Few folks have affected a sport’s or pastime’s literature the way in which Nick Lyons has with fly fishing. By way of a celebrated profession as an writer, editor, and writer, Nick superior the sector of fly-fishing writing in such vital ways in which Tom Rosenbauer calls him the godfather of contemporary fly-fishing books.
By way of numerous essays and books together with Vibrant Rivers, Full Creel, The Seasonable Angler, Confessions of a Fly Fishing Addict, Fishing Tales, My Secret Fishing Life, A Flyfisher’s World, and most not too long ago, Hearth within the Straw–Notes on Inventing a Life, Nick’s distinctive views on the thrill, challenges, and intricacies of fly fishing have at all times blended technical experience with private anecdotes, reflections, and his trademark self-deprecating humor.
As an editor, Nick assembled a number of the most beloved anthologies within the style, corresponding to In Reward of Wild Trout, The Quotable Fisherman, Traver on Fishing, Hemingway on Fishing, and The Finest Fishing Tales Ever Instructed—highlighting various voices and views and celebrating the wealthy tapestry of fly fishing literature. As a writer, he helped produce a number of the top-selling fly-fishing books of all time, together with Selective Trout by Doug Swisher and Carl Richards, Artwork Flick’s Streamside Information, Sensible Fishing Knots by Lefty Kreh and Mark Sosin, and The Orvis Fly Fishing Information by Tom Rosenbauer.
As an angler, Nick has fished a number of the most interesting rivers on this planet. However when requested about his favorites, he at all times ends on the similar place. “The most effective, I believe, was the very particular probability I needed to fish O’Dell, a spring creek close to Ennis, Montana.” Nick recounted his time there in Spring Creek—a guide Craig Mathews calls the very best fly fishing guide ever written.
“Everybody who’s requested me for recommendation,” Nick says concerning his writing, “I inform them you have to discover your personal voice. There isn’t any system. There isn’t any mannequin that you may put into your head and have it work.” In Spring Creek, he describes the voice that has labored so properly for him:
I’d just like the stew to be wealthy sufficient to catch a number of the stillness, complexity, pleasure, fierce depth, frustration, practicality, hilarity, fascination, satisfaction that I discover in fly fishing. I’d prefer it to be enjoyable, as a result of fly fishing is enjoyable—not ever so severe and self-conscious that I take it to be both a faith or a lifestyle, or a supply of salvation. I prefer it passionately however I attempt to keep in mind what Cezanne as soon as mentioned after a cheerful day of fishing: he’d had plenty of enjoyable, however it “doesn’t lead far.”
Within the seventh episode of the Studying the Water podcast, “I By no means Put a Bomb in a Trout Stream,” Nick joins host Tim Schulz to share his ideas about the very best anglers he’s recognized, the phases of fly angling, his distinctive writing voice, a Mt. Rushmore for fly-fishing writers, why there’s a lot good writing about fly fishing, and the supply of his tales:
“The river actually is speaking to me about what it desires to have written about it.”
We’re all blessed he listened.
You’ll be able to take heed to the complete dialogue with Nick Lyons in Episode 7 of the Studying the Water podcast, accessible by way of Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Pocket Casts.
