Outdoor Club

I often enough run into some of you, here and there. Or get a phone call or letteror email. While you sometimes disagree with me, almost universally you thank me for my articles, and compliment me on how well they are written.

I surely appreciate those comments. But I have a confession. Despite your support I’m never going to be numbered among the great outdoor columnists. No matter how well I write, no matter how valuable the information we share, no matter how much I influence people to do or not do something in the way of outdoor adventure, I am not destined for greatness. I’ll tell you why: I don’t have an outdoor club.

Most of the really important outdoor writers of the past century had an outdoor club, real or imagined, to help them out. Any new techniques, or outlandish opinions, or wild behavior could be attributed to one or more members of the club.

Nash Buckingham had the Beaver Dam Club, for instance. A real locale, that still exists. It’s questionable, however, whether all the members of the outdoor club he quoted actually belonged. Or even existed. Gordon McQuarrie had his Old Duck Hunters Assn., whose president (his real life pappy-in-law, by the way) could be blamed for all sorts of things. Growing up, I spent many a happy hour getting in trouble with the members of Corey Ford’s Lower 40 Shooting, Angling and Inside Straight fraternity of ne’er do wells. Some would say I’ve come to emulate many of them my own self.

Nobody who grew up reading Field & Stream can ever forget Ed Zern’s grandiloquently named Madison Avenue Rod, Gun, Bloody Mary and Labrador Retriever Benevolent Society, and it’s great motto: “Keep your powder, your trout flies, and your martinis dry.” What you may not remember is that it this outdoor club started life as the Midtown Rod, Gun etc. And what you probably never knew is that it was loosely based on an actual organization called the Midtown Turf, Yachting & Polo Association---who’s members did little in the way of grass track horse racing, live-aboard sailing, or batting a willow ball around with a mallet, but who spent a lot of time gunning, and fishing, and fooling around with dogs. And when they weren’t doing it in the far-flung corners of the world they were talking about it every Wednesday noon at a gin mill cum restaurant called Manny Wolf’s.

To be sure, most of these outdoor-writer clubs were as much fiction as real. Their members were, at best, conglomerates of other people the writer knew. But they served a great purpose. Using the format of an outdoor club, the writer can deal with higher truths. He can teach you a lesson, if that’s on his mind; or show you a new technique; or just launch a trial balloon by putting it in the mouth of a club member. He can make a story more entertaining by adding dramatic touches. Indeed, with a group of non-existent outdoor enthusiasts, the writer can actually make the outdoors more enjoyable. He can, through his group of misfits and malcontents, show you a better way to enjoy God’s green world.

Me, I ain’t got a club. And therein lies a problem.

It’s one thing for me and a buddy or two to go off on an outdoor adventure. But when I report it to you I have to stick more or less with the truth. After all, I’m talking about real people and real experiences.

When Bill Curry and I go fishing, it’s not unusual for me to teach him a trick or three. After all, I’ve been flyfishing for 40 years, and even a blind pig finds an acorn now and again.

But there’s telling a tale, and then there’s talling up a tale to make it better.

Let’s say I teach Bill a new wrinkle on presenting a nymph. Call it “tight-line nymphing.” There are two ways I can share that information with you.

On one hand, I can describe the technique, and tell you that Bill, who is a good student, immediately picked it up and spent the day using it. Straightforward and rather boring---particularly if Bill’s results, that day, weren’t spectacular.

On the other hand, I can describe to you the problems I had getting Bill to hold his rod like this, and let the fly bump along just so, and….interrupt myself to talk about the trout that hit halfway down his first drift, and how it was three pounds if it was an ounce, and how poor Bill slipped on a rock and broke his rod in the process, but still managed to land the fish despite his splintered graphite and wet butt.

The second version makes for a better tale. And you are more likely to remember the tight-line nymphing technique because of it.

But what about Bill? You remember Bill? This is a story about Bill. When last heard from he was sitting up to his chin in a trout stream, nursing a $200 fishing rod now considerably shorter than when he started fishing. Poor Old Bill might resent being the object used to make a point when it wasn’t true.

So, over the next few months, I’m going to search around for an outdoor club. It’ll need a catchy name (y’all can help with that---send your suggestions). And, given today’s outdoor world, will either include women as members or will have a Ladies Auxiliary (can we say that, anymore?) because the girls have demonstrated they can be just as fumbly bumbly as us boys.

Don’t be surprised if you start hearing about their antics.