Steelhead and Atlantic salmon have been likened to brothers, back when both were Salmo. (The scientist who recently said one was, the other was not, might have been technically correct, but he lacked a soul.) I've always thought they were closer-twins, perhaps, or even Siamese, joined at the pectorals, separated by that great topographical surgeon, Dr. Ice Age, long before there were people to celebrate the event. Each year the likenesses are driven home by fresh events. This is not wishful thinking.

On the Wentachee this year, everybody was fishing his own personal version of the Bomber. Some used new-fashioned Spey rods, others long, one handed rods, and all of course cast floating lines. My friend Russ Ossenbach, who ties commercially and is at home with the salmon fly and now instructs locally in its tying, fished Kelson p a t t e r n s exclusively all spring, summer, and fall, and took fish. Little Inky Boy, Blue Boyne, the Sun Flies, are some of his favorites. He was one of the first to notice that Kate is very much in the steelhead-fly tradition.

There is a time for tying flies and another time for fishing, and the wise man knows which is which. And there is a time to spend with one's family (real or extended) and there is another time for books. Without books, a fisher is not linked to the past and has a terrible time knowing what is new and what is old. Two books I've come across show just how much Atlantics behave like steelhead-or is the other way around? And the ways of fishing for them, if not identical, are so much alike as to be the subject for quarrels among men who don't want to admit how close they are in outlook and practice. Of course, there are always those who will magnify small differences. They do this to be spiteful. I am thinking of a fifteen-year-old exchange between Nick Gayeski and Martin Tolley on just what greased-line fishing consists of. But let's save that for another day.

Two books that celebrate techniques in common use today are A. H. Chaytor's Letters to A Salmon Fishers Sons and Charles Phair's Atlantic Salmon Fishing. Let's take the former first. There is a school of writing (just as there is a school of fishing) that is didactic. Its purpose is mainly to instruct. It can do this pleasantly or be heavy-handed about it. Since Chaytor (nowhere does he tell us what the initials stand for, or the name of his river, which I suspect is the Spey) is writing to his own sons, the affectionately instructive tone can be forgiven, and if one reads on it can be ignored in terms of the love and knowledge he has accumulated and is eager to pass on, not only to his sons but to any reader who will pay attention. His knowledge is considerable. The problems involved in getting the fish to hit, present the fly, give or deny action to the fly, play fish, strike or not to strike (that is the question, Hamlet), or to tie large or small, dark or bright, are classical questions that will never be finally resolved. They are the same today as they were then. Chaytor's book draws on his experiences at the end of the Nineteenth Century, though the book was published in 1910. (It is long out of print, and my copy came through interlibrary loan from Detroit Public, and was purchased the same year as it came out.).

I liked the book so much that I wrote to Nick Lyons urging him to republish it. After all, he had just reprinted Haig-Brown's Silver – another didactic book that can easily offend and annoy somebody not expecting it to be written to instruct Young Persons and believing it to be a precursor of Return to the River, instead. Nick seemed cool, as he usually is to ideas of mine. Not to be put off, I suggested we scan Chaytor's Letters into a word processor, use the search-and-replace function to change salmon to steelhead, and publish it as an original work (but not mine). He was even frostier. My point was only that the book deserves to be back in print and what it said about salmon was so fitting in regard to steelhead that I had learned a lot from it, as others would, I was certain.

I made myself a Xerox. If you want to read it, you will have to follow a similar path, though Justin Knowles or John Culler may be planning on reprinting it in one of their limited editions on salmon fishing.

The other book is by Charles Phair. It came to me by way of a remainder house. Edward R. Hamilton puts out a tabloid of closed-out books and it is free. The famous Derrydale Press in Lyon, Mississippi, was back in business for a while. But again the audience for their fine, leather bound books was smaller than they had hoped for, and they had to clear out the warehouse. There were several choice books offered at $15 each. This was one. Haig-Brown's The Western Angler was another, a reprint of the original two-volume edition that sells in the low thousands of dollars. The catch was, only volume one was available. I decided to grab it and hope for volume two to show up. Alas, it has not, as of this date.

Two other books that were offered were Thaddeus Norris, Fly Fisherman's Gold and Ray Bergman, With Fly. Plug and Bait. These Derrydale printed for Trout Unlimited and they are not quite so nice as the others, but are leather bound, all the same, with the tops of the pages gilt (for those who like that sort of thing). They are all handsome books. Compared to the ordinary trade editions, they are a little like a salmon fly tied with real bustard and one utilizing a good, recognizable substitute. The Phair couldn't be nicer. Black leather, stamped in gold, with full color illustrations by the great Ogden M. Pleissner, including one in an oval on the cover. Maps, illustrations, and black and white photos. There may be a few left. You could query Hamilton. It wasn't so long ago.

Among the photos is one of Wood's lodge at Cairnton on the Dee, along with another of Wood and George LaBrance, both looking very donnish, three black Labs milling in front of them, as Labs do. I guess Arthur shot his own teal and widgeon, and probably had his servants save the feathers.

The book is chocked full of fishing lore. Phair's waders were never dry. He fished New Brunswick-the Tobique, Kedgwick, Cascapedia, and Restigouche. His season was long; he fished nearly every day of it for decades. He knew his salmon. He learned to tie from guides and from reading Pryce-Tannatt. His advise on tying is practical and informational. Practice, he says, and don't be easily satisfied with what comes off the vise, especially at first. The big reward, he adds, is when the river's best fishers want to fish with your flies. And when they have a preternatural fear of losing the good ones.

I was right at home in the world of steelhead, reading Phair, and how easily one could substitute that word for salmon again, and make the old timers sagely nod their heads as they read along. For instance, here was that familiar jigging motion described, along with ways to combat it out of fear the fish would rub out the hook and go free. Dry-fly casting to "within a foot" of the fish will usually take them, he says. Yes, indeed. The advantages of "inattention" while fishing dry, so that the strike comes late, or not at all. What a mend really is, and what greased line drag consists of. Yes, yes. Size, not pattern, is what's important. Races of fish straying from river to river, and not looking right when you catch them, not like the others. Beaching a fish, when a guide with a gaff is not handy and you are not in a boat or canoe. How kelts may look bright, but they are hollow and full of water, which quickly runs out if one is caught and killed. They taste awful and may even be poisonous. If you try to give one away, you mortally offend the knowing person on the receiving end and he will never forgive you. Right on, bro.

In those days of undammed rivers, loss of 98 percent of smolts was common. A fish after spawning loses 23 percent of his original weight. In some rivers, 20 percent of spawners survive, in others a bit more, and it is always the male that is most likely to die, in spite of the rigorous nest-building activity of the female. Phair reports a fish taken in the nets by the fisheries people that contained both milts and roe. Fascinating. I also found it interesting that he and all his flyfishing friends kept "a working library." When he wrote his book, he was keenly aware of Hewitt and LaBranche's contributions, and said that A. H. E. Wood's technique was now thirty years old. He was keenly aware of all three men and considered them his mentors. As for the importance of reading to the salmon fisher and flytyer, Chaytor points out, in 1910, that in one recently departed flyfisher's library, there were 2700 books on fishing. Think of how many more there are available now, as our century draws to a shuddering close. Ah, but if we had world enough and time, we could put a dent into that enormous pile.

But then, when would we tie?

Postscript: A notice arrived in the mail to the effect that John Culler is terminating his Atlantic Salmon Series because "we just couldn't get enough subscribers to make it pay.... The three books we published are The Salmon Fly by George Kelson, Atlantic Salmon Fishing by Charles Phair, and A Book on Angling by Francis Francis. I'm sorry, but there seems to be a very limited number of people interested in salmon titles." So here is another source for the Phair. John has a trade edition of these three books, in addition to his expensive leather-bound limited series. So there might be a few around at about $40. I'd say the market is a little overbought, right now.