Arnold collected things; violins, books, cars, fly rods, fine tackle and good friends. It was his friendships developed on fishing trips that were the true impetus for his three books about flyfishing literature, based on the simple premise that good friend share the best of what they have. He wanted others to know about the gems he found tucked away in certain old books. This article, and hopefully others to follow, is dedicated to that same principle: flyfishers of today should not forget the good authors of the past, indeed we should seek them out, and glory in their discovery.

Gingrich's book, The Well Tempered Angler, came off the presses of Alfred A. Knopf in 1965. On 337 pages divided into 21 chapters, Gingrich talks about friends he made while fishing, and of experiences they enjoyed together. Some of the chapters first appeared as articles or essays in publications as diverse as Playboy, Field & Stream and McLane's Standard Fishing Encyclopedia.

Early in the book, he tells his readers: "...this book suffers from that same disadvantage that has proverbially been attributed to the study of Latin, which is that the chief thing it fits you for is the study of more Latin. If you come with me all the way, it's only fair to let you know that you run a calculable risk of wanting to read some thirty-three other books, and of acquiring a considerable store of tackle, as a consequence. The journey that can be fraught with that much hazard, I am well aware, had better be well worth taking.

"Well, it has its points. You'll meet, if not a better class of people, then certainly a better class of fish, if only because you'll meet them under circumstances that encourage them to be at their best, and in a degree of intimacy that very few fishers achieve. As for the people, only a few of them are famous, but none is infamous so far as I know, and a great many of them are dead. This is not surprising, for in this field of activity, which has been cultivated for untold hundreds of years, it stands to reason that in any age there can never be more than a few of the living who can begin to teach you as much as the many who are dead and have gone, either lately or long, before you. It is hoped that in our progress through these pages we will miss very few in either category."

He then goes on to tell you stories of fishing with Ernest Hemingway, Preston Jennings, Lee Wulff, A.J. McClane and others. He talks about his beginning years as a fisherman, and of a trip with his young son. He talks about fishing trips to far off romantic places, and tells stories of what he learned and saw there. On page 221, Chapter 17 is entitled "The Angling Heritage" and Gingrich investigates the truly old fishing writers; Izaak Walton, Dame Juliana Berners, Thomas Best and others. He makes them real, believable and alive. He demystifies history and animates archaic writing.

His now famous list of 30 books that will make any fisherman (or woman) "well read" appears on page 236, divided into three sections; Classic, Vintage and Modern. In checking through my own library, I find I own none of the first 20, but seven of the last 10. All, Gingrich assures us, are available in any metropolitan or University library, and can be purchased from good rare book dealers.

He also makes this comment: "The first dividend to be derived from reading the old angling authors is the realization that there is nothing new under the sun, and that every angler practices his pastime under the conviction, voiced by all his elders, that fishing isn't what it used to be."

Deeper in the book, on page 306 to be exact, he makes this observation: ". . . fishing seems to me to be divided, like sex, into three most unequal parts, the two larger of which, by far, are anticipation and recollection, and in between, by far the smallest of the three, actual performance."

He notes that, "some anglers have tried to establish a class distinction between angling, as the diversion of gentlefolk, and fishing, as a common pursuit and including within the term the practice as a livelihood," and states an opinion. "I don't hold with the feeling that angling is too good for the common people, and use the terms for the most part as if they were interchangeable. I notice that both Lee Wulff and Al McClane, while they might admit to being anglers, still always refer to it as 'going fishing', and if they aren't gentlemen I have no way of telling who is."

At the end of the book, Gingrich uses the last two paragraphs to make his conclusion. "Actually, though being well read must be a part of the process, an angler is tempered chiefly by practice and experience, by learning and attempting to reach the successively higher goals of his sport, and thus acquiring, through any amount of disappointment and frustration, the satisfaction of knowing that he is doing the simplest thing in the hardest way possible. Then, be he never so churlish, short in his patience, hateful to his kids, mean to his mother, no matter what--as an angler, at least and at last, he is well tempered."

The last paragraph, and a quote lifted from the 1577 book, The Arte of Angling, need to be read personally to be appreciated. Find the book. Buy it. Read. At the end (after you've read the paragraph purposelly and teasingly left out here), read Gingrich's Selective Bibliography, List of Pertinent Addresses, and Index. And then glory and marvel at the skill, intelect and style of Arnold Gingrich and the introduction to flyfishing literature that The Well Tempered Angler provides.

In 1973, Crown published a book by Arnold Gingrich called The Joys of Trout. It's divided into three sections entitled: "A Balm of Fishlessness", "The Companionships of Angling" and "The Anglers's Best Companions". This is followed by a list of Fifty Books for a Fly Fisherman, a Bibliography and another Index.

In the short introduction section, Arnold talks about the "glorious uncertainty" of fishing, noting that much of the attraction of the sport lies in its ever changing nature. In the second section he again talks about friends and fishing experiences, but this time he talks about fishing organizations he supports, and urges all flyfishers to do likewise.

On page 31, there's this delightful quote: "The perversity of fish can be likened, I think sometimes, to the perversity of cats. They won't come when you want them, but only when they're good and sure that it's their idea and not yours."

And that bit of levity is balanced with these serious thoughts: "We fish because we love it, and like to talk about it and read about it, and hence we seek out, or are attracted by, people and books and clubs and committees or confederations that are as concerned with fishing as we are. Some of these people may be guides in the backwoods, some city dwellers whom we meet at business lunches and similar gatherings, and others we never meet and never can, except through the pages of books or magazines, but the one great common denominator that links us all is our love of fishing.

"And if many of the contacts of our fishing lives are only mental, such as the remembered precepts that come back to us -- from guides long gone, or now faraway friends, or angling authors who today belong only to each other, and the ages -- as we face new fishing situations in actuality, then this is as it should be, since so much of fishing is purely mental.

". . . we begin that progression through the phases of angling that culminates in the realization that success in fishing is not so much a matter of acquiring all the latest wrinkles in tackle and techniques as it is in the approach to fishing with a well-furnished mind.

"For the angler's progress leads not to further bragging, but to an access of humility: the more we learn about fishing, the more we realize how much there is to learn and how little we know."

Again counterbalanced with this statement, "Going salmon fishing is a lot like going to college. A lot of dopes get to go on whom it is largely wasted."

Just before the end of the second section of this book, Gingrich makes the observation, ". . . no sport has been more widely or richly written about than fishing." He then devotes a lot the third section to listing people, places and organizations affiliated with fishing. It's an alphabetized list that can still serve as a "Who's Who" in flyfishing.

At the end of this book, Gingrich says, "The thoughts we have while fishing are, almost invariably, idle thoughts, which is undoubtedly a large part of the reason we find it such a delightful contrast to work. Most of us do more real hard work while wielding a rod than we would ever do with shovel or hoe, but the blessed difference is that we don't have to do it and therefore don't mind doing it, and don't think of it as work at all. I'd drop dead in my tracks if I had to do in a factory or on a farm half of what I do without a thought on the Miramichi or the Esopus."

The Fishing In Print, Gingrich's monument to fishing literature, came out in 1974, published by Winchester. While it has as many pages as his first such book, the pages are larger, as are the ink drawings by Esquire Art Director John Groth, so it has the appearance of a truly regal book. And inasmuch as no one book can be a definitive work on the vague but broad topic of flyfishing literature, this one books provides a cornerstone of any investigation of the topic. If you want to know about flyfishing literature, you should buy read and reread this book.

Gingrich covers more than a dozen of the old masters, and again, demystifies them, this time with more extensive quotes. For many of us, it will be the only place we ever read some of these early authors. And while all three of the Gingrich books mentioned in this article are available only in rare book stores and private collections these days, The Fishing In Print will ultimately command the higher prices, because it's a more detailed and professionally presented book.

And still he demystifies: "The amateur angling scholar isn't going to find anything very rewarding in any of the pre-Walton fishing books. Collectors may find them nice to have, just as rarities for their shelves, and conversation pieces for colloquies with other collectors. There are only a handful anyway, compared to the flow that came after Walton. Old Izaak himself is as easy to read as today's paper, but his predecessors are like the meat in the less accessible parts of the lobster. It's there if you want to dig for it, but unless you're practically starved, it's hardly worth the trouble."

Putting perspective on things, "Dame Juliana Berners is to angling literature as Chaucer is to English literature, representing to all practical intents and purposes the very beginning. . . . You gather, from the general tone and attitude with which she discusses this 'merrie disport,' throughout The Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle, that the sport had already acquired traditions, by the early-to mid-fourteenth century time of her writing. . . . we don't even know who she was, or for sure that the author of The Treatise was a she.

And for opinion, "There is no better place to get the whole story of Dame Juliana and the treatise than in John McDonald's 1972 volume, Quill Gordon, with which he merged everything he had written about both Theodore Gordon and Juliana Berners in his two previous books, The Complete Fly Fisherman: The Notes and Letters of Theodore Gordon (1947) and The Origins of Angling (and a new printing of The Treatise of Fishing with an Angle) in 1963 . . . it is one of the most intense and perceptive feats of angling scholarship ever performed over the centuries in which fishing has been written about."

There's more. Tons more, but you'll have to buy the book and read it yourself to get it all. This is no lightweight flyfishing book. This is a book about flyfishing authors, with a scholarly presentation. It's still vintage Gingrich though, and that lightens the tone considerably from what it could be.

But for today's readers, Chapter 16, entitled "The Latter-Day Elect", provides some great entertainment. Gingrich lists three dozen authors whose books appeared after 1935, and makes comments about the authors and their books. It's a wonderful insight, over 20 years old now, on what were then considered "new" authors by Gingrich. It's also one of the best lists of good authors you'll ever find. Reading The Fishing In Print will take any reader from 'the Dame' to current times, and let him or her feel they have a good feel for many of flyfishing's significant authors

Of course the one author Gingrich doesn't talk about is himself. Any of his contemporaries, and most of today's students of the history of flyfishing, would give Arnold Gingrich high marks for simplifying complex issues into easy to understand paragraphs, through all the pages of the three books mentioned here.

Some authors should not be forgotten. Among their number is one who helps us remember many of the others, Arnold Gingrich..

DENNIS BITTON is a freelance writer in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Once the Editor of The Flyfisher magazine and owner/publisher/editor of FlyFishing News, Views & Reviews, he agrees with Gingrich that "Some of the world's best fishing is in the library". He encourages old friends to contact him on the web at dgb@srv.net.

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