Rodney Noel Jarvis

SITTING ON MY FLY-TYING DESK, on a shelf above the straggle chenille and holographic tinsel, is an 80-year-old Richard Wheatley fly tin. The edges of its aluminum lid, with that distinctive satin finish, are rubbed bright from the friction of bouncing about in a fly-vest pocket. It bears the inscription:

R.N. Jarvis

4, Short St.

Cambridge

Flyfishing is a lifelong journey punctuated and enhanced by the people we meet along the way. In my formative years, the most influential of these was Rodney Noel Jarvis. Many memories are attached to that tin, which bears all the nicks and dings of a thousand bankside miles. Not my miles, but those of the singular character who taught my dad how to cast. Dad, always happier with a rifle or shotgun in hand, was visiting Gallyon Gunmakers, about an hour north of London, and had seen an advertisement for flycasting lessons. Fancying the thought of learning to cast properly, he contacted the advertiser and a friendship was born; one that would prove as influential for me as it was for him.

I would have been about 10 years old when we first met. The pipe-smoking Rodney would have been in his mid-60s and living with his wife, Gwen, in