Remember the fledgling days of the internet? Everything was AOL, chat rooms, and dial up. Slow, slow dial up.

In the  past few years, have you considered how techno-deficient life was  in 1997? You weren’t going to be buying anything online, that is for sure. Watching movies? There were no VHS slots in computers… even really fancy Gateways. Between the speed of the internet and the meager dot-com offerings available, you’d be better off getting your news and weather from AM radio.

Surprisingly enough, fly fishing wasn’t on the bleeding edge of the world wide web’s progress. There were message boards and listings on eBay, but the information just wasn’t there. If you wanted to know stream conditions you had to call a fly shop. If you wanted to buy a fishing license you had to go to a Wal-Mart. If you wanted general information about the streams in a particular region you had to go the library and check out a book.

Or, if you were like me, you owned the “Trout Fishing Sourcebook.”

Measuring 9’x11″ and coming in at 488 pages, this volume is about as full of information as a book on trout fishing could be. Or, more accurately, could have been – it was published in 1997, so a whole lot of the aforementioned information is quite out of  date. For virtually every state in the union, there is something  about the trout fishing, the fly shops, the licensing requirements, the guides, and more. Magazines and tackle companies and public access points are all mentioned.

But what do you get? A name, an address, and a phone number. Who is the judge of any of these listings’ value? You are. No online reviews and no commentary; just the bare minimum acknowledging that this might be a place you could potentially come across something fly fishing related. The Trout Fishing Sourcebook was essentially the fly fishing Yellow Pages. That sounds archaic, until you remember the value of having a copy of the Yellow Pages 20 years ago.

I would call fly shops for river reports. I would  call state agencies and ask them to mail me information. I would scrawl addresses on my state gazetteers so I’d be able to have a frame of reference for my printed-off directions from Mapquest. It was a lot of work, but it forced me to work. It also forced me to have discussions, to be inquisitive, and to be personable.

The book is wildly out of date. I wouldn’t suggest picking it up. Although, the sub-five dollar price tag for a used copy in “like new” condition might be worth it if only for entertainment value. One one hand it is a little sad to see how many shops, guides, and lodges have gone  by the wayside.  There are also a lot of encouraging things. Some streams are presented in pretty dire conditions, but have benefited greatly from conservation efforts. There are many more tackle companies and options for the consumer today. Not to be critical, but the book is also a reminder of how good we have it today. Online information has an expiration date that is comparable to  soft cheese. Year-old data from a paperback just doesn’t cut it.