see this in the culture of the younger guides working at the better fly shops, anyway.

What does this have to do with Women in Waders? Hard to say. Perhaps some of my friends in Flygirls would take a different view out of the blocks, and perhaps the creators of such products are simply appealing to a baser instinct and dragging us all down by our wader belts toward Gomorrah, and perhaps I’m looking for a connection here that could lead me to take a more charitable read on all this. And so perhaps I’m also being a bit naïve — wouldn’t be the first time.

I will say this — they are certainly nicely-photographed calendars.

I’m getting a bit verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves.

Capt. Tony Petrella

If you want to teach your wife or girlfriend how to shoot, simply put her into a pair of borrowed waders that force her to waddle around like a penguin. Then make her lurch around for six hours in a frigid steelhead stream in early March, sublimely confident the whole time that all of this is a wonderfully exhilarating experience that every woman should be absolutely thrilled to share with her man.

On the drive home that evening, you will have visions of a warm fire and cuddly mate. She, on the other hand, will have revenge in her eyes and murder in her heart. Lock the gun cabinet before you pour a drink, then swallow the key. Better yet, throw it far back into those raging flames that mirror your mate’s soul. There’s danger afoot, Watson!

And, guys—you can believe me because I was there. Been that stupid. Done that insane deed. Talk about being blissfully unaware of the female psyche! Brother. And Kate already knew how to shoot!

In retrospect, I think the only thing that saved me was that by the time we got home from that foamy torrent called the Little Manistee River, Kate was utterly exhausted. She did, however, vow to never again set foot in a steelhead river.

Twenty-nine fishing seasons have glided past our waders since that frosty day with good friends Dan Cogan and Dave Arnold. And, although she has kept that vow against steelhead as devoutly as a monk eschews speaking, Kate has logged hundreds of days astream and has caught thousands of trout.

All of which is astonishing, considering that although she was raised only a few blocks away from Lake Erie, her previous fishing experience was limited to dangling a worm off a pier while sitting next to Dad. The perch ended up on the dinner table; the sheephead were dug into the garden. Trips to Metropolitan Park meant netting minnows in the creek and never straying out of sight.

In fact, there wasn’t much straying at all from the safe haven in the suburbs. Theirs was a picture-book house of brick-and-boards, a house with friendly neighbors, and trees, and a big backyard. But even in those bucolic days of Ike and a skinny rich kid from Boston who would be President, Mom didn’t want her chicks wandering far from the nest. She worried about Kathy and The Twins even as a momma duck fusses about her brood, counting and herding and counting again.

To this day, Kate loves telling about her most memorable outdoor excursion. “Once when we (Kate and her sibs Steve and Vicki) were all pretty young, we convinced Mom that we should have a tent out in the back yard. Dad threw a blanket over a clothesline and pinned down the edges somehow. The three of us thought it was great fun, but Mom must have worried about wolves snatching up her babies. It was barely dusk when she started scraping a spoon across the porch screen to scare us. She wanted us back in the house. End of camping trip.”

I can only give thanks that Jennie never knew what her eldest child has endured at various times over these past 30 years. The list of outdoor atrocities committed against my wife begins with blackflies sucking away her very lifeblood and gets worse from there.

Perhaps it’s that stubborn Slovene streak in her that absolutely forbids whining or complaining. I remember a night years ago when we were being assaulted by mosquitoes in a swarm the size of a Kansas grasshopper plague. Finally, I couldn’t stand any more torture. “I’m getting out of here,” I yelled. “This is murder!”

From upstream, I heard a grateful sigh. “Thank God,” Kate said quietly. “Let’s go! I can’t stand it either, but I didn’t want to be the one to quit first!”

Kate’s first “boots” had three-inch heels and came from Jacobson’s. Her lipstick matched her nail polish, which matched her outfit. Now, she calls herself a “River Rat” and shops for function. Vintage wine has given way to a never-ending search for the ultimate in high-power bug dope. And Jim Beam whiskey. The only “line” she cares about is the one on her fly reel. And she cleans it far more religiously than I do mine.

Kate Reels One In

She hides herself in the streamside vegetation as if she’s stalking an elk. And no winged or floating trout food is safe from capture in her little fishnet so that I’ll have more patterns to tie when we get home. Sometimes when I sneak up on her she’s cussing herself like a Drill Sergeant for making a sloppy cast.

About the only thing she won’t do is go out on the flats boat with me for snook or redfish, let alone tarpon. “Nope,” she says firmly. “Those big rods are too much for my bad shoulder. I’m not gonna screw it up and then miss trout season.” End of discussion.

Inevitably, people ask who catches the most fish. I truthfully answer that we take turns. Kate changes fly patterns like a runway model sheds her clothes, which sometimes gives her the edge. But I cast into trickier spots to fish that don’t often see a fly. So, it evens out. When they ask who catches the biggest fish, I also truthfully answer that Kate caught a Michigan brook trout that weighed in excess of five pounds.

She caught that deeply-colored monster in a “secret” little creek our old friend Al Rockwood took us to, a special place with casting spots cut out of the trees and weeds at each “beat,” much like an English chalkstream. The fish was lying in a deep pool formed by a wing diverter, and I had passed a dry fly over it just minutes before Kate let one of Al’s “Sweezle” streamers swing through.

I was proudly releasing my third 21-inch brown trout when I heard her whooping. Leaving my rod propped against a pine tree, I ran back upstream to find out what the commotion was all about.

Kate was kneeling on a little footbridge, her rod bent like an elbow macaroni. Al threw me the net and said he’d take pictures. All four of us performed our assigned tasks perfectly, and today that fish hangs next to the liquor cabinet. But only in an original painting by Kalamazoo artist David Ruimveld.

I still can feel Kate trembling as we held that big fish, and her urgency to release it back into the dark water lest it die from being exposed too long. When asked later why she didn’t keep such a trophy, she looked puzzled for a moment, then quietly replied, “because I didn’t want to be the one to kill it.”

We have yet another photo of Kate, proudly holding her very first trout. She’s wearing a vest that looks like an apron, and a big, floppy, blue hat. She’s also wearing a million-dollar smile. I don’t believe that five-inch brookie was smiling, but I’m positive it was greatly relieved to be ever-so-gently released back into the Au Sable River and the bosom of its family.

“I never knew they were so beautiful,” Kate said. She wiped perspiration from her brow in the heat of that unseasonably warm May afternoon so long ago and practically whispered the words every man longs to hear. “I understand, now, why you love it so much. You’ll never get an argument from me any time you want to come fishing!”

Capt. Tony Petrella formerly covered the National Football League and National Hockey League for the Palm Beach Post and the Atlanta Constitution. He now splits his time as a hunting and fishing guide in Michigan and Southwest Florida. His web address is www.tightloopsflyfishing.com.