A Stick In The Mud

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I like this one, too, although the price is a bit daunting at $85. Still, if a guy wanted to spend a lot of money to make himself seem a formidable fly-fisher, he'd have to buy one.

I've never felt the need to hook any brush while go fishing, but I might if I had the castbronze wherewithal to do so.

On the other hand I can't shake the feeling that a stick — I mean a stick, after all — is one of the few things left in life c hat should be, and in fact is, free for the taking. Collecti ng a stick in the field is both harm less and satisfying .

As a non-consumptive use of the countryside it's just a hair beneath bird- watching and photography, but well above hunting, fishing and fire building. And you don't need a license un less you're hauling them out by the cord for resale.

When you are out in the woods or walking along a trout stream, picking up a stick seems like such a natural thing to do: almost automatic. It's not always clear what you'll need it for, but you'll use it to pace your step, to lean on or maybe to turn over a rock and poke the garter snake you find underneath. Whatever, when you see a good one you take it because it's a basic, ancestral tool. It feels good in the hand because it's the thing we're genetically programmed to wrap our unique thumbs around.

The stick was one of the first two tools (the rock being the other), and, as a lever, it was one of the early concepts. Give me a fulcrum and a long enough lever, and I can move the world, someone in a grandiose mood once said. Its probably fair to say that any device that has a handle began its career as a convenient stick.

Like the fishing pole, for instance. A pole is a version of the stick, as are the shaft, rod, beam, stem, wand and so on. We don't have as many words for sticks as Eskimos have for snow, but we do have a few.

No one knows for sure, but I'd guarantee that the first fishing pole was a found object. Some guy working a wooded stream with a hand line looked around and said to himself, "Give me a stick long enough and I can catch that sucker on the far bank."

Even a fly rod is basically a stick. In fact, that's what you'll call it if you're properly hip. After trying one out, you might say, "That's one radical stick, man." IT WAS MY LATE FATHER who introduced me to walking sticks. Whenever we'd go for a stroll in the woods, as we often did when I was young, Dad would always stop with the first hundred yards or so and get a stick. Usually he'd just pick one up, sometimes he'd take out a sheath knife and cut one, but there was always a professional-looking process of selection to it. He'd look at it, wiggle it, sight down it, plant it on the ground and firm it there. Then he'd nod in approval and we'd set off on the walk proper. With a stick in hand, Dad's gait took on some of the aspects of a swagger.

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