fritz's vest

I love looking through fishing catalogs — Orvis, LL Bean, The Fly Shop, Cabella's, Bass Pro — that are among the regular mailings I get here at home.
I look at the fancy rods, the anodized reels, the boxes full of colorful flies, all symmetric and perfect. Toward the back, beyond glossy page after glossy page of fly fishers reeling in beautiful rainbows, browns or brookies from pristine waters around the country, there is the gear section. In these pages, you'll find all the stuff you must have to before you can call yourself a proper fisherman.
To me, it's not much different than the racks of crap you find right there near the cash register in the grocery store — things that you didn't really need, but on second thought, maybe I do need Chap-Stick or an eight-pack of AAA batteries or even a magazine on how to improve my sex drive or abs (speaking of which, I always wondered why they didn't sell six-packs of beer right there. Would seem that it would make some good profits...).
I can't imagine fishing in the late 1800s. A trout stream with no No Trespassing signs to snarl the day, a fisherman with a bamboo rod, a modest reel and some silk fly line.
Waders might have been optional, as was a proper landing net, vest, green canvas hat and titanium fly box. I think of how simple it must have been, and how we all long to get back to those simpler days. One look at eBay, and you'll find out just how badly fly fishermen want to get back to the old days, spending upward of $5,000 for an old Heddon rod or Hardy reel (and it's funny to think that these standard items might have cost under a dollar or so back when they were new, and that was a splurge...).
I have to admit, I scan the Internet for deals on a good split bamboo rod just like the next guy. Hell, I was in the Outer Banks last fall and was seriously considering asking my wife if I could buy a 1950s model Jeep wagon — you know, wood on the sides, clear glass, before they were called sport utility vehicles...
I love the fishing equipment that Dad passed down to me. It consists of a couple of not-so-classic fiberglass poles, great northern pike rigs, an old Sport King spinning reel, a box of bass plugs, two Shakespeare bait casting reels (neither works well but are great paperweights) an old Pflueger spinning reel that was an anniversary gift from my mom and, my favorite, an old fishing vest with the name "Fritz" written in permanent marker, of course, on the left, front breast pocket.
Fritz was my dad's older brother. They were tight, those two. Having grown up in Utica, N.Y., in the heart of New York state, my dad, Orrie, and his brother, Fritz, would spent much of their boyhood years scouting out good trout streams and bass ponds, and when I was finally old enough to fish with them, they'd tell me stories of the same waterways they had fished when they were my age or even older.
I could picture the two of them in their adventures. I couldn't fish with my dad without him bringing up some fish he or Fritz caught or the time they were chased though a cornfield by an angry farmer or bull or what have you on their way back from a lesser-known bass pond. And there was my Uncle Fritz tooling along in his khaki brown fishing vest, lures or flies hanging bobbing about, the pockets full of pocket knives, split-shots, a worm can and probably a screw driver (Dad always carried one, so I bet Fritz must have, too).
When I was 19, I was given, as a gift by an old flame, a fly vest. It was nice, and I still have it. It's the standard khaki, with several rings, pockets, clips and clasps. And I wore it for a few years. That is until my Dad passed and I was handed a box of my his fishing gear. After that day, the only vest I wore was Fritz's. Somehow, my dad acquired it along the way. Brothers share a lot, and I'd bet my Uncle Fritz offered it one day and Dad accepted. He probably accepted knowing that I could use it, since I tended to fish with a fly and he had little use for it. I'm glad about that. I never did see Dad wear that vest; he wasn't much of a fly fisherman (I've never seen him cast a fly rod...), and he wasn't big into being all dressed up just to go fishing. It was jeans, sneakers and a loose shirt, probably a ball cap.
Me, too. Sometimes I actually feel silly even wearing a fly vest. Waders, a fly vest and a wide-brimmed hat might put me over the edge. Still, all those pockets come in handy, and despite the red sunburn to the back of my neck, chances are, I'm going to wear a ball cap (although I did purchase a boonie hat at the local Orvis shop, but I still feel funny in it. I tend to wear it more while mowing the lawn.) and while the waders are fine, I don't so much require them once the water hits, say, 75, which is early March in South Carolina. Polarized sunglasses are a must, even on a cloudy day.
To me, hand-me-downs are the way to go. I have an old pair of cargo shorts, you know, the kind with the gazillion pockets. I got them at the Wal-Mart for maybe eight bucks. Most of the summer, this is what I wear fishing. I mean, I bring a shirt, but I don't so much wear it. Unless there are women around. I feel pretty good in my own skin when I'm waist-deep in the river, bronzing up. Dip the ball cap in the drink and it cools you right down. Man, I could spend all day along the Broad River banks or out on a sandbar at the end of Hunting Island.
The fly vest gives me a funky tan if I don't have a shirt beneath it. I saw, in one of those glossy catalogs, a mesh fishing vest.
Let me explain something here: Fishing in South Carolina can get pretty hot. Now, it's not the bone fishing of the keys or some Caribbean island, when there fishermen don aqua-colored shirts and proper khaki shorts, and sport long-billed hats, for whatever reason. They look like dandies on the bow of a skiff with some poor native poking the sea bottom with a long bamboo pole as they look for shadows in the water.
Seems like silliness to me, but I'm sure I'd try it, sans the attire. Funny to think that a fly fisher's wardrobe can rival even that of golf, but thank the heavens that Nike or Under Armour hasn't latched onto fishing yet... Which brings me to another point, why I could never be a competitive bass fisherman. For God's sake, must they look exactly like they're in a NASCAR jumpsuit? But that's another story.
I don't know why I'm this way, the worst-dressed fly fisher to ever roam the Eastern banks.
Fly fishing guru John Gierach repeats the line that fly fishers are a little nuts, a little antisocial... I think he's right.

The only problem with handed-down gear is that a lot of times, it doesn't work as well as the new stuff. I was surfing eBay the other day and espied a 1950s model South Bend automatic reel. It was still in the box, and I think the bidding was at $29 or something. I thought I should put a bid in, just because it was so beautiful. It even had the instructions! Then I thought better of it. I mean, I don't have one old fishing reel that's better than anything new I own, so chances are this one was more for a collector. What the hell would I do with an automatic, anyhow? But, there were some beauties listed. There was a Meek (No. 44!) that had a current bid of $9,500 (that ain't a typo, folks), and still had an hour to go. Just down the page was a Montgomery Ward Sport King fly reel with a bid of 99 cents (and no reserve!). Honestly, the Meek or Hardy might be amazing reels, and maybe it's like driving an old Rolls Royce, but I can't, nor will I, afford that, so the Sage 1600 I have will do the trick.
Confession: I also have a semi-old Granger (that's just a workhorse) on an 9-foot South Bend bamboo rod, and I even have a Pflueger Medalist that is on a 5 weight LL Bean rod for the little streams that I have to travel far to fish.
By far, the Sage is a much better reel, and the LL Bean Streamlight 9-foot, 8-weight is better than the bamboo. Again, I'm no connoisseur of fine fishing equipment, vintage or otherwise, but I do appreciate a good bang for the buck (if the Bean stuff breaks, they'll replace it forever), but I prefer to fish with the bamboo with the Granger reel either way.
Why? That's exactly what I'm trying to figure out.
The way I see it is that fly fishers are throwbacks to a time when life was more simple, or at least, it seems it was more simple. We're from a time when you put in an honest day's work, came home to family and fished on the weekends to blow off some steam. Today, many fly fishers are dandies. And that kind of makes me ill. It's not a fashion show; it's fishing, dammit. Imagine if farming got trendy all of a sudden (wait, what am I thinking. Gardening is a form of that, and they have all sorts of funny, rainbow-colored rubberized boots and wide-brim hats...). But could you see Old Farmer Brown out there on his tractor, plowing the fields in $175 overalls? (They have them, you know.) And while I'm on the subject, have you priced a pair of Dickies or a Carhartt lately? Sickening. When did work clothes become high couture?
Pickup trucks for that matter went mainstream — somehow — and now you have to shell out $40,000 just to get one with cold A/C.
Not me. Why? Fish are stinky creatures. So is half the stuff you cram into the back of a pickup or SUV. Plus, I don't know about you, but trucks get a bit scratched up in the woods and pine. I don't like to have to worry about putting spider web-like scratches (or worse) in the paint.
See, all this adds up to something of days gone by. On the river, maybe it doesn't matter if you're fishing with bamboo or some modern polymer; when the river's trickling past, the line flows out gracefully, the fly dances on the ripple and all around is the sound of nature — stream, birds, wind in the trees, locusts... it might as well be 1825. The rivers are still the same, well, most of those you'd care to fish in anyway, and the fish, let's face it, haven't changed much in thousands of years, if not millions.
And that instinct to catch is innate.
Somehow, though, it still feels better with a natural element in your hand or on your back. Especially if it's handed down.
The old aluminum tube that contains my South Bend spend a whole lifetime in someone else's hands, in his truck, in his house. It doesn't smell anything like my house or my garage or my truck. Then again, my truck doesn't smell like me, either. It, too, was pre-owned. But there's some great feeling knowing that the spirit of that thing, bamboo fishing rods especially, was nurtured in someone else's very capable and caring hands. The rod's in great shape, and it performs well.
And maybe it doesn't perform as well as the composite, but what it does give is something a little more intrinsic, romantic even. It's warm, it's comfortable, and it has a soul.