The New York Times June 7, 2002 Casting a Line, Catching Yourself By DEIRDRE FANNING FOR my birthday four years ago, my husband and two small sons horrified me by presenting me with my very own fly-fishing rod. Never mind that I had never shown the slightest interest in the sport. I hate bugs, avoid getting wet and generally find being outdoors a nerve-racking experience. I managed a smile but later that evening when everyone was in bed, I half-guiltily, half-resentfully stashed the rod in its green cylindrical case in an attic closet and never gave it another thought. Until today. It is 40 degrees and raining hard and I am sitting in my car in a parking lot of L. L. Bean in Freeport, Me., waiting to begin a two-day instructional course in fly-fishing taught by the company's Outdoor Discovery School. Zipping into my full-body rain gear and cursing the cold, I try to recall the reason I thought this would be a good idea. I can't. After a mad dash into the little farmhouse where the classes are held, I am warmly greeted by a team of six L. L. Bean fly-fishing instructors. In an instant, one of them, an ebullient, burly white-bearded fellow named Rod, grabs my frozen hand to shake, tells me where to hang my gear, dismisses my dour comments about the weather with a hearty guffaw and slaps a blue name tag on me. I follow him into another room where the rest of the class - 24 would-be fishermen and women in all - is already assembled. My fellow students are mostly men, mostly over 40, and come from places as varied as Michigan, Virginia, New Jersey and Ohio as well as New England. They all claim to be beginner fly fishers. With the exception of Suzanne, a Web designer from Virginia Beach who admits she has never had any contact with fish other than eating them, I seemed to be the only one who has never fished at all. As the rest of the instructors lead us through some basic facts about the various types of flies, lines and rods we would be using, I check my watch for about the 10th time and try to stifle a yawn. It is only 8:30 am; this is going to be a long day. Ignoring my ennui, the head instructor, N. Macauley Lord, called Mac, the author of a handbook on fly-casting and a casting columnist at American Angler magazine, warns us that if all goes according to his plan "at some point in the next 15 years you'll get to the point where you won't want to take a vacation unless fishing is involved." Is he joking? I wonder. But soon we are led outside to watch a demonstration of the various types of fly casts and it is here, as we line up alongside two narrow shallow pools, shivering in the steady rain and clutching our respective fly rods - never call them poles - that I have what can only be described as an epiphanic moment. Mac Lord has picked up his rod, and with a seemingly casual backward flick of his forearm, whipped a long stream of fluorescent yellow fishing line straight out behind him. With another quick arm flick forward he flipped the same line straight out before him above the pool water. Sinking swiftly down and unfurling evenly and silently, the line laid itself out perfectly straight about 60 yards ahead of where Mr. Lord was standing. I gasp - the crowd of students gasps - and a hush descends as we begin to watch the ballet that is fly-fishing at work. Whipping noiselessly back and forth over Mr. Lord's head, spooling 60, 70 even 80 feet before and behind him, the line appears both lethal and ineffably graceful. It is like watching a circus trick, or a cowboy throwing a lariat, I think dizzily. This is actually called the four-part cast, the basic cast of fly-fishing, and I am so transfixed by the simple beauty of his performance and so eager to replicate it on my own that I almost slip off the slick dock and into the shallow pool when we are instructed to raise our own rods and give it a try. The hardest part of casting for me is getting the timing of the arm movement right so that the fishing line does not tangle, and as my classmates and I lift our rods backward, the air is suddenly filled with the sharp swishing noises of pliable graphite sticks being vigorously whipped back and forth. Mr. Lord watches for a moment and then tells us: "I can already tell the Type-A's in the crowd. Remember, this is a quiet sport; you don't have to use so much force with your rod." Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company
