You Can’t Catch a Trout Without Going Somewhere Beautiful

When he’s not writing, you can find Doug Geiling in the backcountry, casting a fly rod in a mountain stream in the hopes of catching one of the river’s wiliest fish: trout. 

A lifelong outdoorsman, Doug has channeled his passion and fondness for trout into a new book, titled Crack for Trout Bums. Behind a charming cover designed by his 9th-grade daughter, Addi, readers can expect to find a story that combines elements of travel writing, science, and nature, with a careful re-telling of the history of trout fish. Intermixed with personal anecdotes from Doug’s travels across the American West in search of these picky critters of the creek, the book pays homage to both the fish and the beautiful places they live. 

The book isn’t a how-to guide or an excuse for him to boast about his greatest catches.

Doug Geiling on one of his many fishing trips.

Doug admitted, “I’m a hack, who doesn’t know the fly names. I fish to be out there”. He’s a man who has visited nearly two dozen countries, been to nearly every state in America, and has racked up enough experiences to write about anything. So why focus on Trout?

When I asked him, he summed it up simply, “They live in the most beautiful places. You can’t catch a trout without going somewhere beautiful.” 

He’s not wrong. As a fly fisherman myself, my fishing excursions have taken me to many stunning places that I’d likely never have seen if I were not chasing these elusive fish.

 I’ve caught sharks in Florida, hunted bears in Washington, and grew up gigging frogs in Missouri, yet catching brook trout in Clear Creek or cutthroats in the Flat Tops, out of a stream with no name, are experiences that are in a category of their own.

When you dedicate so much time to chasing beautiful fish in beautiful places and decide to write about it, anything other than a beautiful by-product is hard to imagine. If Doug’s passion for trout is any indication, the book is exactly what it sets out to be: a love letter to one of the world’s most commonly sought-after fish, and the beautiful places they inhabit.

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