The man largely responsible for my introduction to the world of fly-fishing was none other than Paul Bean, an Atlantic salmon fly tier of great renown and whose exquisite patterns, veritable works of a lost piscatorial art, grace the walls of such dignitaries and sportsmen as Prince Philip, Robert Redford, and ex-president George Bush. 

These are not your normal, everyday, store bought flies.

What makes both Paul and his flies unique and sought after, is that they are painstaking artistic recreations of old British Atlantic Salmon patterns from centuries ago, and that he is probably one of the few human beings alive that possesses this self-taught knowledge, based on years of archival research.  The flies are fully functional, of course, and you can fish with them, but most of them cost a small fortune and lie protected behind glass in ornate frames on a wall,  perhaps accompagnied with one of his wife Maureen`s beautiful watercolors of a Matapedia fishing scene.  The tying of these patterns is an all-consuming task, a labor of love that can sometimes take hundred of hours before Paul is satisfied with the end result. Needless to say, he only cranks out a few of these every year and these are quickly scooped up by collectors across the globe.

I was doubly fortunate through geography that Paul lived near us in the bucolic Eastern Townships in southern Quebec and that he had also been a good friend of my father since the post-war days, when they had some business together. It was Paul who made my first fly rod, a fast action eight weight hexagonal split bamboo, a dark burnished magohany that was gloriously varnished, with a half wells cork grip and a cherry wood reel seat with garnished german silver fittings.  It was his first attempt at making a bamboo rod and it was presented to me by my father as a gift to me for my thirteenth birthday, probably in the hope that I would stay out of trouble and learn something about the life lessons of nature in the process. These were the best times of my life and with that rod were laid out my first flies on the waters closest to my home.

With the rod came a few courses of instruction and Paul proved to be a patient teacher despite the inadequacies of his new pupil. The gospel according to Paul, at least in regards to basic casting mechanics, involved locking the elbow to the side of the body and moving the rod from a ten to one position on a imaginary clock, counting down the cast - one, two, three, one. It was the classic metronome method, old school, austere, and Presbyterian  in its approach; yet, in retrospect, it was a lesson in basic fundamentals  that worked well enough and was not to rigid as to preclude incorporating one’s own personal physical style to the formula. 

There were three types of casts we practiced - single and double hauls, as well as the roll cast, useful in tight quarters where a backcast is out of the question or when fishing a short or sinking line. Distance was less important than accuracy and stealth. Twenty-feet was all you needed was a mainstay of Paul’s casting catechism.  A drag free drift when fishing dry flies was paramount to success and the drift on a shorter cast line was much easier to mend and control than a long one.  Cast three or four times over the the same water and shuffle two steps downstream without kicking up too much of the riverbed! Repeat the process. It was all pretty traditional stuff.

 But when it came to fishing his approach was anything but conventional, at least in those days when nobody admitted to fishing for anything other than trout or salmon with a fly - such an endeavor would be heresy to the purists at a time when the sport was still highly elitist and limited in its scope of vision as to the possibilities of fishing with flies. Paul, on the other hand, a forward thinker, was an advocate of fishing for other species as well, such as bass, pike, and musky on the fly. He ultimately believed that all fish could be caught on a fly and backed it up by doing it, from flyfishing for Shad on the St-John’s to catching giant largemouth bass on Memphremagog.

Interspersed with the casting lessons, were discourses on fish conservation, habitat, old fishing trips, stories of great fish and salmon camps, life lessons of the Great Depression and War, anectotes about his great friend and legendary salmon guide Richard Adams, reel maker Stan Bogden, and almost anything else regarding the fishing life and the human condition. Paul could talk about anything. On these hot summer afternoons, as he told me all these things, mostly in dribs and drabs, imperfect thoughts that wafted uncertainly skyward like the flight of ephemera, time seemed to stand still and we were the at the epicenter of the Universe. He was a great mentor and shared his knowledge of the sport with selflessness, honesty, and passion, as it should.

One afternoon, as we were practicing on the lawn behind the library of the Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Paul recounted something to me that was beyond my comprehension at the time and that I had always remembered, and had somewhat nagged at me ever since. It seemed that there was a period in his life where he had given up fishing for a few years, following some difficult yet unspoken tragedy in his life where either some great personal or financial loss had been incurred, or he had suffered some other existential crisis leading to a period of depression. He never told me straight up what it was and had muttered something about not being able to hook or land a fish, losing his patience and passion, no longer enjoying it and eventually walking away from the sport for a few years before finally getting back on the water. Up until that that time in his life, he had only fished for salmon and trout, but when he started fishing again he began experimenting with other species that were to be found in waters closer to home.

It was my uncle Mort that got him tying bass flies and then eventually, after much cajoling about the poor quality of Paul’s bass flies - which nevertheless got hammered on a daily basis - he succeeded in getting him to join him for some smallmouth bass fishing on Lake Massawippi.  Paul loved it. A solid friendship developed between them, at one point they even bought a property with a large lake and stocked it with bass and trout and fished almost every night after work. As best remembered, while most of my family thought that Mort was lazy and shiftless and would never amount to anything , the truth of the matter is that were it not for him, Paul may never have begun tying his amazing flies.

And as he shared his thoughts about the times and events and ups and downs of his life with me,  the small bits and pieces of the jugsaw puzzle that is everyman’s existence began to take shape, amidst poorly cast lines that landed in spaghetti loops at my feet on hot and lazy summer afternoons where time stood still during our long walks along the river. Along the way he would identify insects using their latin names, but my thoughts kept returning to that period in his life when he no longer fished. It was something that my soft adolescent brain could not understand - why would anyone stop fishing if they didn’t have to or were required not to do so by law. There are so many reasons why people fish - the real question is why more or all people do not!

That summer seemed to last a lifetime and after that I saw Paul less frequently as I went away to school for a few years, although we had fished together twice since and had dinner and a few beers out on the porch of his house one summer evening in North Hatley after I had returned from my studies at McGill. Again, for a few years we lost touch and when I last heard, much to my sorrow, he had passed away after a lengthy illness.

It was a few years back, after a period of personal upheaval, trials, and loss, and where a sudden responsibility had fallen upon me, I experienced one of those weird seasons where nothing seemed to feel natural, my patience was lacking, and where a large proportion of the fish hooked were lost through either error or bad luck. My timing was off and couldn’t manage a decent cast, had no confidence in the flies tied at the end of my tippet, had a hard time spotting feeding fish and never managed to hook or fight them properly, or so it seemed.

Something essential was missing and I had great difficulties coming to grips with the situation. After a season of that nonsense, my patience at it’s limit, fishing trips became less frequent, and then one day just stopped altogether for about a year or so. After a twenty-five year quest for the Holy Grail of fishing, that wonderful bamboo rod was placed in it cylindrical aluminum tube and stored in a basement closet.

It was during this time that was slowly realized that which Paul had been unable to express to a child who was certainly too young to understand at the time; and that how most of a man’s life, like a fish in a stream, was such as slippery thing to come to grips with and give meaning to, even though it all boiled down to a few simple basics, like locking your elbow to the side and counting down the cast. One-Two-Three-One. Then shuffling forward a few feet without mucking things up too much. Repeat.

Last April, the old rod that Paul built for me was found in a closet and with it, on the rivers closest to my home, fishing became fun once again. ARI VINEBERG