The majority of Western fly-fishing guides tend to be the sort of folks you meet in the cheap seats at professional sporting events—the sort of decent, working-class personages who call a beer a brewski, a nymph a nimp, a lost fish a long-range release, and a minor flesh wound a Hertz Donut. That I abhor the riverside company of these perfectly amiable souls might seem snobbish. But a river, when one is fly-fishing, is like a symphony: you need your full concentration to make sense of the thing. Is it snobbery when attending the symphony not to want to sit beside some bloke, however likable, who natters on throughout the performance about their favorite brewski brands, deadliest nimps, and most hilarious Hertz Donuts?

When they were alone he called him my boy, an endearment he never gave another.

He fought down the urge to laugh

an untooted horn