Au Sable Angler

The Incompleat Angler
Jim Enger
Countrysport Press, $30, cloth, ISBN 0-924357-59-2
Foreword by Ted Williams
Illustrations by Chuck Foreman

Ron Weber Review

I was just back from an early-fall trek to the river when I read Jim Enger's The Incompleat Angler. My partner and I had spent two days in the Mason Tract, fishing up and down around High Banks. One day was good (a few strikes on nymphs and streamers in the morning, rising fish in the afternoon), the other a washout. What was consistently fine was the South Branch.

Over the years I've come to compare other rivers with the stretch of wilderness water through the Mason Tract--and most come off second best. This isn't a matter of catching fish, and certainly not big fish, but of setting. It's simply a magnificent place to spend a day.

So I was predisposed to like Enger's essay on the South Branch, one of fifteen in his book, and I wasn't disappointed. It has some nice historical detail on the sainted patron, George Mason, and locales such as Downey's and the Castle, but what it mainly has is a genuine feeling for a unique place.

"I like to go to the South Branch in the evening," Enger writes, ending the essay. "Up on the main stream and the North Branch cabin lights are coming on, telephones ring, televisions echo up and down the river. But on the South Branch, on Mr. Mason's stretch, the only sound is the river gurgling past my waders. It is the song of the South Branch."

Other anglers will find other engaging pieces, some of which first appeared in Fly Rod & Reel magazine. Among these are two about John D. Voelker (a.k.a. Robert Traver, the writer), who came into Enger's life while he was running a fly shop in suburban Detroit--a short-time enterprise between shucking a career in advertising for guiding on the Au Sable--and Voelker wrote from the Upper Peninsula requesting 7X tippet material. Enger then became a frequent guest at Voelker's fishing shack on Frenchman's Pond and a valued friend.

In a foreword to the book the environmental and outdoor writer Ted Williams says he detects a lot of Voelker in Enger's writing. This is partly a matter of the feints and jabs of style—but more importantly a matter of attitude to his material. Like Voelker, Enger has a good deal of trout madness in him but no fussy solemnity about his obsession. He turns a lyric phrase now and then, but mostly he's light, witty, and ironic.

He also tells a good yarn—among others, about a wacky trip to the Boardman River and about hooking rainbows in the mountain forests of Costa Rica. One of the best is an account of the short happy life of a hunting dog mixed with a story of finding a jewel of a beaver pond deep in the Michigan north woods. Enger breaks a cardinal rule of guiding when he takes a client to the private spot, but it's the last day of the fishing season, there are trout in the pond, and the client is a decent fellow who carries Jack Daniel's in his kit bag.

In this essay, thinking of the months ahead after trout season ends, Enger writes that "it took the Egyptians less time to build the great Pyramids than it takes to go from autumn to spring in northern Michigan."

That's true—but a time-honored way of coping is to read spirited books like this one. They make the long gloom tolerable, almost.

Dan Drislane Review

Jim Enger is the kind of guy who if confronted as you rounded a bend of the river you'd be torn between poking through the brush to make a considerate detour or ambling down to have a chat. More often than not, the tall, burly man will invite you to come and sit, rest the water, share a drink from his flask, and exchange a story or two.

This spirit of camaraderie is a major ingredient in The Incompleat Angler, Enger's first collection of stories about trout waters and the woods that border them. The book's fifteen tales also show the conflicting tension of the author's dual lives of a big city ad man and one drawn to bright streams and jackpine barrens. You don't get past the first story, Getting Out of Dodge, before you learn which side wins.

The Incompleat Angler also has the appeal of being accessible while you're sipping your first of the evening as the grill's heating up, or before knocking off for the night. (You might be tempted to pack it in your fishing vest.)

The nucleus of Enger's world is the Au Sable River, especially the South Branch. Any angler who fishes this river and has more than a casual interest in its history quickly learns that, while it is rich in angling heritage, little has been written of the magic of the area, except for a brief listing of "how to, where to" magazine stories, Swisher & Richards' Selective Trout, and the seminal and only historical record of the region, Hazen Miller's The Old Au Sable.

With The Incompleat Angler, Enger has modified that deficiency, honestly and skillfully. The Au Sable is the author's backdrop for introspection, blended into stories which don't chronicle the big fish caught with the perfect fly--though there are a few references to the whales that lurk in these waters--but rather provide worthy foil for the musings of a good life of rivers, trout, honest bars, women, writing, critters, wildness, and endless two-tracks.

Though most of the book is devoted to wandering around northern Michigan, Enger reports on frequent career interruptions (which prompted this reviewer to try to remember which writer observed that a job was something you found between extended fishing trips) that take him to Bristol Bay, the sub-tundra salmon runs of Quebec and, most notably, the rain forests of Costa Rica where not only are there trout, they are tended by a mythical maiden. In stories such as The Search for Robinette Crusoe, Enger is less concerned with travel chic and more observant of the knots and kinks of a familiar routine in unfamiliar haunts.

Exotic destinations aside, there are no heroics or adventurous highbrow here. We do not find the author packing deep into the Bob Marshall to chase arm's-length Dolly Vardens. Enger would rather drive his rusty pickup to a seldom fished brook trout riffle. Nor are we bored by the ministrations of test driving a new rod or plying a magical fly pattern on a river whose name we can't pronounce. No, the author puts us comfortably in the milieu of the everyday: our home beats and our favorite verandas where outsized cocktails are sipped. Though Jim Harrison correctly asserts that everyone must find his own place, Enger takes us along for the ride anyway, from seemingly accessible but secret beaver ponds to backwoods watering holes where the best yarns are shared.

As yarns go, perhaps the most reflective in this book are Enger's accounts of his two-decade friendship with the late John Voelker. Across back-to-back stories, the author gets at the very marrow of Voelker's charming wit, elegant modesty, and the daily celebration of life at Frenchman's Pond.

Enger's storytelling draws deep from Voelker's style yet pulls equally from a reservoir of personal experience. Memories of lost romances and newfound friends mix naturally with the travails of guiding snotty teenagers and busy executives. Enger documents these comical milestones so we all can rejoice that fishing is not about catching fish but having the opportunity just to be on the river to watch what happens.

Amid the growing volume of fly fishing texts that counsel on technique or are mere tourism monologues, The Incompleat Angler is a revelation of truth: big fish can be lost and never caught again, friends and beloved bird dogs die, and life sits unlevel in an uncertain continuum of missed hatches, great sunsets, and a chorus of rogue coyotes. It might make you believe that fly fishing isn't all it's cracked up to be and that it really is much more. RWOL

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