The passing of an inspiration
Remembering John Gierach
ONE OF MY HEROES, the outdoor writer John Gierach, passed away in October at the age of 77. Since then, I’ve been reflecting on how his work has inspired me through the years.
As the author of books like Trout Bum and Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers, John’s topic of choice was fly fishing, but his work is so much more than that. His stories are so vivid you can almost hear the stream trickling in the background or smell the coffee that he brewed streamside in a small coffee pot. He wrote simply but effectively, with an immersive style that drew me and so many others to his writings.
Many years ago, when I was new to fly fishing, I was watching a trout rise on Colorado’s South Platte River when I heard an old pickup coming up the gravel turnoff. The tires deadened the rattling and popping sounds of gravel until it rolled in to park. A scraggly, bearded man emerged and stood to the side, waiting his turn at the pool. He wore hip waders and no vest. As I watched, he pulled a small box from his flannel shirt pocket, tied on a fly and tilted back a timeworn fishing hat. It had the shape of a fedora, but had seen many days in the Colorado weather, turning it from something fancy into a comfortable fishing hat.
I wanted to give that cutthroat a run for its money as it teased me by rising and gulping a bug I didn’t recognize. The man who’d just arrived probably knew what kind of bug was hatching and was there because of it. I did not—and I was not. So instead of spoiling the pool with my ignorance, I decided to relinquish it and the rising trout. I stepped out, told the man a fish was rising and wished him luck. He pulled his fishing hat down to shade his eyes and thanked me, then entered the pool. I left to find a more secluded spot where I could learn fly fishing without an audience to see the debacle.
A few years later, I was in a tent in Chicken, Alaska, reading one of Gierach’s books. He described an old pickup truck and one of his favorite rivers, the South Platte. I had a few of Gierach’s books in my bag and rummaged through it to find one with him on the cover. When I saw the photo, I gasped: It was the man I had shared a trout with in Colorado.
That was the very moment, nearly 30 years ago, that I decided to give writing a shot. Rest in peace, John—and thank you for the inspiration.
