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One can't describe the feeling of catching a wild West Virginia Trout with a rod you built and a fly you tied.
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Randy Kadish: The Fly Caster Who Tried To Make Peace With The World.
6:19 PM | Posted by
David |
Across one end of my living room is a bookcase that was one of the first things I built when I moved here. It's filled with books I consider my favorites and just cannot come to part with. If you looked among the titles you'd find everything from Homer Hickum to Harold Robbins. There are books on history and fiction as well as a collection of Jerry Bloodsole's Southern Crime books. Some I have read more than once. Some are perfect to sit by a fire on a cold winter's night and re-read. I have now found another book I will add to my collection. It's by an author by the name of Randy Kadish. The title of the book is The Fly Caster Who Tried To Make Peace With The World. I received an email not long ago from Randy. He had read my blog and wanted to send me a copy of his book. I really didn't know what to expect when it arrived. I sat it on my night stand and kept putting it off. After a late night venture to the yard with the pup, I found I couldn't go back to sleep, so I opened the book and was instantly hooked. There are untold numbers of fly fishing books written each year. Some have become classics; the others simply don't make it. Often they are only repeating some instruction covered by another. This book, however, is different. Much different. Randy informed me it might be a little bit heavy reading. I didn't find it as so and hung to each page and chapter.
I found it very interesting the fact of a problem with "catch and release" and "private versus public water" on the Beaverkill in New York, as far back as the early 1900's. I also found it even more interesting the use of bamboo rods then. The shop his friend Billy had that he describes is what I imagine the early builders' shops were like. To read about a transition of a rich kid from New York City to the Catskill Mountains told me so much about Ian MacBride, the main character in the book.I guess I found a connection with Randy's writings. I have for a long time used fly fishing as a means to escape and deal with matters becoming heavy on me at times. I, too, find as Ian does that being waste deep in a stream, all alone, and the only sound is what nature plays, a means of seeing the world in a different light. I can only imagine what it was like on the Beaverkill and the Saw Mill such a long time ago.
We each have a means of self defense and a way of dealing with loss. Some go in directions that only create more damage to their lives and those of others. I'll take that feeling of feeling a rod I have built load and shoot a line to a run across a stream any day. I highly recommend anyone who enjoys fly fishing and the dynamics of fly castings to purchase and read this book. I'm flattered that Randy sent it to me, and wanted me to read it. It's as if he knew I'd be captured from page one. For you see, I too met an Izzy on the Abrams Creek in the SMNP long ago. Things he showed me, I still use today. I waded downstream just a few yards around a bend and when I went back to tell him how well his advice had worked, he was gone. Much like the Izzy in Randy's incredible story.
Thank you very much, Randy Kadish, for choosing to send me your book. I'm honored and I appreciate it very much.
Randy Kadish is an outdoor writer whose works have appeared in such well known periodicals as Flyfishing and Tying Journal, and Fishing and Hunting News.
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1 comments:
Loved your site! I laughed out loud about the Castor Oil story. It was hilarious and why was it that they always hid it on the top shelf of some cabinet they never used? Mom always threatened us with it too, but I don't think she ever gave it to us. Guess I was the lucky one lol