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A Fishing Life is Hard Work

By Scott Richmond

A Fishing Life is Hard Work, by Art Scheck. Published by Stackpole Books. 164 pages in a 6x9 format. Hardbound, no illustrations. $21.95 retail. Available from the publisher or online (google the title and author).

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he economics of the fly fishing industry suck. The market is growing slowly, if at all. The products are relatively inexpensive. Most companies are small mom-and-pop affairs; a dozen employees makes you an industry giant. Nobody's getting rich, and money is tight.

What does that mean to fly fishing magazines, where advertising is the primary source of revenue? It means they have to get their money from people who don't have any. Because income is short, they can't pay their writers very much. That means many of the writers are part-timers who (maybe) know a lot about fly fishing and (probably) not much about writing. Or the submissions are slickly written pieces touting a product, service, or resort--also known as stealth advertising.

The magazine's editor spends a lot of time fixing bad prose, fending off blatant hype, and trying to avoid a Faustian bargain with large advertisers. The editor is overworked, underpaid, constantly frustrated, occasionally compromised, and--worst of all--never has time to go fishing.

At least, that was the situation for Art Scheck, who was the editor--now the ex-editor--of "American Angler," the third largest US fly fishing magazine.

"The fun didn't go out of fly fishing all at once," he writes in his new book, A Fishing Life is Hard Work. He adds: "But it didn't take very long, either."

Three years after Scheck started his first job at an angling magazine, he'd stopped fishing. When he thought about going to the water, it was from a sense of obligation, not passion.

Eventually, Scheck returned to fishing. It became fun again. Not because he did it in the manner extolled by fishing magazines, but because he did it his way. He abandoned fly-fishing purity and mixed fly rods and plug rods, chased both trout and bass. Above all, he had a good time and re-discovered what fishing is all about.

A Collection of Essays

A Fishing Life is Hard Work is a collection of essays that span about three years. The essays are not arranged chronologically, nor are all of them about the fly fishing industry.

Is He Right?

This book is more about Scheck's rediscovery of fishing than about the dirty linen of the fly fishing industry. Still, some readers will wonder if the industry is really the way he describes it. Can they believe anything they read in a magazine? Are outdoor writers just a pack of pimps, shills, and hacks?

Scheck presents his view of his experience. I've met a lot of people in this business, and some of them track with Scheck's view. But most of them don't. I don't think Scheck credits the industry with enough integrity, nor magazine readers with enough discernment. Most of the industry puffery he describes would be (and has been) ripped to shreds on the Westfly Board.

A Good Read

A Fishing Life is Hard Work reflects Scheck's new-found vision of fishing, which is that it should be fun and reflect individual tastes. That's a good vision. Every angler needs to decide what he or she likes about the sport, and not let anyone else define their experience for them.

If you only like to read about trout in general and western trout in particular, this book is not for you. If you can get past that, you'll probably find A Fishing Life is Hard Work a pleasure to read. Scheck is a master wordsmith. His prose is clear, concise, and crisp. You won't find Gierach-style one-liners and profound insights, but you'll have a good time anyway. Some of the chapters, such as "Modern Structure Fishing" are an absolute hoot; you'll never look at Ford Pintos the same way again.

Bottom Line: A collection of well-written essays that give some insights into the fly-fishing industry. Reviewer Rating: 3

Scott Richmond is Westfly's creator and Executive Director. He is the author of eight books on Oregon fly fishing, including Fishing Oregon's Deschutes River (second edition).

Uploaded 08/05/2003.

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