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"The
only picture on display in my shop is of a fish I did not catch. I am in
the shot, proudly grinning, and I am not the one holding the fish. It is
a hero picture of Darling Betsy (make that a heroine picture) holding a
stunning brown trout."
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Hero
Pictures and Darling Betsy
By
Joseph Meyer
There
are no hero pictures on display here in the fly shop. As I visit fly
shops around the country, I have invariably seen these pictures showing
grinning anglers and the hard-working folks who guide them proudly
offering their catch for display and I'm sure that you have seen them
too. You yourself might even be in one of them.
Even here in the Midwest, there are photos of bonefish,
tarpon, hard-won permit and roosterfish honoring those proficient
anglers who have the where-with-all to travel to the waters where these
species live. Giant pike from distant Canadian waters as well as toothy
musky are almost always on display along with the hog trout and an
occasional picture of a diminutive tiddler that was taken just for fun.
I have one of my own smiling self holding a female King
Salmon caught on the Sheboygan River as a screen saver on my office
computer but not on the bulletin board. It serves as a daily reminder of
the Circle of Life Thing. Salmon spawn, die, the fry go away; come back
again as adults, spawn anew. To me, it's an affirmation that God wants
life to go on, and so it appears every time I boot up. Some of the hero
pictures in fly shops are of the Barry & Cathy Beck variety, almost
a complete travelogue on four-by-six stock. Some are blurry and out of
focus because the harried angler was probably screaming advice on how to
operate a camera unfamiliar to the guide all the while holding onto a
trophy. Also, a lot of trophy fish are taken in low-light conditions
that are conducive to fishing but not photography, but that makes them
kind of fun to look at as well. Cynics among us might take a gander at
all of this fish porn and wonder if the guy in the picture is thinking
that he is a better angler than we are. After all, there's the proof. I
doubt very much that the expressions of the anglers in the pictures have
anything to say other than "Look what I did!" but in more than
a few the angler is all puffed up like a toad with pride. I probably
would be, too.
Fly shop owners post these pictures as a courtesy to their
customers thereby giving them bragging rights. Nothing short of actually
being present when a large fish is landed is more proof positive that an
angler caught this beast than a picture, and that's why we take them.
Perhaps shop owners post these pictures as subliminal advertising as if
to say, if you bought flies from this fly shop, you too, could catch
fish this big. For the most part, it's an advertising strategy that
works well.
Fly shop bulletin boards are not the only place that hero
pictures appear. With improved digital technology, they now appear on
most fly shops' websites as well seemingly announcing "Shop here,
catch big fish!"
Print ads in the fly-fishing magazines are slickly produced
to show the big fish but mostly the product being advertised. The angler
is holding up for display the fish but also the rod/reel/waders they
used to catch such a big fish and if you bought the rod/reel/waders
being advertised, you too could catch a big one.
The give-away to these types of pictures is almost always the red
hat or brightly colored shirt featured along with the fish. This is the
fault of photo editors who demand a more pleasingly composed shot, never
mind that most anglers would never fish for trout wearing a fire engine
red shirt nor a ball cap that makes them look like anything other than
Bozo. There are no visible scratches on the anglers face, sunglasses are
off, the fly rod is not hanging askew off of the side of the drift boat
and the fish is almost always in the center of the shot. Heads are not
cut off in a professionally produced shot but in hero pictures they
quite often are.
I'm mystified as to how these fish were ever caught in the
first place. Did an honest-to-God fly fisher catch the fish and then
hand it over to a model to pose with or perhaps the angler handed the
fish to someone for safekeeping while he changed shirts and hats? I can
identify with the pride shown in the smiles of anglers shown in hero
pictures. I, too have a fish that I am very proud of. There is a photo
album buried somewhere on my desk bulging with pictures of the beautiful
fish that I have caught in equally beautiful surroundings but these are
not on display, they are for me.
The only picture on display in my shop is of a fish I did
not catch. I am in the shot, proudly grinning, and I am not the one
holding the fish. It is a hero picture of Darling Betsy (make that a
heroine picture) holding a stunning brown trout.
Betsy came to us when I was an instructor for the Big O,
teaching the On-The-Water Trout School. She bounced across the meadow
looking so damn cute that she was nicknamed Darling Betsy on the spot.
She was carrying a forty-year-old Orvis bamboo fly rod given to her by
her father.
She related to us that she tried to fish with it but her
father saw her cast and told her to go get some instruction so as not to
embarrass herself, the fish nor disgrace that beautiful fly rod.
We took the rod away from her for the time being, gave her
a graphite school rod and proceeded with the course work. Only after the
two-day class did we return it to her and then only after every
instructor had the chance to try it out; it was a stunner.
She was an enthusiastic but mediocre student. Full of
excitement but with more energy than talent; she was delighted that at
the end of the weekend, I led her downstream for a private fishing
session with her Dad's glorious bamboo rod. I chose to wear street
clothes and leave my own rod and waders in the truck; I wanted the
afternoon to be about Darling Betsy catching a fish with her inherited
rod.
I got her to read that section of stream on her own, select
her own fly and tie it on her tippet by herself. She had the wrong fly
tied onto a tippet that was way too stout, her shadow was directly over
the pool and it shaped up to be a fishless afternoon but I let her plod
on. She whispered, "This is for you, Daddy," whipped out a
respectable cast and drifted her fly too far away from the slot that I
was sure held trout but her cast was so short my confidence was erased.
A sixteen-inch brown rocketed across the pool and
absolutely inhaled her fly. She fought that trout for ten minutes,
gamely running up and down stream, the both of us giggling like
schoolgirls until I waded in up to my hips to bare-hand it. Wet wallet,
ruined hiking boots but a landed fish.
The commotion we caused alerted her husband who came over
and snapped our picture, the two of us smiling wildly. With great
reverence, Betsy revived the trout, wished it well, and sent it on its
way.
"Thank
you Daddy, thank you so very much!" Hearing her whisper this, I had
to turn away, I must have had a piece of dust or something in my eyes
that made them water. Even though I have the picture on the wall as
proof, I rarely look at it. I don't need to, I will remember that trout
the rest of my life.
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 About
the Author:
Joseph Meyer is the Owner of One More Cast Fly Shop in Countryside,
Illinois.
Previously, he was an instructor for the Orvis Corporation where
he discovered his love of teaching the art of Fly Fishing.
A long time customer of One More Cast, Joseph jumped at the
chance to purchase the shop when the owner retired and he took ownership
of the shop that day in September when planes flew into two towers in
New York. More than just a
retailer, Joseph considers himself a Fly Fishing Educator giving many
Fly Casting and Fly Tying clinics each year.
He is a member and demonstration fly tyer for the Northern
Illinois Fly Tyers, the Du Page Rivers Fly Tyers, and Chicago Fly
Fishers and is a board member of Trout Unlimited as well as a member of
the Illinois Smallmouth Alliance. As a commercial Fly Tyer, he hand-ties
over 600 dozen flies annually. He
teaches several Trout Schools each year in Wisconsin as well as a
Saltwater School and a Tarpon School in Florida, a Musky and Northern
Pike School in Wisconsin. He has
appeared on many radio and television programs and is an author whose
writing has appeared in the Outdoor Notebook, American Angler
and the Yale Angler’s Journal as well as having his short
stories published in Looking Over the Bridge Rail. As
a Fly Fisher, Joseph has fly fished for trout from Alaska to Argentina
but loves fly-fishing for every species of fish here in the Midwest.
Although his stories are based on real events in and around his fly
shop, Joseph has never let actual facts get in the way of a good story.
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