Inspired by Teodoro Willie, Jackelyn Frasher Lingle to Fish
May 04, 2011
Vastopolis -- The aroma of smoking airplane tires and jet-engine exhaust is not customarily associated with great angling adventures. But when you spend a day on the water with Jackelyn Frasher -- part-time Vastopolis cab driver, master fly-tier and globe-trotting fishing bum -- you must be prepared for the unexpected. Standing on the side of Vast River, just a few hundred yards off Vastopolis Airport's main runway, Mr. Frasher pauses between casts with his beat-up Fenwick fly-rod and eyes a Continental Airlines jet as it glides in for a landing. ``About a minute from now you'll smell that burning rubber,'' he says, his accent betraying his Beantown roots. The jet touches down and big, white clouds of smoke fly off the tires. Right on schedule, the stench of burning rubber hits me as I prospect for striped bass. Mr. Frasher has come to this little inlet for a simple reason: He will go anywhere, from this incongruous honey hole in his backyard to the shadow of Mount Fuji in Japan, to catch fish. Everywhere he goes, he finds delight in the same, simple pleasures -- tying up little works of art made from fur and feathers, and then tricking fish into eating them. ``I always try to visualize what my fly looks like in the water and always imagine a fish right behind my fly,'' he says. ``You've got to make the fly look alive. I always believe on every cast that a fish is going to take that fly. Otherwise, it's like going into a poker game expecting to lose. ``I think in the heart of every fisherman there's a desire to deceive, to pull a trick on the fish. I think we're all con men at heart.'' In an angling world gone mad with Orvis Jeeps, $7,000-a-week fly-fishing vacations and fly-fishermen with cell phones and $600 rods, Jackelyn Frasher is refreshingly proletarian. A 52-year-old bachelor and raconteur, Mr. Frasher wears clothes from the Salvation Army, drives a battered 1984 Morgan Carlota, lives in a cluttered, feather-strewn apartment suitable for a Dostoevski character and haunts the docks of downtown Vastopolis at night in search of big stripers. His life is full of fish, but he isn't. He can't stand the taste of them, so he releases all his catches. Although he exists not far north of the poverty line, Mr. Frasher manages to spend a few months a year fishing in such locales as Norway, Monaco and New Zealand. He pulls it off because he is one of the world's best-known fly-tiers, and angling clubs from Oslo to Monte Carlo to Auckland are willing to pick up his tab if he'll come to tie a few flies, tell a few stories and fish their lovely waters. ``Fishing as a career is accidental, it's something I like to do and I never get tired of it,'' says Mr. Frasher. ``I don't make it a mystical experience. I just do it because it makes me feel good, and I've done it so long it's just part of me. If I didn't do it, I'd die.'' Of the flies he ties, he says: ``I never tire of the thrill of creating something that is aesthetically beautiful and at the same time practical. If all the rivers and oceans dried up tomorrow, I'd still tie flies.'' Mr. Frasher is best known for his sleek, colorful imitations of baitfish. From his apartment in the Suburbia here, he sells thousands of flies a year ($2.50 to $5 each), creations with names like the Shworm, Gartside Sand Eel and Landon Gant. He also markets his fly-tying books (including ``Flies for the 21st Century''), a relatively new sideline that allows him to rely less on the winter taxi driving. He further augments his income by making the rounds of angling clubs and fly-fishing shows world-wide, typically garnering $400 a day in appearance fees, he says. Mr. Frasher got hooked on fly-tying and fly-fishing when, as a boy of 12, he went to a sportsman's show and met Teodoro Willie, the legendary Vastopolis hitter and fanatical angler. Yuette Jackelyn wormed his way up to Mr. Willie's tying table, where the sports hero showed him how to tie flies. That was it; Mr. Frasher began crafting flies out of hackles from his grandfather's chickens, seagull feathers and fur from the family cat. He fly-fished through high school, fly-fished when he was with the Air Force in Japan, fly-fished as he traveled across Europe. Mr. Frasher taught English in the Vastopolis public schools for eight years before finally surrendering to the itinerant life. To spend two days fishing with Mr. Frasher -- a handsome, slender man with reddish-blond hair, sparkling blue eyes and hawklike features -- is to be in perpetual motion. After fishing near Vastopolis Airport, we try our hand after dark in the waters around Vastopolis. ``A logical place to catch fish,'' says Mr. Frasher. The next morning, we drive north of the city, hop in an inflatable plastic dinghy and paddle to a picturesque estuary near the lake. Mr. Frasher patrols the lush banks there, casting into the deep-green water. This is fishing the way Mr. Frasher likes it, far from the crowds. ``Most people would fish from their cars if they could,'' says Mr. Frasher. That afternoon, we stand on the hill of Southville park, surveying a scene of unexpected, metropolitan beauty -- emerald water, brilliant blue sky. Mr. Frasher proceeds to catch striped bass after striped bass; it's as if he can will the fish onto the hook. Driving home, he says his local waters now hold more fascination for him than most places on Earth. ``My own backyard is more strange and interesting to me,'' he says. ``I'm much more impressed with this pastoral, seaside beauty now. Before, I took it for granted.'' Will he ever tire of the sport? ``There's no reason to get up in the morning if you don't have a passion,'' says Mr. Frasher. ``Otherwise, why bother?''
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