“Headwaters.” Dylan Tomine said the name of his book. I asked him why he chose that title. He repeated headwaters out loud not because he was thinking of an answer, but because the title and the word have meaning. “Headwaters to me is all about tracing the beginning of something. The book is not so much about a source or a beginning of my life or my fishing. It is more like the process of working from the headwaters down or from the bottom up. The various stories are like the varying stages of a river.”
Headwaters is a collection of Tomine’s fly fishing writing; an entertaining an engaging collection of fly fishing writing. Some pieces previously appeared in outdoor journals or magazines. Some are being offered up for public consumption for the very first time in this anthology. Aside from a common author, what links the various pieces together is a larger narrative arc. The stories are arranged chronologically, allowing the reader to trace the author’s journey as a fly fisherman, a writer, and a man.
Tomine gives a brief, high-level outline of that arc: “The early stories are classic fly fishing writing. There is travel and adventure. I’m catching as many and as big of fish as I possibly can. But as the book progresses you’ll see that the priorities change. It is fatherhood, the reality of diminishing resources, and, well, maturity. What develops is a greater concern over the environment and the people I’ve spent time with.”
Every angler, everyone has perspective. But Tomine, like so many fly fishers in the Pacific Northwest, is seeing actual dams come down and watching real change occur in his lifetime. Situations like that provide inspiration, encouragement, and a reminder that there is more work to be done. “The dams coming down and the rivers flowing again are tangible evidences that we’re not just banging our heads against the wall,” Tomine says. “It is amazing to see that these giant edifices are actually going away. 20 years ago, none of it seemed possible. As great as it is, there is one big caveat: dam removal is really important, but it isn’t the key to recovering wild salmon and steelhead.” In Headwaters, Tomine explores other priorities such as hatchery fish and what will be available in coming generations.
As his stories progress, stewarding resources for those coming generations becomes personal. Tomine’s kids are featured in his stories. They aren’t plot devices or stereotypical “father and kid” characters, though. “I’ve always seen my kids as regular people in my life, people that I love very much. I am really, really lucky to have kids who are also my fishing buddies. In that way, it is just how we exist together. We do a lot together, and fishing has played a big part in our relationship.”
We talked about fatherhood and how it can intersect with fishing; how something like the outdoors is so vital for kids these days. Attention spans came up. With shrinking attention spans being a concern, are short stories good, bad, or neutral? “I share that concern, as my kids and I both prone to sit and scroll through our phones,” Tomine says. “When I have time to dig into long form writing, I do. But a lot of the time I find myself looking for quick snippets of things. I don’t set out to write short stories. In my writing, I let the subject matter dictate how long the piece will be. There is no need to drag out something that only needs to be a page.”
Headwaters has a good mix of two-page pieces and longer articles. The diversity of lengths, subject matter, and the aforementioned perspectives will appeal to all manner of readers. I asked Tomine what his favorite was. He groaned and paused. I rephrased the question, asking what story would be most likely to hook someone browsing through a copy at the book store. “That is still hard,” Tomine says, ” but if I had to bank on one? Steelhead, Love, and Other Mysteries. You don’t often read fishing stories that have a love interest. It is a little unusual, but I really like it.”
We continued to talk steelhead, Russia, and parenting young anglers. Tomine’s experiences, although different in the particulars, are remarkable similar to mine. That is probably why I enjoyed his book and the evolving perspective that can be traced throughout the collection of stories. Headwaters is a book about fly fishing, but it is a book about tracing a life changing as fly fishing is a consistent a setting. Reading another’s experience is not only entertaining, but it often helps you follow the bends of your own life’s course.
You can pick up a copy of Headwaters: The Adventures, Obsession, and Evolution of a Fly Fisherman from Patagonia.
