Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman's Journey.

摘要

Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman's Journey is a collection of creative nonfiction memoirs and essays, which together function as one memoir. Each memoir and essay has its own topic and focus, but sequenced, the pieces work to illuminate my life as a fly fisherman. The work details my childhood growing up in a family of fishermen, my ongoing obsession with fish, my reliance on water, my friendships made with rod in hand, and my journey into becoming a man while standing waist-deep in a stream.;The opening pieces of this memoir focus on my obsession with fish and attempt to enlighten why I am a man who is defined by fish. The memoir moves into a discussion of family and how their dedication to fishing drove me to crave time on the water. From there, selections begin to discuss the idea of fishing as an art form and describe what it means to be an artist on the water---a piscatorial Picasso. Next, the memoir begins to examine what it is that pushes me deeper and deeper into the natural world. The absence of humanity and the purity of being wild are driving factors that take me to the woods. After that, the memoir moves into a discussion of fish. Describing fish caught, fish seen, fish that got away, and fish that have spent ten thousand years in a single place, I showcase where my respect for my piscine brethren stems from as well as my necessity to pass this virtue on. Lastly, the memoir focuses on the river as a teacher, as a place where I grew from a boy to a man. In a final scene of contemplation, I head further down the stream to, in the words of Thoreau, "learn what it had to teach."