Monday 29 July 2013

The Trout Bohemia NZ Fly Fishing Book Review, Trout Diaries, Stu Tripney


The Trout Bohemia - avaiable @ Stu's Fly Shop

My nose is so cold and it is supposed to be summer here in Yellowstone Park - maybe the bears are hibernating this summer? Deciding there is no choice, I gently roll over and push my nose into the cheap Walmart pillow. It is now I am wishing I had purchased the more expensive, softer one but the scottish blood in me got the better of me.

It was full moon last night and maybe that was the cause of the constant chatter of the Canadian geese most of the night in the meadow beside the tent.The red stuff is starting to circulate round my ever increasing nose of old age and it starts to feel normal again.
I smile as the noisy geese take flight to pastures new, all is quite again. Drifting off into a dream of bears sniffing round the tent after my prized fly tying material, my mind plays tricks on me.
Suddenly my eyes are open as I feel the corner of my new travel book dig into the side of my neck, left there from the night before.

The Trout Bohemia is the book spawned from Derek Grzelewski's first book The Trout Diaries. My mind wanders back to some of the chapters that were dreamily read late last night - until my hands got too cold.
Smiling and staring at the condensation on the roof of the tent, casting my mind back to some of the interesting and juicy bits. "Wonder if I know that guy in the North Island? Surely I know that river? So that is where and how the jet boat engine started its life!
"Those bohemians must have come through the shop at some stage over the years. I must know most of them!"

Fighting!

The battery life in the lantern was gradually dying but that did not matter. The sun was rising and its warm rays started to light up the inside of the tent. Great! Enough visibility to read and to be taken for another great adventure in the pages of the book before it is time to string up my fly rod and chase some small Yellowstone grayling.

Closing the book, I unzip the tent with a smile on my face, the fish are calling. Or is it just the fresh air? Whilst playing with water and the creatures that live in it on the other side of the world, my mind seems to be constantly going back to different chapters in the book. 
Only two other authors have ever managed to do this to me, a great travel writer, Paul Theroux and fly fishing legend author John Gierach.

Derek Grzelewski is writing his way to greatness and has yet again crafted another awesome book.
He has an unique gift of taking the reader on a true journey. A thought provoking love story about trout, bohemians, emotions, love, knowledge and a dog he sleeps with.
Just like The Trout Diaries, you will end up reading The Trout Bohemia book more than once and using it as a reference guide in more than one way. 

 
Warming up after a cold night camping


Your mind will wander back and forth whilst reading it and for months after. I can promise you that part.
How is my casting? What can I do to improve my love life? Do I like dogs? What do I want out of life? Do I have the right fly tied on?Am I really here for the fish?
Once Derek Grzelewski has finished writing about NZ and its trout and people, I personally can not wait until he wanders off to other continents to chase other species of fish - and  meets the bohemians that chase them. I hope he takes his pen and paper with him, the world is his oyster! The Fly Fishing Bohemians Vol 1 - 100!

Thank you for your great work Derek.

Though maybe he has found his true love?
A book worth the wait.
Thank you for your great work Derek.

Cheers,
Stu Tripney
Owner of Stu's Fly Shop, Stu's Superior Flies and NZ Fly Fishing School.

The book is available here.



Quotes from the book:

"Stu travelled to have her look at his casting, a twelve hour return drive for an one hour lesson. That meeting was a turning point and it led Stu on an adept journey from one teacher to another."

"Then - ah, shit! he said, lowering his weapon. What? He knows we are here! Has it spooked? I can still see him! Yeah, but he won't eat anymore. How do you know? See his dorsal fin?"

"Life had its own natural velocity, he told me and no amount of impatience, of rushing or pushing things along would change that. 
You couldn't rush a sunset or a hatch, you could only be there to witness and experience it in its own time."

"I drove around asking about him but no one, not even as it turned out, his closest neighbor could tell me who and where he was. I asked two men repairing an old Bedford truck, a rust bucket that looked freshly salvaged from a west coast swamp and they replied with blank stares: Evans. You know, the gold diver? I persisted? Ah, cave man! One of them lit up. Sure, we know cave man, he is in the house next door."

"The Trout Bohemia has priorities different from those of most other people, and often a different set of values, which can be at odds with those of society. By definition, Bohemianism is unconditional even be nonconformist and might even be seen as an escape from reality. If not a subscription of a different kind of reality altogether."


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