OUTDOORS: Right Anglers

It’s not a hobby, it’s an obsession.” Charles Wohl chuckles as he says it, but his words couldn’t ring more true. Though he’s been fishing since his grandfather introduced him to the sport when he was six, Wohl didn’t try his hand at fly-fishing until the mid-1970s, when a roommate moved out and left his fly rod behind. He caught his first trout on the Greenfield River, and he’s been engrossed in the art of fly-fishing ever since.

“Anytime I get an afternoon off, I tend to go fishing,” says Wohl, a doctor of internal medicine at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Travel, for business or pleasure, always involves fly-fishing. “Your traveling becomes informed by your fishing needs,” he says, detailing trips he’s taken, such as one to San Diego for a wedding (“I wasn’t going to go out there without investigating the fly-fishing”) or on organized conventions for doctors and medical professionals. (“All I had to do was give a course,” explains Wohl, and then he was able to go fishing.)

Opening a door to a study-sized room in his home in Lenox, Massachusetts, he leads the way into what appears to be a fishing shrine, bedecked with photos of past adventures and various memorabilia, including a print of a fisherman, flies, and trout by his friend John Manikowski. “We also call this the ‘sacred room,’” he says, his eyes twinkling as he scans the decorated walls fondly, past shelves of books—all of them on fly-fishing—resting finally on an old, dark wooden drawer unit almost as tall as Wohl himself.

A scientist to his core, Wohl’s attraction to fly-fishing is as much to the entomological aspect as to the sport itself. “It’s all about the aquatic insect,” says Wohl, opening a few of the thin drawers to reveal compartments brimming with brightly colored threaded flies, ranging from those in tropical pinks and yellows with long, graceful, almost fairy-like wings to tiny, barely visible specks, which upon close examination sport minuscule, perfectly symmetrical wings and intricate beaded bodies. “I’ve caught a twenty-inch trout on these tiny nymphs,” he says, pointing to a microscopic specimen.

After carefully placing the fly back into the drawer, Wohl gestures to an open book nearby: Selective Trout. “This is my bible,” he says. Currently, he notes, trout are eating blue-winged olives, a type of mayfly, so he starts rustling through small bins of material that seem to include everything from various types of cloth to sterilized roadkill. “Roadkill is very important,” he declares, raising his left pointer finger and eyebrow emphatically, before moving on to a large magnifying contraption and taking a seat at its helm.

This is where he makes the flies; under well-lit magnification, he re-creates true-to-form flies from the hundreds of patterns that exist. Using carefully selected bits and pieces from his library of materials, he wields tweezers to hold the fly body in place as he winds thread around to bring it all together. Revealing his scientific nature, he begins to explain the intricacies of selecting, using, and crafting flies to fit the season, region, and environment. “Luckily,” he adds, “my undergrad degree was in biology, so this was of interest to me anyway.”

After trundling through the tall grass of a little-known access point to the Westfield River, Rex Channell chooses a hefty brown stone from the bottom of the cool, shallow water. Examining it closely and emitting a grunt of approval, he points to what looks like a speck of leaf matter or dirt clinging to the bottom of the rock. Plucking it off of the rock, he rolls it back and forth gingerly between his fingers until it unfurls, and then points out the damp, undeveloped wings—a real, live example of a fly that resembles what Wohl had pulled from his drawer of tied flies. These nymph flies are at the underwater stage of the aquatic insect’s life cycle and make up the bulk of a trout’s diet.

As Channell selects a small fly from his collection, he clenches the thin fishing line between his teeth while explaining the improved clinch knot he’s using. Channell shares his thirty-plus years of fly-fishing experience through his guide service, Allure Outfitters, which provides gear and know-how to people of all ages. With half- and full-day trips, both on the water or from the shore, he aims to make clients self-sufficient after one or two sessions. He teaches casting form and knot-tying and provides a constant stream of tips and observations about the river and the fish. “I’ve got a lot of experience” he says, “but they’re still wild animals.”

Like golf, the swing of a fly rod is improved continuously, and awareness of form and placement are essential. “Fly-casting is a lot like teaching people how to ride a bike,” says Jim Dowd, who leads fly-fishing tours at Zoar Outdoor, located up river on the Deerfield in Charlemont, Massachusetts. He begins with casting clinics, which are detailed, precise, and systematic. Effortlessly flicking the line through the air while explaining his four-part casting method, he says, “If you just let the rod do the work, it’s beautiful.” It’s not about power, it’s about speed, he says. “The key is technique.”

“Catching a fish is great, but going fishing is about the experience,” says Karen Karlberg, with a slight smile and distant gaze as she looks out at the serene pond and woods that abut her Becket, Massachusetts, property. Holding her own in what, for many years, was a boys’ club, Karlberg has made a name for herself in the Berkshire Fly Fishing arena. In 2006, she won the Trout Unlimited Taconic Chapter’s “Crooked Staff.” Karlberg chuckles, explaining that the award is for being a “gentleman.”

Fishing, she says, is very different for men and women. “For men, it’s all technique. For women … you just let your senses envelop you.” A Berkshire native, Karlberg grew up fishing, but took up fly-fishing fifteen years ago and can easily recall her favorite catches. But, “I haven’t caught my best yet,” she muses. “It’s still out there.”

Karlberg, like many of the other fly-fishers in the area, has managed to work her love of fly-fishing into many aspects of her life. She has promoted the sport to women, a small but growing portion of fly-fishers, through the local chapter of Casting for Recovery (CFR), which reaches out to breast cancer survivors. Karlberg has been a one-on-one river guide for CFR retreats in the Berkshires and Vermont for more than eight years, helping teach participants—all of whom have been affected by breast cancer—fly-fishing, with an emphasis on its meditative aspect and on forming bonds of support through the sport.  

Many fly-fishers seem to find ways to build on their avocation when away from the river. Whether by writing about it, becoming an expert fly-tier, guiding others in fishing, or partaking in the network of anglers in the area, fly-fishers are an impassioned lot. They not only form a tight-knit community among themselves; fly-fishers form a tight-knit relationship with nature. Fly-fishing is an intimate and respectful celebration of the environment, something many stumble upon on as a whim or as an extension of a previous interest in fishing in general. But something about it draws one in and doesn’t let go. Natural imitation might be a simple way of describing the sport—in every part of it, mimicking and perfecting the environment is at its heart. [AUGUST 2009]

Alison McGee is assistant editor of Berkshire Living.

THE GOODS

Allure Outfitters
413.441.4885
www.allure-outfitters.net

Berkshire Fly Fishing
www.berkshireflyfishing.org

Casting for Recovery
www.castingforrecovery.org

Trout Unlimited
www.tu.org

Taconic Chapter
of Trout Unlimited
www.taconictroutunlimited.org

Zoar Outdoor
7 Main St.
Charlemont, Mass.
800.532.7483
www.zoaroutdoor.com