I am delighted to bring you my thoughts, ideas and concepts regarding my favorite sport, the gentle art of fly fishing. Before beginning, however, I thought it advisable to provide you an overview of how I intend to handle this column and, more importantly, a little insight into my thinking.

In addition to being a student of fly fishing, I am also a student of Gestalt psychology. Applied to fly fishing, the premises of this school of thought fit well. Broadly speaking, a gestalt is a configuration of physical and psychological phenomena so integrated as to become a functional unit not derivable from the simple sum of its parts. In fly fishing, I think of it this way: the hardware -- the rods, reels, lines, leaders and tippets -- taken together can be greater than the simple sum of the parts, especially when matched to the fly fisher. Said another way, I believe a skillfully conceived and crafted fly fishing system can perform magic deeds when tailored to the fly fisher’s hands and his or her individual differences. This notion of the fly fishing gestalt will permeate the column with successive discussions focusing on the parts of the "whole" and how they relate to you, the fly fisher. Over the weeks to come, look forward to treatments covering lines, leaders, tippets, knots, rods and reels.

I’m confident you will find new thoughts and ideas on these pages as we go forward. Some of you will agree with what I have to say and some of you will not. Besides addressing fly fishing using a holistic approach, you may or may not like the idea that I will become gender specific in attempting to cope with the rather well documented physiological differences between men and women. However, whether you are male or female, I think the content will stand you in good stead if you decide to commit to the sport, and if already committed, add to your depth of knowledge.

As for me, I was captured by the sport of fishing when I was about eight years old. It’s hard for me to believe that well over fifty years have passed downstream since I caught my first fish. Getting started was difficult: My Mother thought fishing was insidiously stupid and my Dad was overseas serving in WWII. Who then were my teachers? The answer is: Field & Stream, Sports Afield and Outdoor Life. Every month I bought all three for about $1.05 (a measly 35¢ apiece in those days) and read each one cover to cover at least three times.

In time, I became a proficient fisher as I passed though life’s stages. Occasionally while demonstrating my mastery of rod & reel, I would accidentally catch a fish. Finally the day came when I ended up with a fly rod in my hands and found that I caught even more fish. While I still enjoy bait casting, spinning and surf casting with ultra-light, the fly rod became my personal challenge and my first love. Catching fish, of course is the best way to amortize the cost of your equipment. My wife asked that I mention a fish dinner at our home is rather inexpensive, especially since I’ve managed to reduce the "per pound" cost from $1,477.98 to $378.83.

So much for my background. And now that you know everything about me, let me hasten to add I’ve arrived - at last, I have become an "Iswas."

Becoming an Iswas simplifies life. An Iswas speaks incisively. As an Iswas, you can "truthspeak" without regard to whether-or-not the person you are speaking to wants to hear the truth. Being a simple Iswas, I believe clear thinking requires blowing away the smoke surrounding any subject. And fly fishing, for the good or the bad, always seems to have a bit of smoke hanging around. Some call it "mystique." Others call it "embellishing the truth." Still others refer to it using a term describing the large pile of digestive residue Texas Bulls leave behind.

Whatever it’s called, fly fishing has had more than its share of short terms. The "mystique" has served the purpose of keeping people from participating in the sport because they anticipate: (1) the so-called high cost, (2) the requirement for "innate" expertise (whatever that is), and/or (3) the "impossible" technical difficulty associated with the sport. Here is an example of embellishing the truth - It’s a little tongue-in-cheek story about the great trophy trout that lurks beneath the huge boulder in the tiny little creek.

"With his tiny rod, a wispy 6-foot 1-weight, Hermann Smuck made his final cast. It was effortless - for Herm’s technique embodied his recently perfected "triple-toe barefoot haul." The Gossamer Thread Tippet, some 45 feet in length, followed the thin line subscribing a perfectly formed loop. Hermann could barely see the fly, a number 64 Black Wasp, tied to the tippet’s end. Upward and outward the fly soared moving majestically as if blown along by a soft gentle breeze. Farther and farther it carried until finally it began its decent to the target, an oak leaf floating some 245 feet away. The tiny fly settled softly to the water through a small hole in the leaf. Hermann's accuracy was right-on as usual. He twitched the fly once. . . twice. . .then the water exploded! Throughout the valley Hermann’s cry of excitement echoed, "Fish ON!".

Of course there is no such thing as a gossamer thread tippet, much less one 45 feet in length. There is also no such thing as a #64 Black Wasp, at least until some fly tier reads this. Even then, tying it will be a feat. A #64 would be so tiny, I don’t think my weary old eyes could see it even if it was lying in the palm of my hand under a magnifying glass. Finally, the triple-toe haul is yet to be developed, and no one can cast a rig similar to the one described above anywhere near 245 feet. It’s simply impossible.

What follows is the better part of a book (minus a few chapters). As you peruse these articles in the weeks to come, I hope you enjoy them informative, instructional, and entertaining. In the end, and with your support, I would like nothing more than to publish these works in their entirety as a book a wistfully call, Fly Fishing for the Rest of Us. You should find the product updates well worth your time and, perhaps, a savings in money.

What’s to be first in the order of battle? If you guessed it’s to be All About Lines, you are correct.

What follows? How about these:

• Of Tippets, Leaders, and Knots
• Folk Tales & Fly Rods
• The Fly Reel - Fact & Fantasy
• Assembling the System (Several Parts)
• Assembling the System - Putting It all Together
• Accoutrements
• To Catch a Fish
• Minding Your Manners