It’s Norman Maclean’s birthday, and while the erstwhile author of “A River Runs Through It” is no longer with us, his seminal novella – which then became a Robert Redford movie credited (or blamed, depending on your viewpoint) with sparking fly fishing’s rapid growth in the 90s.
In a sense, Maclean’s work sorta runs through fly fishing’s zeitgeist, and it’s difficult to ignore that reality – at least on one particular writer’s birthday.
My recent post about David Cowardin’s “Unsinkable” dry flies (using heat-shrink tubing) caused one curmudgeonly Undergrounder to forward us the Web site of the original unsinkable dry fly – the Bunyan Bug:
Bunyan bugs: Cool, but $45?? (click image to visit site)
We know they’re seriously cool and retro (they were featured in A River Runs Through It), but the price suggests these aren’t exactly your father’s Bunyan Bugs – they’re $45 each.
Any takers among the Undergrounders?
See you at the bank, Tom Chandler.
The last big movie “about fly fishing” (that wasn’t about fly fishing at all) allegedly exploded participation in the sport of fly fishing, bringing tears of joy to equipment manufacturers and leading those who prefer riverside solitude to grumble incessantly.
Now, with production beginning on the movie version of David James Duncan’s The River Why, will we see a new boom in fly fishing — and a whole new wave of models throwing tailing loops in SUV/Viagra ads?
Word comes from the Oregon state office of film and television that a movie adaptation of David James Duncan’s “The River Why” is set to start shooting around July 7.
As the film’s Web site describes Duncan’s book: “Set on the banks of a wild river, ‘The River Why’ is the story of 20 year old Gus Orviston, the Mozart of flyfishing, who leaves his big city home in rebellion from his family. In the process he comes in contact with an assortment of eccentric characters who help him in his journey to adulthood. Most of all, The River Why is a love story. The love of a man for the wilderness, and for a beautiful woman who comes to share it with him.”
It’s not like me to claim credit for things I obviously had everything nothing to do with, but clearly, one of Hollywood’s brighter bulbs read the Underground’s massively popular “The Five Fly Fishing Movies That Should be Made Immediately” post, and rather than pay me a percentage of the gross, searched out the one plot that wasn’t already suggested by myself or the Undergrounders.
It’s OK; if our huge monetary sacrifice helps our beleaguered fly fishing industry off its knees and back onto its blistered, unsteady feet, well, I’m glad to once again be of service.
I’m dashing this off just prior to a death march hike into the mountains after brookies, and while the cold, cloudy, threatening weather suggests a stay at home hugging a cup of hot chocolate, I think the Undergrounders should discuss the following talking points in the hopes I might survive and return to discuss it with them:
I’m sure this will provide fodder for message boards all over the fly fishing universe; naturally, I expect my readers to rise above the obvious gags that I didn’t have time for, instead holding a literate, Algonquin Roundtable level of discussion.
See you in the cold, windy mountains, Tom Chandler.
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