The premise of Steve Ramirez’s new book, Casting Homeward, is deceptively simple: Ramirez goes to visit various flyfishing friends at their “homewaters,” or the places they know by heart, and he fishes there, with these friends. Each trip-qua-chapter follows a familiar arc: he arrives, meets his friend and they share a local beer or wine and a scrumptious meal his normally careful diet disapproves of. They talk about the water ahead, and over the next day or two, they fish this water, exploring bends, cutbanks and pools familiar to the friends while new and adventurous to Ramirez. Along the way, Ramirez and his companions unfold parables and epiphanies. The insights start to repeat, but Ramirez is aware of this, explaining early on that he’s repeating himself because there are some very important things he needs to convey to his readers. Casting Homeward is also about reminding us about the bigger home that we share on this little fecund rock in space. The fourth of a series of “casting” titles, this book explores the idea of home as a non-simple and, indeed, a vulnerable notion. It’s not just where you fish. It's where we all fish.
In other words, Ramirez uses this book to tell some of the hard truths of the Anthropocene, a word that Ramirez evokes directly as he calls out humans for royally screwing up the very landscapes and destinations he visits and fishes—which are proxies for everywhere. Throughout the book, he enjoys his trips and his friends even more, but Ramirez also laments the collective species-level damage incurred on habitats and delicate ecosystems. This ambivalence is threaded throughout the book, and I expect some readers to be uncomfortable with the way that Ramirez fishes through the apocalypse: for some, it will come across as too light; for others, too heavy-handed. Yet this is precisely the importance of Ramirez’s story, as a sort of woke manifesto in deep country—in other words, writing for truly global readers while in relatively remote places where the audience is usually one or two, at worst (because ideally, it’s just you, fishing).
I used to teach a college course called Environmental Theory, and if I were to teach it again, I’d assign Casting Homeward. This is because for all the nature writing that mixes far-flung forays and glasses of pinot noir enjoyed after fishing, there are just as many beats tolling the bell of anthropogenic change to our planet. For each self-reflexive missive and introspective moment of pondering, there are just as many pleas for more planetary empathy and more ecological attunement. Ramirez cites contemporary environmental thinkers such as Robin Wall Kimmerer and David George Haskell as he connects with new waters and fishes along the way—never losing sight of the environmental lessons we need to heed more than ever. It’s also a book about someone who has gradually changed his mind: we get the sense that Ramirez was once a macho Marine and probably pretty anthropocentric; and now is a tree hugger—or at least an “imperfect Buddha” trying to reflect interconnectedness and impermanence.
I read this book as I was in my own homewater country, back up north in Michigan, fishing obsessively through the summer after a long school year with only intermittent fishing in my new home of St. Louis, MO. Ramirez thinks about the idea of “home” in complex ways, admitting the elusive and slippery aspects of this term—especially in a time of dramatic environmental changes when there is no ‘normal’ to return to. I’ve wrestled with my own nostalgic feelings and deep connections to homewaters, wondering how much of this entanglement is fictional and how much is real. Casting Homeward helped me accept the inescapably conflicted and conflicting nature of these matters. To think about “home” should be to grapple with the fraught intricacies of this very concept and to be precisely (if ironically) unsettled by it. And this is something that can be done while flyfishing.
Above Author Steve Ramirez and friend Sarah. Photo Courtesy: Steve Ramirez
Casting Homeward is also about flyfishing for friends, literally hugging them out of love, care and respect after meaningful days on the water. It’s about the hugs as much as the bugs and fish. And this is an ecological truth: about community and communication among people as well as non-humans. Ramirez name-checks so many friends, old and new, page after page, to the point that the book becomes something of a living archive of flyfisher companions. The book made me reflect on my own friendships with fishing buddies from over the years, from my old Montana mentor and pal Greg Keeler to my Mississippi River guru Brian Kennedy in New Orleans; from my quiet Jedi wizard brother Glen Hannert in Traverse City to my new, important friend Steve Ehrlich in St. Louis, who rescued me from a dazed funk surrounded by new and intimidating homewaters. If I am honest, I love fishing alone most of all—I need the totally isolated time and space to reset and gain perspective. But there are many times when I also honestly need a friend to fish alongside—to teach me something new or take me to a place I’m scared to wade alone. After reading Casting Homeward, I understand the integral role of fishing friends as part of what makes the journey meaningful because it’s communicable. Like language, fishing is never really an independent thing. Rivers and lakes have no place for libertarians.
Christopher Schaberg is Director of Public Scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of ten books, including Fly-Fishing (2023).
To preorder Casting Homeward by Steve Ramirez, visit: bookshop.org. Ships Sep. 3, 2024