A legend…runs through it?

There seems to be no end to technical difficulties this morning. I have a new iPhone and my phone number has been verifying for the last 12 hours. Apple Support recommended that I contact AT&T to activate the SIM card. The onboarding experience, despite the fact that my phone is not working yet, is quite impressive. At this point, all you have to do, more or less, is hold your old phone up to your new phone and the two make sweet love together. Or something. But it’s still not working.

My Google map is also not loading on my laptop. This seems to be a recurring problem. I was going to see what places I could write about in northern California, specifically in and around Trinity Alps and Shasta. This past summer, around July I guess it was, I began fly fishing. It was an activity that probably I had been interested in since…what’s that movie, the one I confuse with Legends of the Fall…ahh, yes, A River Runs Through It.

A River Runs Through It was not an especially good movie. Brad Pitt, at least back then, was a bit of a crap actor. A friend recently pointed out that Brad Pitt eats in every one of his scenes, that that’s sort of one of his things. I think if I were to act, I might steal that. I can see how eating, while acting, might emanate an air of informality. Like George Constanza, on the Phone Message episode of Seinfeld (season 2, episode 4)…

Jerry: So you called.
George: Right. And, and to cover my nervousness I started eating an apple, because I think if they hear you chewing on the other end of the phone, it makes you sound casual.
Jerry: Yeah, like a farm boy.

Fly fishing seemed fascinating for no other reason probably than that fly casting looked complicated and required that you stand in the middle of a river or creek. But there was another side, a more modern side, to it all that I associated with fanatics wearing wide bush hats, hunched over a rotary fly-tying vise, fiddling with jig hooks and tungsten beads. I didn’t like any of that…purely for style. It seemed wholly unfashionable. Until I discovered Rolf Nylinder.

Rolf, a film director, and his crew of fellow anglers, are from Sweden (I believe…I can never fully confirm that since they travel all around Scandinavia to fly fish). They’re purists, which is to say, that they only fish dry flies rather than wet flies. Essentially, dry flies sit on top of the water (requiring the same overhead casting we all know and love from A River Runs Through It) and some would argue, requires more skill to catch fish. Wet flies, sit under water, and probably, some would argue requires more skill. Wet fly casting, unless you’re roll-casting, looks a bit more like you’re launching a medieval catapult. It’s an elongated, as I’ve heard it described, “flop.”

In the world of fly fishing, there is nothing but a lack of consensus. One guide will advise you to tie a fly one way and another will swear by another. They’re all fanatically devoted to their way of doing things and everything else is nonsense. At least in America.

Rolf, on the other hand, brings style to the sport. Maybe it’s my Scandinavian blood, I’m not sure, but there is a certain melancholic poeticism to his narratives that tugs at my heartstrings. And that the cinematography is top-notch certainly does not hurt.

One of his short films, Shaku Hunter (above), is set in Japan and follows an exclusive group of anglers outside of Sendai. In order to be considered a “shaku hunter,” you must catch an Iwana (Japanese char) or Yamame (a type of salmon) the length of “shaku,” which is 30.3cm, or, as one angler explains it, the length of your forearm (or someone’s forearm). The film is beautifully shot and features songs written by Rolf. As style is concerned, there is also an online store for the film with fashionable hats, shirts, sweatshirts, and jackets. 

Rolf, or any one of his friends, seem to me, to be ideal fishing companions. There is a humbleness to their characters. The second to last fly fishing guide I had in the Trinity Alps introduced himself, with a mouth full of Copenhagen dip, as the “best guide in the country.” Anyone who describes themselves as the best anything is certainly not the best at anything. At least in my book.

My friend Andy (above) and I had traveled to Weaverville, California, a small gold rush town in Trinity County. The town is really only a single street, strangely, with the oldest Taoist temple (The Temple among the Trees Beneath the Clouds) in California.

We met our guide along the Trinity River and climbed into his drift boat. He dropped a large bucket next to my feet and discharged a sizable puddle of tobacco filled phlegm into the bucket. I knew this was to be a long, challenging afternoon.

We got as far as the middle of the river when he announced that he had lost his phone. He eyed me in the back of the boat, spit in his bucket, and rowed back to the bank. He retraced his steps, swearing audibly and kicking anything worth kicking. He returned from his truck with his phone which, he said, had been on the dashboard. “I don’t know how it got there,” he said to only to me. “I thought you took it.” The bastard.

However, I did catch a ten pound steelhead trout thanks be to him. And now, as I struggle with my iPhone (update, it’s working), I can understand his frustration with losing, temporarily, what has come to feel like an appendage. (He’s still a bastard though.) So if you’re reading this Rolf, let’s go fish. My place or yours?