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d i t o r ' s J o u r n a l Russ Lumpkin E S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 1 of the movie," I heard them whisper. They pegged me perfectly, but their lack of common courtesy chafed my hide. Decency to your fellow man above all else, I say. They lived up to every preconceived notions I had of fly fishermen. I now know the fly fishing world is full of sweet and fine people, but those boys needed humbling—and an improved work ethic. CJ laughed. "That would happen to you." Undeterred, he showed up the next day with a fly rod (a 3-piece 8-weight with a crook in the tip top), a reel, and some poppers. A few days later we went to a slow-moving creek that eventually runs into the Savannah River. He razzed me from the first cast. The fly on the end of my line barely got wet and spent more time tangled in the bushes behind me, the limbs above, or the line itself. When I did manage to hit the water, the casts fell short of the intended target. The more frustrated I grew, the more fun he had. He caught mostly small redbreasts but in abundance. As dark drew near, I hung up in a limb above my reach. I pulled on it, trying to bring it to hand, but the line snapped just before my patience did. I took the rod apart. "You might be right, Lumpkin." "What's that?" "Maybe in fact you aren't fly- fishing timber." We moved toward the takeout. CJ fished and I skipped rocks. He caught another bream about the time I reached down to grab a choice rock—flat, roundish, and with heft. Then my eyes fell on something wonderful—a beautiful arrowhead, nearly four inches long, caramel color with translucence around the tip. "Holy cow!" I shouted. "What?" "Look at this!" I held the point two inches from his nose. The mirth drained from his face, and an humble countenance fell over him. That may be the one time I got something over on CJ. N early 20 years later—with a variety of salt- and freshwater fish to my fly rod credit—I waded into the Congaree River continued on page 220 P lenty of fly anglers cut their teeth casting poppers to redbreasts and bluegills—few, however, do so with an 8-weight. Count me among the few. The heavy rod made casting poppers pretty easy, but casting a fly didn't come readily to me. The whole learning-to-cast process likely discourages a lot of folks from taking up fly fishing, and giving up crossed my mind more than once. I kept trying though and in the process found fly fishing brings joys beyond catching fish. Similarly, fly fishing can be humbling in unexpected ways. I've seen it humble my friends. Y ears ago I worked with a fellow name CJ. He and I picked at each other a good bit, and he usually got the best of me. Well, he approached me at work one day and said, "I think you'd enjoy fly fishing." "I'm not sure I'm fly-angling timber," I replied. "Why do you say that?" I told him some version of the following story. My first brush with fly fishing occurred in early September 1995. Near ground zero of A River Runs Through It, I walked into a fly shop in Missoula, Montana, about 10 minutes before closing time. The guys behind the counter completely ignored me. No. Actually, they dismissed me, even though I looked similar to them—white, 20-something, unshaven and unshorn, sloppily dressed. "He's a tourist. Looking for a hat or T-shirt. He's in here only because Humility helps us see beyond ourselves—and would improve the performance of some fly-shop employees. A size 4 popper and a dream-size arrowhead—the bad and good of the author's early fly-fishing attempts.