Sunlit Riffles and Shadowed Runs: Stories of Fly Fishing in America

Acknowledgments

ix Ac­ knowl­ edg­ ments Any fly ­ fisher who is hon­ est, if ­ that’s not an oxy­ moron, is in­ debted to far too many peo­ ple to count. The same is true, per­ haps even truer, of one who ­ writes. With sin­ cere apol­ o­ gies to the many big-hearted in­ di­ vid­ u­ als whom space con­ straints have not let me men­ tion here, I want to thank the fol­ low­ ing for their friend­ ship, tip shar­ ing, and oth­ er­ wise in­ val­ u­ able con­ tri­ bu­ tions to my writ­ ing and an­ gling life: My wife, Jane, whose love, grace, ar­ tis­ tic in­ sight, and in­ dul­ gence of my more than oc­ ca­ sional ­ foibles and fix­ a­ tions I can never suf­ fi­ ciently repay. Mike ­ Meeker, Joe Ko­ lupke, Orval Lund, Scott ­ Bestul, and Jane Cow­ gill for their gen­ er­ ous crit­ i­ cal feed­ back on sev­ eral of the sto­ ries in this col­ lec­ tion, and all five of them, to­ gether with Bruce John­ son, James Nichols, John Cow­ gill, Nel­ son and Leif Ras­ mu­ son, Dr. Donna Cros­ ley, Chuck Shep­ ard, Jerry Seim, Bruce ­ Fuller, Dave ­ Mahlke, Paul Ball­ weg, Jerry Hey­ mans, John Short, Dr. Hans Zin­ necker, Jim John­ son, the crew mem­ bers of Very like a Whale, and the late Bob ­ Briggs and Hub Bambe­ nek for all ­ you’ve done to en­ rich my years on riv­ ers and­ streams. The magic of fly fish­ ing has ­ flowed into my soul ­ through many of your ca­ pable hands. Jim But­ ler, Joe Healy, and the cur­ rent and for­ mer staff at Fly Rod & Reel mag­ a­ zine for hav­ ing pub­ lished sev­ eral of the ­ collection’s sto­ ries in its an­ nual ­ Traver Award fic­ tion con­ test. Also, Trout mag­ a­ zine and x Acknowledgments Trout Un­ lim­ ited for pub­ lish­ ing in 1990 one of my ear­ li­ est fly fish­ ing sto­ ries, “Season’s End.” Den­ nis John­ son, for his ar­ tis­ tic tal­ ents. Paul A. Olson, Ed Hahn, and Kent Ea­ kins, whose gen­ e­ ros­ ity and good­ will are ex­ pres­ sions of what I value most about Ne­ braska, my home state. My sons, Eric and Andy, for the count­ less ways they have en­ cour­ aged and sup­ ported me. Their inter­ est in my tales, oral and writ­ ten, has been a crea­ tive stim­ u­ lus since their child­ hood days in Camp Win­ ne­ bago, Cluny Cot­ tage, and the old camp­ ing van Aunt Pet­ ti­ toes. My broth­ ers, Doug and Scott, for a ­ shared life­ time of joy­ ous ex­ pe­ ri­ ences on ­ streams, ­ fields, ­ courts, and other ve­ nues dat­ ing back to our own ­ cramped child­ hood bed­ rooms in the tiny vil­ lage whose apt name, Sil­ ver Creek, I could only later come to ap­ pre­ ciate. My ­ mother, Bar­ bara—age­ less, heart­ warm­ ing ma­ tri­ arch. John Gierach, for his gen­ er­ ous help and ad­ vice. Bob White, for the beau­ ti­ ful paint­ ing that ­ graces this ­ book’s cover. And fi­ nally, the ter­ rific pro­ fes­ sional staff at the Uni­ ver­ sity of Wis­ con­ sin Press, es­ pe­ cially Ra­ phael Kad­ u­ shin, Mat­ thew Cosby, Adam Meh­ ring, An­ drea Chris­ tof­ fer­ son, Anne ­ McKenna, Carla Ma­ rolt, Fran­ cine Gro­ gan, and Diana Cook, for your many at­ ten­ tive con­ tri­ bu­ tions. Work­ ing with all of you has been one of the most re­ ward­ ing ex­ pe­ ri­ ences of my life. Sun­ lit Rif­ fles and Shad­ owed Runs ...