No need for tacky fly-fishing gifts

By Mark Littleton
Special to The Seattle Times

I have been doing this fly-fishing thing for quite a while, so it's hard to keep something like that a secret from my family. Eventually they start trying to get Christmas presents that relate in some way to my avocation.

When you have been fly-fishing long enough, you start to become selective. And even though I already have just about everything I really want in the way of useful fishing gear, that doesn't stop the well intentioned from getting the things they think you might want, or that they would want if they fly-fished.

In my experience, women in particular are likely to find things for my den with a fishing theme. At different times I have received gifts of all manner of strange knickknacks with a fishing theme. A partial list of gifts I've received includes little fly-fishing statuettes, rotating fly-fishing lamps, fly-fishing bookends, fly-fishing Santas, a picture frame with painted fish all around the outside, and other less memorable stuff, all of it tacky and just about as useful as a rock in your boot.

The all-time champion of these was a fly-fishing teddy bear complete with rod, glasses and a pipe. It's pretty hard to say, "Thanks for the fly-fishing teddy bear" with a straight face. What is a full grown man supposed to do with a teddy bear?

A whole industry has sprung up around this type of stuff. I have a catalog at home that, in addition to real fly-fishing gear, has almost every worthless thing you can imagine. Fly-fishing garbage cans, placemats, welcome mats, mugs — even get a toilet seat with flies visible through the plastic. A fly-fishing store owner once told me that the hot gift that year was a fly-fishing toilet with a fish painted in the bowl. I shudder to think what the psychological implications are.

I am pretty sure that women buy most of this stuff, or maybe I am wrong and other fishermen are just more in touch with their feminine side, you know, the side that likes this stuff. I've never been able to figure out the female mind. What exactly is the thought process that creates demand for tacky clutter?

If they have never seen me buy anything like this, what makes them think I want it?

Right now you are probably wondering like I am: "How can I put an end getting this junk for Christmas?"

You could try the tough love route and just tell them you really don't like this stuff.

Can't do that? You could finesse the issue and anonymously mail this column to the offenders, or post it on your refrigerator, or leave it in a conspicuous place.

As a last resort you can do what I do, say thanks as politely as possible and suffer, while silently repeating the Christmas mantra:

"It's the thought that counts."

Happy holidays!

Trout Bums, authored alternatively by Randal Sumner and Mark Littleton, appears on the first Tuesday of each month. Sumner owns Blue Skies Guide Service on the Yakima River. Littleton, also of Yakima, has been an avid fly-fisherman for more than 25 years.