Catching On
Love with an Avid Fly Fisher
by Carol J. Morrison

List Price: $14.95
Pages: 138
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0971492409
Publisher: Freestone Press

At the beginning of Catching On, Ed, a Northwest native, assures his fiancée Carol that "marriage can be like fishing, the pursuit of that which is elusive but attainable." Carol, a born and bred Southerner, knows a whole lot about the elusive part.

In nineteen entertaining vignettes, some humorous, some spiritual, some probing, Catching On follows this relationship, as Ed's fly-fishing passion and the couple's inherent differences (he's a brown trout and she's a rainbow) threaten to cast a pall over it, illuminating issues familiar to anyone who has ventured loving and being loved—insecurity, misunderstanding, jealousy, vulnerability and joy.

In Carol's efforts to catch on to marriage and to Ed's magnificent obsession, she is helped and hindered by well-meaning observers. Matt, Ed's best friend who is single, has definite opinions about how women mix with fishing. Ed's father, Harry, adds a colorful combination of Shakespeare and stability. Carol's friend, Shasta, whose husband Tommy also has been bitten by the fly-fishing bug, tells Carol: "Ed's just a big old bigamist. They're all married to something else, you know."

But love and determination prevail. By book's end when Ed sincerely tells Carol: "I'm not married to fishing. I'm married to you," the reader—and Carol—are convinced.

Elsie Wiesel, holocaust survivor and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace, said, "As long as there is passion, there is hope." Catching On is a tribute to women, to men, to fly fishing, and to celebrating our loved ones' passions.

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1. In the first story, "Hooked," Carol tells the reader that she knows "a whole lot about the elusive part" of marriage. As you read the book, did you get glimpses of how Carol's prior unsuccessful marriages affected her? What were they? To what do you attribute her healthier relationship with Ed?

2. In "Opening Day," Carol reveals her fear that good things and everlasting love are meant for someone else. Where else do you find this "not enough to go around" theme in the book? What events and insights contribute to changes in this life-view?

3. Many books have been written about women and men who fish together, with the woman equally or more skilled and enthusiastic about the sport as the man. In Catching On, Carol enacts the more traditional role of envious observer. Do you think this portrayal of women and men is accurate today, as say, ten years ago?

4. Carol relocates from Mississippi to Washington with trepidation. Which of Carol's characteristics supported or did not support your image of a Southern woman? What contributed to her successful transition from the Deep South to the Northwest?

5. Ed states, on several occasions, that he's not a "real fly fisher." How common do you think it is to see others as the "real" possessors of a skill or of a competency? Why do you think this occurs?

6. Carol quotes Libby Roderick as saying "Women need to know they're powerful and men need to know they're good." Do you agree with this assessment? Why or why not?

7. How do Ed's friend, Matt, who's single but looking, and Carol's friend, Shasta, also married to an avid fly fisher, help and hinder Ed and Carol's relationship? What functions, positive and negative, do friends serve in a marriage?

8. Harry, Ed's father, quotes from Shakespeare and the Bible. Which of his words of wisdom appeal to you? How is Ed like his father? How does he differ from him?

9. Competition plays a much smaller part in Carol and Ed's fishing than in other aspects of their lives. What kinds of competition exist between them? Do you think competitive attitudes and behavior are common in couples? Why?

10. "Opposites attract" but "birds of a feather flock together." Do both these adages apply to Ed and Carol, and if so, in what aspects of their relationship?

11. By the book's end, Carol has "caught on to" the importance of process rather than outcome, in Ed's fishing expeditions. To what else does she "catch on?"

12. Do you think Ed's and Carol's marriage is a typical one? Why or why not?

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Winner of the 2003 Jim Angell Award, a national award for the best first book by a Presbyterian writer

"A wife learns the fly-fish song."

—Gray's Sporting Journal

"…the ultimate catch-and-release epic in which she comes to grip with his fly fishing and learns to release him, gently, to this watery passion. A wonderfully warm and ofttimes funny book."

—John Hahn, Seattle Post Intelligencer

"Feel sorry for Ed Morrison. He taught his wife Carol to fly fish, never tumbling to the fact that what she really had in mind wasn't a fish but this great book."

—Virgil Rupp, The East Oregonian

" If Patrick McManus was from the South and a woman and a psychotherapist and a closet preacher who was lousy at fishing but still fished and didn't care, and was fiercely fond of married life despite striking out at it twice and prayed the third time was the charm…I guess she wouldn't be Patrick McManus. But she would know the pleasure of having written a book as amiable and gentle-hearted as Carol Morrison's Catching On."

—David James Duncan, author, The River Why and My Story as Told By Water

"Few books lend themselves to reading out loud, even fewer have the depth, wisdom and wit of Catching On. I read Carol's book out loud to my husband and we cherished it. Catching On is a treasure. Don't miss it."

—Jane Kirkpatrick, author of Every Fixed Star and A Name of Her Own

"This is a wonderfully written, feel-good love story, not so much about the love of fishing but of loving fishermen and their magnificent obsession…. This book could save marriages."

—Paul Quinett, Ph.D., author of Pavlov's Trout, Darwin's Bass and Fishing Lessons