Six Degrees of Muggles

       

Just to the left of the flag is the historical marker where I had my strange muggle encounter...

    
      March was a brutal month, starting with the death of a fishing buddy’s husband whom I considered a friend; then my housemate Maggi’s mother passed on quite unexpectedly, my pen pal for over forty years; most recently, my sister’s mother-in-law, who graciously hosted me for a number of holidays, succumbed to a fast-growing cancer. These tragedies come in threes, it’s said, and these were three deeply-felt losses. A week after returning from Maggi’s mom’s memorial service, it was an anticipated pleasure to travel for a more pleasant reason.

       The Sporting Gentleman in Glen Mills, PA was hosting the Launch Event for my book, “A Woman’s Angle: Celebrating 20 Years of Women Fly Fishing.” I arranged a couple days’ stay in the area. Part of the preparations, of course, was getting on the Geocaching website to look for caches in Glen Mills. There were two right along Glen Mills Road, one at an intersection I figured would be my turn for driving to the fly shop. I downloaded those and a few others close by into my GPS. This is standard practice for me when I’m visiting a new town, and I had never been to TSG’s new location.

      On the day of the event I gassed my car at the corner of Route 1 and the connecting road, then turned on my GPS. I had allowed enough time to grab the cache before I was due to arrive, and having the Garmin set to guide me to the intersection would help me find the fly shop. Just find the cache, then turn onto Glen Mills Road, how simple is that? 1.69 miles down the connecting road to that intersection, I noticed as I pulled out of the gas station.

       The numbers counted down as I got closer and closer to the cache. A half mile; five hundred yards; three hundred yards; two hundred feet… I could see the bridge, and a parking lot conveniently close to the cache location.

       A parking lot with a very familiar sign: What a coincidence! The fly shop was right there, when I expected it to be a quarter-mile away. A dozen folks were out on the lawn grass-casting in the triangle between the stream, the road, and the parking lot as I pulled in and turned off the car. I knew they were concentrating on their back-casts and would be totally unaware of my geocaching antics. Less than fifty feet to the cache.

       I casually walked towards the bridge, spotting the historical marker mentioned in the cache description on the far side. A quick check for traffic, and I jogged across the narrow bridge. There was a crude pull-off by the sign, and I walked back and forth checking the bouncy coords, then stopped to consider possible hiding places while looking intently at the sign as if reading it. In the stonework bridge balustrades? Stuck magnetically to the bridge framework? Under the bridge itself? A well-worn path led in that direction.

       A car horn made me pause, then a sedan pulled into the pull-off. Nothing to do with me, I thought. It’s probably a fisherman, overflow from the shop’s parking lot. A guy got out and walked towards me. Rather than continue towards the cache and possibly reveal its location, I paused and looked at him approaching. He looked vaguely familiar.

         “Do you remember me? It’s Dan, Maggi’s cousin.”

       My head spun. I had met this fellow briefly at her mother’s memorial service; we’d had a discussion on minimum-flow regulations on the Upper Delaware River and I’d gotten the impression he was a resident of the Hudson Valley north of the Catskills. He’d bought a copy of my book. Maggi and I had spoken of him afterwards: the ‘family oddball’ of his (and our) generation, never married, just the sort of guy that I would normally find attractive. No, I’ve learned that lesson. Besides, I’ll never see him again, I had responded to her teasing. Yeah, right. And here he was, a week later.

      I don’t know what expression was on my face when I made this unlikely connection. It must have been favorable, because his eyes lit up and he gave me a hug.

       “What are you doing here?” I couldn’t help but blurt out tactlessly.
       “I live here. I shop here at this fly store.”

       Say WHAT? I didn’t say. Instead, “They are holding my Book Launch Event today. That’s what I’m here for.”

      “No kidding! I’ve been flipping through your book, reading whatever caught my eye, and I really love it.” The conversation went on, and I learned that he’s on the watchdog council for the Chester Creek Watershed. He gestured at the creek beside us as he enumerated its problems.

       About then Christine came across the bridge, having noticed us there.
       “Here comes the boss, I have to go,” I commented.

     “Chris!” he greeted her. “I love my Filson fleece vest! It’s the best ever!” He posed in model position.

       “I’m so glad, Dan,” she said. They were obviously old friends.

     My brain felt like it was replaying a scene from the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Improbability sum complete, a nasal computer voice said complacently in my head as I followed Christine over the bridge and, behind me, Dan’s car pulled out.

     Was it Karma? Was Maggi’s mom looking down from Heaven, rolling on a cloud laughing, the first-ever Catholic angel Yenta? Was this (horrifying thought to my happily-single self) destiny with violins and a shower of paper-heart confetti? Will I ever hear from this guy again? Do I want to??

     I’m certain of just one thing: I never had a chance to find that cache. I was muggled, perhaps the strangest muggling experience I’ll ever have.

Damn You, Fish Commission!

Sunny, 65 degrees, and I was driving to town when I noticed coltsfoot blooming on the road verge. This may not seem like world-shattering news, but to a fly fisher, it means the Blue Quill Mayfly, the first significant hatch of the year, is now occurring. This marks the beginning of trout fishing.

Or it would, if Pennsylvania’s fishing laws were not stuck in the 1950’s. Despite shifting demographics, public demand, and scientific study; in the face of falling license sales and decreasing revenue; Pennsylvania’s Fish and Boat Commission clings to stocking hatchery “catchable” sized trout during a month-long closed season so they can profit from the brief, ever-decreasing spike of license sales just before Opening Day. Never mind that their own studies prove that most of these trout disappear within days of stocking, either via downstream migration, predation, or poaching. The one-weekend-a-year anglers gripe about lack of trout when it is merely bad management.

Fly anglers have lost a third of their season each year because “approved trout waters,” meaning stocked streams and lakes, are closed during three weeks or more of hatch activity. In the warmer areas of the state, trout activity may well be over by the end of May. The closed season has seemed a prejudicial policy against fly anglers since its inception. There are some stretches of some streams open to year-round fishing with flies or other artificial lures, but they are such a small percentage of all trout waters that they are outrageously crowded during the closed month. Demands for more have not only gone unanswered, but the PFBC has persistently tried to relax or eliminate the regulations in these areas. The fact that public outrage swells each time has not seemed to penetrate their preconceptions.

The Pennsylvania fishing model revolves around stocked trout. There are many more wild brook trout fisheries in the state than the PFBC is aware of, and plenty of waters with naturally-reproducing brown trout; even more that are healthy streams for “holding over” trout that might be managed more cheaply stocking fingerlings or egg boxes. These could be managed for what they are at a fraction of the cost of stocking them with “catchables”… and such stocking just reduces the chances of wild fish survival. The Commission has taken a few tentative steps towards preserving wild brook trout water, but lags decades behind the science of watershed management in this and less pristine types of habitat. It’s my opinion that stocking all the aforementioned types of waters with “catchables” damages the resource and should be curtailed. An opinion based on scientific studies that have been ongoing (mostly in other states) for over fifty years. That’s a lot of data.

Many stocked waters get too warm for trout to survive. Why are they stocked? For social reasons: They are close to large population centers and there is some demand for stock-catch-and-keep angling there. Fine. As long as there is a demand for this, do it. But to make the best use of those expensive hatchery trout, leave the season open year-round and publish the stocking schedule (as they do now for in-season stockings) so these urban anglers can be there when the trout are. Not several weeks after sixty percent of the trout have vanished.

Ever since the “trout stamp” was initiated, every trout fisherman in the state has subsidized these truck-followers’ activities. I, for one, am willing to (reluctantly) keep doing so, but could the state make more money with a “catch-and-release” or “trout resource management” stamp and a “trout stamp” for stock-catch-keep waters? You bet they could! Especially if they could reduce the numbers of costly hatchery catchable trout by putting them only in those stock-catch-keep urban creeks. The urban anglers would even see more trout dumped in their local waters; the rural anglers would see their wild trout flourishing. It’s a win/win.

That brings us back to the closed season. As the numbers of bait fishermen continue to decline and fly-fishing rises in popularity, a trend that has gone on for twenty years, a larger proportion of the state’s license-buyers are disgruntled and discouraged by their shortened season. Small wonder license sales have been declining. Opening all trout waters to year-round fishing would reverse the trend; publishing stocking schedules for stock-catch-keep waters would make up for the loss of the pre-Opening Day sales spike… and probably a little more, with a clever publicist.

Those of us who fish “beyond the stocking truck” for purely wild trout have had a loophole in the past: Wild Brook Trout Heritage waters were open year-round. That ended this year, as the PFBC has belatedly decided to officially classify such streams for their protection. That’s good, right? Not when they also have a misplaced mania for “simplifying” the laws for easier enforcement. You guessed it… these waters are now closed when Approved Trout Waters are. Not to protect the resource, as brook trout spawn in the fall; not to “protect” newly-stocked trout, as these waters aren’t stocked. Is it to spit in the eyes of us “elitist” fly fishers and our demands for scientific, resource-based watershed management? Or is it, as they insist, to “simplify regulations?” The simplest regulations of all would be a year-round open season on all trout waters.

So it was with a sense of anger and betrayal that I spotted those blooming coltsfoot today, and realized that I would never again enjoy the pleasure of fishing the first great Mayfly hatch of the season. Not unless they hatch well in the single special-regs area near me, a 1¾ mile-long stretch of Kettle Creek that is sure to be elbow-to-elbow with desperate fly fishers. Must I give up my treasured solitude and fish for stocked trout instead of wild ones? Or must I wait through the first half-dozen hatches until the state allows me to fish the waters I truly love?

A Farewell to Frieda "m0m" Schurr

            There’s some people that, by their very nature, seem to be immortal. When suddenly it turns out they’re not… shock is not the word. It’s beyond that. Shock comes later, days later, when you realize that you will no longer share a thought, a joke, an enthusiasm, or a memory with this person again. You turn to them, because they have always been there, and they’re not. It’s human nature to do this again and again, and hurt every time.

            Frieda Schurr was my friend Maggi’s mother. I’ve known her since I met Maggi more than forty years ago. She was a woman of grace, humor, education, patience, culture, and wisdom. She always encouraged me and my creative works, never criticized when I fell short of my potential; in short, treated me as she treated her own children and many students over the years.

            Although I seldom saw her, we corresponded with mutual delight. Whether cracking up at Sir Terry Pratchett’s puns or creative use of Latin (“Fabricati Diem!”) or enjoying goose bumps at nice, tight harmony singing, we shared joy in a way I seldom found with anyone else.

            I remember the first conversation I had with her:

            Me: “Oh, I see you’re going to have a baby. What are you going to call it?”

            Her: “Quits!”

            And the last, her comment on my blog about being reluctantly coerced into learning to knit and displaying my first pair of self-knitted socks: “Welcome to the Dark Side. Enjoy it.”

            I remember when I told her Maggi was moving in with me after retirement she said, “I can trust you to take good care of her… and vice-versa.” I felt honored.

            She is gone. It was sudden, quick, pretty much painless. Although I can’t help but be thankful for that, she is gone. One of the ‘rocks’ of my life, the eternally wise, eternally gracious, just plain eternal Frieda “m0m” Schurr. (It stabs me just to type her name the way she always signed her e-mails.)

            I can’t explain how this feels, but I know one thing: It has to be infinitely worse for Maggi, her brothers and sisters, their spouses and children… the whole family. I’d like to comfort them with the knowledge that Frieda lives on, in each of them, in the form of memories, knowledge, and moral values. That, as long as one person speaks her name with love, she is with us. As long as one person follows the values she believed in, makes use of her teachings, her influence lives on in this world. I honestly believe this is truth, and that her spirit is immortal and will always be with us. But right now it’s hard to embrace this truth because of the pain.

            May the pain pass gently from every member of her family, and each of her friends, and may her soul shine down on us all.

Celebrating 20 Years of Women Fly Fishing

Fly fishing has a literary history dating back to the 12^th century. The scope of fly fishing literature over that time would surprise many non-anglers. Beyond the where-to and how-to books typical of most hobbies, fly fishing literature ranges from scholarship to poetry. Some of the finest writing of any kind that I’ve enjoyed over a lifetime of reading has been in fly fishing books.

Robert Ruark. Charlie Fox. Ernest Schweibert. Robert Traver. Ed Zern. Patrick McManus. John Gierach. You may not recognize the names, but to a fly angler like myself, these writers are just a few who influenced both my fishing and my writing with a lyrical and captivating style that elevated their writing above any restrictions of genre.

In the twenty years the newsletter of the Delaware Valley Women’s Fly Fishing Association has existed, many of the articles have stood out as contributing to this great tradition of fly fishing literary excellence. As editor for eight years, it was my dream to introduce these works to a wider audience, in a more permanent medium than a quarterly newsletter. After fifteen months of work, that dream has become a reality. Those fine writers now have their chance to be added to that list of greats in the field.

“A Woman’s Angle: Celebrating 20 Years of Women Fly Fishing” is now available as a high-quality soft-cover book. This is my first published book, fulfilling another even older dream of mine. But despite the lionization I’ve basked in during the week since publication (which included a signing table at one of the largest fly fishing shows in the world), and the fact that some of my own works are included in the book, this is not about me. It’s about twenty very fine writers who ably share their passion for fly fishing; who open their hearts and minds to reveal their thoughts, emotions, and experiences, to the benefit and pleasure of any who read their words. And those reveal more about the writers than the surface topic would suggest, as is true with all art, whether done with paint, words, music, or other media.

During the past twenty years, women have gone from being a ‘double-take’ sight on fishing streams to being the fastest-growing demographic and most-wooed market segment in the sport. This book subtly documents this change, and shows that women have indeed become influential in fly fishing and worthy of respect in the field. But this is no feminist manifesto. These are great fly fishing stories, plain and simple, written by fly anglers for the enjoyment of other fly anglers, of any gender.

My personal reaction to the release of my first book is one of childish enthusiasm, my mood swinging between rampant egotism and stunned humility; I’m overwhelmed by the positive reaction generated in less than a week. But I am so proud and happy that this particular book is the one. This is important; this is a collection of stories that needs to be shared; these are writers that can make readers think, feel, laugh, smile and nod, and want to grab a rod and run out to the nearest body of water to try this ‘fly fishing’ thing.

I’ll be spending most of the summer out at shows, festivals, and signings, drawing attention to this wonderful collection of wonderful authors. I hope to see you there. Various fly shops throughout Pennsylvania and some select gift shops in the Pennsylvania Wilds will also be selling them. Online, check out the book at www.wellsborobookstore.com. If it’s not immediately available there, phone them at (570) 724-5793.

Then go out fishing! And afterwards, relax with the latest addition to nine centuries’ tradition of great fly fishing literature.