What is it about fly fishing?
I’ve been wondering that as long as I’ve known Tom Bie, the founder and editor of The Drake, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this month. Some would say The Drake is Powder Magazine for fly-fishing; I’d say it’s a mash up of the Surfer’s Journal, David James Duncan’s novel The River Why, and Mad Magazine, with just enough Maxim to give it a little newsstand zing.
In any case, it works. The Drake is one of the few niche magazines in the outdoor world which was started on a shoestring and a decade later, is still toughing it out. (Hooked on the Outdoors? Blue? River? No such luck.) There’s no secret to its success. The stories are solid and the pictures unique. Moreover, it was the first fly fishing magazine to celebrate the sport’s legions of young zealots — the “trout bums” that in the years since the Drake’s inception have turned the fishing industry, or at least fishing media, on its ear. Most importantly, as Tom describes in his introduction to the current issue, The Drake has been focused not on the how of fishing, but the why. Which I can appreciate, because I’m still pretty dubious on the whole point of the sport.
This is partially because my dubiousness pisses Bie off, which I find entertaining. He likes to say, “If I could only get a rod in your hand, you’d be a hell of fly-fishing writer.” To which I respond, “Maybe when I’m older and I can’t ski and climb anymore, I’ll be content to stand around all day in ass-deep water, flicking my wrist.” Tom has always bristled at the idea of fishing being something you turn to after you’ve wearied from other sports. “That just means you’ll be an old, shitty fisherman,” he says. To which one can only respond, “Yeah, but it’s fishing.” Such conversations are particularly rewarding if I’m able to invoke, at least once, the term “fish pole.”
Of course, you only have to go fly fishing once to know it’s hard. Which I understand is part of the reason people do it. And I suppose you also do it because it’s a quiet and solitary sport, it takes place on bucolic creeks and rivers, and there’s the thrill of choosing the one correct little fake bug out of all the zillion little fake bugs in all your little plastic boxes. Most of all, it seems to me, fishing affords the 21st century urbanized Everyman the only chance to enjoy the primordial thrill of engaging in a life or death struggle with an animal lower on the food chain, something not even hunting affords, unless you stalk deer or elk bare-handed, delighting in the spasms of your prey as you wrestle it to the ground so your pal can take a picture of it in a headlock before you let go and watch it bound back into the woods. “Nice one, a 600-pounder!”
Seriously — fly fishing’s weird. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it in the pages of The Drake. In spite of my own smarminess towards the sport, I usually end up reading the mag cover to cover, seeking out the nuggets, like these, from the 10th anniversary issue:
Then it starts getting easy. Reaching over the slack water, I bounce the fly off a big rock at the base of the plunge and throw a quick downstream mend. Four more browns in a row, all wild and fat and bright and eager, before it finally shuts down. Apparently, seeing their comrades struggle and disappear from sight gives them no pause. Out of their tiny minds, every one of them. (”Case of the Mondays,” by Dave Lawton.)
Only later — weeks later — did he concede, sheepishly, that he’d been casting not to a fish, but to a drip falling from a crack in the roadway above. He’d convinced himself at the time it was a fish — in much the same way sailors convinced themselves that manatees were mermaids. (”Faith is a Kind of Habit,” by Hal Clifford.)
Though I didn’t know it at the time, Phish pretty much peaked on October 8, 1995, at the Adams Fieldhouse in Missoula, Montana. (”Magical Mystery Tailwater Tour,” by Tom Bie.)
Notwithstanding the quality of the writing, part of the reason I appreciate The Drake is that I witnessed its arduous birth. Tom Bie was one of my first housemates in Jackson Hole. In fact, his offer, from one struggling writer to another, of a room in the house he was renting, was one of the reasons I moved to Jackson Hole in 1998. In our rambling house on Redmond Street, Tom lived in the basement, in a large room lined with fake wood paneling, lit by bare bulbs, and overflowing with mounds of dirty clothes and back issues of Powder and Mariah (the precursor to Outside), everything coated in white hairs from Tom’s yellow lab Trask, including Tom. At that point, Tom was the sports editor at the Jackson Hole Guide, worked the graveyard shift driving a cab for Buckboard Cabs, lived on grilled American cheese sandwiches and frozen waffles, and tried to get as much skiing and girl-chasing in as he could between shifts. But it still wasn’t enough, because Tom is ambitious, impassioned, and highly literate — especially when it comes to fly fishing — his first, and (just ask any of his ex-girlfriends, or actually, don’t) overriding love.
Tom started The Drake by cold-calling his heroes — Pete Fromm, William Kittredge, and David James Duncan, and convincing these luminaries of outdoor lit to contribute articles to a magazine that didn’t exist, edited by a young skid they didn’t know. Such was the power of Tom Bie’s love for both fishing and the written word. He also convinced me to write something for the first issue of The Drake, though I’d never lifted a fly rod above my head. It’s still the only thing I’ve ever written about fly-fishing, and it turned out okay, mostly because Tom Bie is a damn good editor, and knew immediately to chop the lame last third of it off.
Since that first issue, which I helped distribute around the hinterlands of Idaho from the back of my truck, Bie has published one or two issues a year, relying solely on word of mouth to make the magazine grow. In the meantime, he’s also been the editor of Paddler, a senior editor at Skiing, and the editor at Powder, all magazines that improved dramatically under his helm, especially Powder. If you’ve liked the “new” Powder that has existed in the past few years, it is due to Tom’s diligence and influence, which is really sort of amazing given how bad Tom is at meeting deadlines and replying to emails and phone calls. Tom is the perfect example of a particular progeny of Jackson Hole, where he lived for almost a decade — he’s a lazy, outdoorsy workaholic, coasting by on talent, enthusiasm, competitiveness, a good ear, and a refusal to let crap land on any page he’s responsible for.
Now, Tom lives in Fort Collins, Colo., makes fly fishing movies, and packages fly fishing content for a web media company. But his first love and priority is The Drake, which is now thicker than just about any other outdoor publication out there. Advertisers are lining up to get into its pages, because it’s good-humored, heartfelt, and honest. If you haven’t already, check it out. The Drake is a hell of a good read, even if you don’t plan on buying a fish pole before 2028.
That’s a good piece on Tom. Captures the man’s impressive sense of focus back then.
Fishing seems innately perfect as a manly activity. Got your fresh air, the flowing water, one-ing with nature, death in the afternoon. With a body of fine literature going back centuries who can argue? Yvon says fishing is Zen, ultimate testimony if you ask me.
But I’m with you, DG. I could never achieve that utmost DNA-level urge to where hooking ‘em is a surefire path to bliss.
When a comedian said, “What if fish could scream?” I laughed real hard. Aha, that’s why I always fished for meat and didn’t enjoy counting gotcha!s. Maybe I’m a wuss but you know how hard it is to cure compassionate conservatism.
I don’t have much good to say about Tom but his dog Trask was a hoot seeing grow up. Duck hunting and Trask dragging Tom out of the blind, pheasant hunting with several other dogs and I’m the one that kicks up the bird.
I can see the inside of Tom’s vehicle now…ever inch of the windows with lick marks. Somehow I got the back seat for a long journey and after 10 years I still carry a bit of Trask with me in that fleece.
Cograts on 10 years Tom.
one less person we’ll have to worry about disturbing our solitude on the stream.
I love me some Tom Bie. He is my little sugarlump.
js: Logic error re “our solitude”? How can two or more people be experiencing solitude in one place?
at different times.
If you set foot on a Deserted island – it no longer is SO!!