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Tall tales? Yes and no, fishing writer says

Durango guide releases second book
The Joys of Being a Fly Fishing Guide is about the ups and downs, and the highs and lows of being a guide – in short story format.

Fact, or fiction?

I thought I detected more fact, but author Don Oliver contends that a lot of it’s made up, that it’s based only loosely on fact.

But that’s what a good fishing story is all about, right?

Oliver, who writes a monthly “Flies and Lies” column for The Durango Herald Outdoors section, has just released his second book. It’s called The Joys of Being a Fly Fishing Guide. It’s a compendium of his nearly two decades as a professional guide, written in short stories that make it easy to swallow.

Oliver has been fly fishing since he was about 10 years old. Now 67, he and his family came to Durango in 1994. That’s when Oliver became a pro fly fishing guide. He maintained that profession until just a couple of years ago.

He still fly fishes, of course, but just for fun. And he volunteer coaches when military veterans or groups such as the Adapative Sports Association call on him.

The book is about everything you could think of that involves fly fishing, and more. It’s about friends, bald eagles, tips and trips. It’s about alligators, tangles, technology and wisdom.

Oliver compiled the stories because “it was a fun thing to do.” He decided not to publish it, then rewrote it for a couple of more years and decided again to publish it.

“A lot of those stories brought back some fun memories,” Oliver said in an interview last week. “I wrote it as I thought of things.”

He had no deadline, and “certainly no advance.”

The publisher, Durango’s Raven’s Eye Press, helped him edit and format the book, but he paid for the printing costs. The editing process was fairly intense, keeping Oliver busy finding the right words.

“I feel like I could almost quote the book by memory,” he said.

He often questions his career change, but in the end, it’s not something he would trade. This piece of wisdom comes from the book’s final story, “Mommas don’t let your babies grow up to be fly fishing guides:”

“Who in their right mind, certainly not a grown-up, would want to put up with all the things fly fishing guides have to put up with? They put up with heat, cold, rain, snow, no fish days, irate clients, the same lunch every day for 90 days, small tips, etc., etc., etc. They also are privileged to work with great people, have the opportunity to laugh at themselves, have the greatest corner office in the world, be out of doors for 300 days a year, and see the end result of hard, honest work.”

Not for everybody, but that’s the kind of life that brought more than a couple of us to Durango.

johnp@durangoherald.com

More information

Don Oliver’s book The Joys of Being a Fly Fishing Guide is $16 and is available at Maria’s Bookshop, 960 Main Ave., or directly from Oliver; email him at durango_fishing@frontier.net.



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