The magic of fly names

On Friday, the 16th of February, we have regressed toward Winter from the early-Spring temperatures we enjoyed on Valentine's Day. Above freezing conditions return over the weekend, leave for a few days and return the end of next week, perhaps to stay? Unlikely, but something to be hoped for.

Today is also Chinese New Year. It begins the Year of the Dog. We were born in a Year of the Monkey and are, it would seem, a Wood Monkey. We sort of, almost, on a good day, fit this description of the Wood Monkey:

"Always ready to help others; compassionate, with strong self-esteem, but stubborn"

Also today, we made a small breakthrough on a project we've been working on for some time. Several years ago, we managed to drift away from fly fishing. Since we've not been regularly fishing the flies we had collected, we've pretty much lost track of what the various critters living in our fly boxes are called, let alone what they represent.

one of several fly boxes whose occupants need naming

Photo by J. Harrington

We all know that there can be a lot of power in naming. (We've had this knowledge reinforced as we've started to reread Ursula Le Guin's fantastic Earthsea series.) Thus, not knowing the real names of most of the flies we hope to fish deprives us, we fear, of some of their power to deceive trout. Today we discovered several online references that we believe will help us relearn those magical names. We'll share them with you in case you ever suffer a similar misfortune.

• Orvis freshwater flies flash cards (although some of the colors seem a little too intense)


• Field and Stream the twenty-five greatest flies of all time (a little heavy on streamers, we think)


• Fly Fishing North Carolina dry fly patterns (a pleasant surprise)

happiness can often be found in a North Country trout stream

Photo by J. Harrington

There's even a poem, by one of our favorite poets, that is more than entirely fitting to go with today's pleasant events and the promise of more to come.

                     Happiness

By Jane Kenyon

There’s just no accounting for happiness,

or the way it turns up like a prodigal

who comes back to the dust at your feet

having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?

You make a feast in honor of what

was lost, and take from its place the finest

garment, which you saved for an occasion

you could not imagine, and you weep night and day

to know that you were not abandoned,

that happiness saved its most extreme form

for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never

knew about, who flies a single-engine plane

onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes

into town, and inquires at every door

until he finds you asleep midafternoon

as you so often are during the unmerciful

hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.

It comes to the woman sweeping the street

with a birch broom, to the child

whose mother has passed out from drink.

It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing

a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,

and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots

in the night.

                     It even comes to the boulder

in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,

to rain falling on the open sea,

to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.