Several weeks ago, I mentioned that I was given a copy of the book, So Many Fish So Little Time, to review and post about it. It is really a GREAT read (my review is here)! I asked the book promotion people if they could forward some questions on to the author for me via email. The great people behind this book agreed to my request and Mr. Williams provided some awesome answers. Enjoy!

1. It may have been mentioned in your book, but how and why did you get into fly fishing?

I sucked at flyfishing when I was a kid. No one taught me how; they just bought me a flyrod at K-Mart and sent me on my merry way to the river. I spent most of my time dealing with wind knots, popping off flies and employing a Red River rig.

It wasn’t until twenty years ago when I met my wife Amy that I got serious about flyfishing (although I had continued being very serious about fishing in general up to that point.) Her family and mine had legacies from the 1940s of vacationing in Lake City Colorado (Little Texas, some call it). We went on our first vacation together to this little Alps-like nook in the San Juan Mountains and I figured out how to cast well enough and then I was hooked.

I am not a flyfishing snob. I tend to fly fish over other techniques because I am more proficient with a longrod; because I like the control over casting and mending; because I favor trout fishing on streams and that’s simply more conducive to fishing with flies; and because, well, fishing with a good flyrod, one that feels right in your hand, one that is consistent and responds well and is an extension of your body, it’s akin to Harry Potter’s wand.

2. If you could only use one fly on an unfamiliar trout river - which fly would you use and why?

After two and a half decades of traveling, there are still so many rivers and fisheries I don’t know but the numbers are dwindling. In many ways, each trout stream is similar to other trout streams. They’re cold, the trout find the easiest habitat to lair, and so on. But as any angler knows, the same stream differs from day to day, hour to hour and becomes different from itself. People sometimes ask me how can flyfishers keep going back to the same stream over and over — doesn’t it get boring? They don’t get it, do they? Golfers know this daily evolution of a course — same with a fishery. So to answer your question — all trout rivers are both familiar and unfamiliar. My two common fishing buddies, my two brothers-in-law, Kenny and David, call Henson Creek a Yellow Humpy water. And it is. But in the early 90s, Kenny called it a Goddard Caddis water. And it was. More recently, it’s been both a yellow Stimulator water and a red Copper John water. A lot of patterns work on a lot of waters but even on the same stream, one pattern works sometimes, not others; and many patterns work as well as the one you are using. I know that I can catch more trout under water than above and a beadhead Hare’s Ear is as good as any nymph gets. But I choose to fish this unfamiliar water with a dry. I could claim, with positive research and anecdotal proof, that an Adams is as deadly on a Montana stream as it is on a Michigan river or a New York creek. I could offer that I like an Adams Wulff or Parachute better than the standard pattern and no one would quibble. The brown trout in Europe eat up the Adams and its minimalist design. By the same token, I’ve caught trout on these same rivers, consistently, with a Stimulator, with a Renegade (Lord, how we used to fish with a Renegade, an Asher, a Bloody Butcher), Elk Hair Caddis, Royal Wulff, Patriot, even a House and Lot. I hate to be cornered into fishing a river with just one fly. It’s hardly fair to take away from me the boxes and boxes of flies I’ve tied and collected over the years. Rivers change hour to hour and you’re going to stick me with just one fly?

Fine. I’ll take a size 12 Ausable Wulff and I’ll catch plenty of trout. But I’m stashing a Rio Grande Trude in one pocket and a beat-up Goddard Caddis in another.

3. Do you think there may be aspects of fly fishing that our World Leaders could learn about that would help them ‘change’ the world for the better?

Well, of course, any person who fly fishes is spiritually more sound, better balanced and generally happier so that’s got to be good, right? Look, Herbert Hoover was a passionate angler, a died-in-the-wool flyfisher and it didn’t help him so I guess that while flyfishing may be good for the soul, it doesn’t help much with politicking.

4. What is the one thing about your book, So Many Fish So Little Time, that particularly stands out as something your were excited to write about?

The research was ongoing, the factual stuff mundane, but I loved relaying the stories that came about from my fishing trips over the years. I fish for many reasons and the top reason is for the stories,the fellowship borne from those shared adventures.I enjoyed writing about my father. We had a rocky relationship up until his last two years and through the writing, I healed.

5. Are there plans for another book? If so, what can you tell us about it?

I’m already working on two other fishing books, one of which is a collection of thematically-connected essays (stories).

-End of Interview-

Thanks Mark and Jon for making this happen. I appreciate the extra time you took to prepare these answers.

For more information about the book and how to order it click here.