Ep 83: Ursula Lake, with Charles Harper Webb
Charles Harper Webb is a Professor of English at California State University, former psychotherapist, poet, and author. His recent book, Ursula Lake, is a dark and thrilling story about a husband and wife trying to save their marriage and a rock musician trying to get his career back, all centered around a fly fishing trip in the Canadian wilderness. In this episode, Charles and I talk about how he incorporates his passion for fishing into his work, some of the small fly fishing details in the book that I appreciated as an angler, and some of his trips to Canada to fish himself.
Website: charlesharperwebb.com
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 83 with Charles Harper Webb on his new book Ursula Lake. I always just start by getting a background on my guest. So I'd love to hear how you got your start in fishing.
Charles
Okay, well, I grew up in Houston, Texas, And I got my start as a little, little boy with a little bait casting rod and reel. In those days, you could just walk out on the beach in Galveston and throw out into the waves and catch some pretty cool little fish. The varieties kind of went down when they started really drilling and things got kind of oily. But I caught all kinds of kind of almost tropical fish down there. But I just, I don't know, that was something that the first time I got a fish on the line, I knew I loved this. I just, you know, I couldn't wait to go fishing every time from then. So the first fish I ever caught was, I imagine, a croaker, which is what they call these little fish that made a croaking sound when you took them out of the water. And I insisted my mom cook them for me. I mean, I just wanted to have the whole experience.
Katie
Now, did you like pick this up on your own or did a family member, you know, is it like that took you out or did you just always have this desire to go by yourself? not a
Charles
My dad was not a particularly avid fisherman, but he provided me the chance to fish as kind of a something that a dad did. And I remember, you know, I would, I would, he would let me sit on his shoulders and we would walk out into the waves and I would throw and, and he would, he would stand there. And yeah, So he was a good dad.
Katie
An enabler, maybe. More so than, yeah.
Charles
Yeah, and he would fish with me some, but I was the one that had the bug. I mean, the two things that did, well, I guess there's three things that did that for me when I was a little kid. Baseball did it immediately. Fishing did it immediately. And turtles did it immediately. But these are just things I intuitively loved. And I never stopped loving it.
Katie
That's funny that you mentioned those things, because apart from turtles, it sounds like we had the exact same childhood. I was like a baseball, softball player, and a fisherman, but my dad also wasn't big into it. He would go on like one trip a year, and the rest of the time he would just boat me around and just take me out on the river, but he didn't really care to fish himself. So it sounds very similar to your situation.
Charles
Yeah, yeah. Something in us. I don't know what, but it spoke to something really deep in our hearts, I think.
Katie
Now, did you go inland in Texas at all? I've heard pretty good things about the fly fishing in Inland Texas, particularly around Austin. Did you ever get into that?
Charles
Nobody I knew even fly fished. I mean, that was not something that I even saw until I moved to the Pacific Northwest. So we didn't have a boat. And so it was not as easy to fish inland. I could fish easier at Galveston and Freeport where you could walk out on jetties and wade into the surf and stuff like that. So, yeah, I did a little fishing. We used to fish in the bayous for like catfish and carp. Put a little piece of biscuit on a hook and catch those. I mean, if it swam, I wanted to catch it.
Katie
So what took you to the Pacific Northwest then? Was it the fishing or work or something else?
Charles
Well, I was a rock and roll musician, and that's how I made my living for quite a while. And a band broke up in Houston, and I decided to go to graduate school at the University of Washington. And there were two reasons. One was because it had a very good English program, and two, because I wanted to fish for steelhead. And I just thought that would be great. And so I went there and I met the guy that ended up being my fishing buddy. I met him in a class in poetry writing. And we just hit it off right away. And he taught me a little bit about fly fishing. He was self-taught. So I got all kinds of holes in my technique. But yeah, that was how I started fly fishing.
Katie
And I assume that it was like most people where you're going to college, but you're also sneaking away every so often to go fishing and maybe cut class?
Charles
Yeah. Well, what happened there? I almost immediately got back into rock and roll bands, and I was going to grad school, playing in rock and roll bands, and my first year in Seattle was really a tough year for me because this kid from Houston, and all of a sudden, it's cold, and the sun doesn't come out. But what saved my life was discovering that Steelhead came in and And once I realized that, all of a sudden winter lost its terror. And I just thought, okay, cool. I just wait until it rains, the steelhead will come up and I'll be out on the river.
Katie
What was it like making that transition from subtropical almost saltwater fishing off the coast of Texas versus the cold, wet Pacific Northwest for steelhead? Did you have a steep learning curve there or did you kind of just adjust right into it?
Charles
Yeah, well, I had caught some fairly big fish in Houston or on the Gulf Coast. Not huge, though. But I just went out there like a fool. I was still using conventional gear with steelhead. I hadn't got to the point where I could fly fish for them. And the first time I went several times and didn't catch any. You often go out for a steelhead and don't get any. The first time I got a steelhead, that is in my memory, and it will be there till the day I die. I felt like a freight train had picked up my Oakey Drifter, and it scared the crap out of me. It just went boom, because it was a big, strong fish going down a strong, big river. I had never felt anything like that in my life. And so I stumbled and flailed and walked down the river and tried to get it in. And I didn't have a landing net because I didn't even think I would catch anything. So when the fish finally started to come in, I pulled it in and I backed up and pulled it in and backed up. And I swear, when I got it on the beach, I literally fell on it. I said, I'm not letting this go. I'm eating it. And this is my first steelhead. So I fell on the fish and basically wrestled it ashore. so no I was not prepared I thought I was prepared but I wasn't
Katie
yeah and how long did you spend up there then I assume you finished your program I want to get into kind of your career trajectory because I feel like it's one of the most interesting and varied backgrounds I've seen in somebody so you know it sounds like you're getting an English degree and I know at some point you become a psychologist or psychotherapist
Charles
yeah I've done a lot of stuff and you know Yeah, no, that's true. Okay, so where should I start with that? Yeah, because I have had a very, extremely varied degree. And on top of it all, I was being a writer. I mean, I guess on top of everything, that's why I was studying English. That's why I went to University of Washington. So over everything, I was writing. I was writing some fiction, and I was writing a lot of poetry and publishing a lot of that. And in the course of all these things, I was doing things to make a living that would support my writing habit, really. And yeah, so I mean, I loved rock and roll. I was just always into that. And so I was the lead singer and guitar player. So I could form a band around me. which was cool. I didn't have to, you know, have a band formed in. I could just, you know, because I could do the lead and I could do the lead guitar. So I could always make a living, basically, playing professionally. And then when I moved to LA, at the time I moved to LA, bands were actually paying to play in LA, hoping to get discovered. And I couldn't afford to do that. And I could have gone out on the road, but I would have been right back where I was. They would send me up to the Pacific Northwest and to Nevada and so forth. So that's when I ended up, I was taking writing classes there, but I ended up getting into psychology because, frankly, I took one class thinking it would help me if I wanted to write a novel. It would help me understand character. And the teacher thought that I was good at talking to people. And I seemed to maybe have a talent at doing that. And I thought it was interesting. I was very interested in it. And I thought, OK, maybe I can make my living that way. So I ended up getting a PhD and getting licensed. And I was actually a real Beverly Hills shrink for a while. I know. It's such an interesting roundabout way to get there.
Katie
And so I assume you're writing this whole time. Yeah. And did you find that your psychology background really did help your novel writing?
Charles
I do indeed. I did. I always did. Yeah. Because the thing, yeah, it helped in every way. I particularly started because I thought, okay, as a poet, I'm mostly talking about myself. And I would like to learn about other people too. And as I went into the field and started practicing and everything, I found that I learned more about myself and I also learned about other people. And so it was it was win-win on that. And I kept doing that until I got hired on a tenure track job at Cal State Long Beach. And around the same time, my wife and I had our son. She had it. I just helped. And I didn't have time to do everything. So I let the psychotherapy thing just fade away. And I became a full-time writer and professor. Fishing the whole time.
Katie
Of course, of course. Not to kind of categorize you in just a single box, but do you particularly feel like one more than the other? Like, do you call yourself a writer who's interested in psychology or vice versa? Because it sounds like you've had an interest in writing since you were much younger. it was almost like the first part of the psychology was to support your writing, but obviously you followed that path really far. So are you a writer who does psychology or vice versa, or do you really consider them both equally big parts of your life?
Charles
Well, they're both, I think, equally interesting, but I've always seen myself first and foremost as a writer. I mean, even when I was an undergrad at Rice University, I was trying to be a writer. That's what I wanted to be.
Katie
Your past works, were many of them revolving around fishing? I know we're going to get into Ursula Lake, your new book, which does heavily feature fishing. But is that kind of a first for you or have you always tried to sprinkle that in?
Charles
I wrote primarily poetry. And for any of your listeners who aren't real familiar with contemporary poetry, it may not be what you would imagine. Because my stuff was very accessible, often used a lot of humor. I mean, I still do. I still write it. It's not like kind of, you know, hyper aesthetic rhymed stuff or anything like that. And, yeah, I wrote some things that had to do with fishing because it was important to me. But, yeah, Ursula Lake, I just thought, well, I mean, it's such a cool story going up into the North Woods. And there are so many possibilities for it. And it's such an amazingly atmospheric place that I thought, oh, I can write something about it completely and really make fly fishing central to it. And the key, I guess, is to not have so much fishing that regular readers were bored with it. So one of the things I had to do when I was revising was I had a lot more technical stuff in there than was left because only another fly fisherman would care about some of the stuff I had in there.
Katie
I did notice that occasionally throughout the book, references to things that you can tell that the author knows what they're talking about versus an author who had to Google, you know, what are some fly fishing terms I should include? And I loved those little tidbits, but I was kind of cognizant of the fact that if I didn't fish, I would be thinking, what the heck is he talking about? But I agree. I think it was just enough that it wouldn't bore a non-angler, but it was a treat as an angler to have those little details.
Charles
No, that's good. Yeah, I tried to make it pretty consistent with the fact that the two male characters in the story are not expert fishermen. They're pretty much like what I was, which is young guys who love to fish and who know some stuff and are going up there. And we knew enough to try to match a hatch, but we didn't know how to. We couldn't tell you the difference between various kinds of mayflies or, you know, probably didn't know the word chironomid. You know, and as it turned out, what the fish at the lakes, they were really fishing a lot. It turned out that the fish were eating scuds or a little freshwater shrimp. And in fact, the larvae of them. So that turned out to be interesting. I've never had that happen before. This is the only lakes that I ever saw that happen. But we actually matched. It wasn't a hatch. It was the eggs of these little creatures. So that was a cool little adventure.
Katie
So this might be a good time to give a summary of the book. I know you don't want to probably give away the ending as it is kind of a mystery novel. You don't really know where it's going. But just so people have kind of a familiarity with the story and how fishing plays into it. Do you just want to give kind of like an elevator pitch for the book?
Charles
Sure. And I have it. I wrote it down. Because this is the like one sentence. They call it a tagline, I think. And this is what is for that. In the fast-paced, sexy, and very scary literary thriller Ursula Lake, a husband and wife trying to save their marriage and a rock musician trying to get his career back on track find big trouble, natural and possibly supernatural, in the spellbinding wilds of British Columbia. that summarizes it about as well as I can do it.
Katie
That does. Now I have to ask, the rock star, was that inspired by you? Were any of these characters based on you or were these, characters that were either other people or just completely made up that you just kind of picked and chose some aspects that you were familiar with?
Charles
Yeah, it's, it's always easier to write a character that's based on somebody, you know, even if the character ends up being miles away from them. So, you know, so for one of my characters, I use the stuff I know. Yeah, in order to make a character come alive, you've got to have details that seem real. So yeah, the character of Scott Murray is not me, but has a lot of things about me, because it's easier to write that way, and it rings truer. And, you know, and the character of Errol, who is his friend, is much more of a composite. But, you know, it, yeah, I mean, I based it on, in that case, I put a lot of different things together. But again, it really helps if there's something solid behind it. If I find, at least for me, and I think I've taught enough to know for students, too, that if you try to build a character out of thin air, it's likely to feel thin. And yeah, So I just found it, sure, I know about rock and roll, and I know about being a frustrated rock musician, and so I use that. I know in a novel that I'm working on now, I know about being a student of psychotherapy. So I've got a character who is in a graduate program learning to be a therapist. It doesn't mean he's me, but it means that I'm writing about something I know.
Katie
Yeah, and I feel like while the story was about all three characters, Scott was definitely the one whose thoughts you get the most.
Charles
Yeah, it starts with him. So he'd be the uber protagonist, I guess.
Katie
Maybe you can fill me in on how at least your writing process works. When you're coming up with the idea for this book, which is equal parts, like the thriller part of it going on, the romance part, the fishing part, there's many different things going on. But when you were coming up with the idea for it, was there some idea that you say, I want to have a book revolving around the wilderness or around fishing or around this love story? What was your first idea and then how did you build around that?
Charles
That's a great question. My first idea was that I wanted to set a really interesting story in northern British Columbia because it was such a compelling place to be. At the same time, beautiful and scary and mysterious, and it seemed to be imbued with a kind of supernatural quality. And so the first little folder I made, I remember this really well, my working title was simply Canadian Adventure. Because I knew I wanted to write something that really dealt with the background and the beauty and the mystery of that setting. And I wanted it to be really interesting and the kind of book that I wanted to read. I try to write stuff that I would want to read, and I've been told that I get bored easily. So I like stuff that's exciting. And that's why I like Steelhead. I thought I would have a heart attack when the first one hit. But anyway, yeah, that's what I wanted to do. And so then I came up with a couple of characters. And I said, let's put these characters together and see what happens. I mean, I really try to just see what would be interesting, what would make sense, what would really move the book forward. And I kind of fought my way through it that way.
Katie
So you didn't know what the ending was going to be when you started. You didn't have an outline of everything. You kind of just let it progress as it happened along the way?
Charles
That's pretty much right, yeah. I mean, I may have had some inklings of it, but if I have, you know, if I know too much what exactly is going to happen, I think it takes away some of the excitement. I mean, various writers have been credited with saying, no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. And so to me, writing is very much a discovery. I want to find out what happens too. And if it excites me and interests me, then I know I'm on the right track. And if it doesn't, then I know it's not working. I got to do something else.
Katie
I can very much see that being something where if you have it too planned out, it almost would sound clinical, like you're just reporting on what you've already thought up versus, you know, if you were a reader, what would you want to happen next? Or what would you be excited to happen next? And I didn't feel like the whole way through the book, I had no idea where it was going, which I enjoy that when I'm reading. I don't like being able to kind of guess what's about to happen. And I feel like up until the last page, yeah, I had no idea what was going to happen.
Charles
Yeah, yeah. Well, really, the last part of it was a real surprise to me. And it was an exciting surprise because I would be right along with it. Oh, this is cool. This is going to happen. I can see it, you know, just maybe like a couple pages ahead. And, yeah, and it's gotten revised a lot, too. It's not like you just, not like, for me anyway, it's not just like I sit down and write it out, and there it is, and it's how I want it. You know, I'll start off with a kind of idea. I don't want to make it sound like I just start writing out of nowhere. I have an idea, okay, this might happen, this might happen. But that's just to get me going. Generally, well over half of the things I think might happen don't happen as it gets going. It just gets a better, I get a better idea, basically. And I have to have the freedom to do that or it's real boring. It's boring to write and boring to read, I think.
Katie
Now, were the two lakes inspired by any particular lakes? Or was this kind of a place that you dreamt up based on your kind of general experience in BC?
Charles
Well, strangely enough, we fished lakes and we didn't know their names. I mean, we just went into the interior and we would look. I think we must have had a map of some kind. Maybe there was a name, but it's not something that stuck with me. We'd basically go out. We had a little aluminum boat. We'd go out. We'd kind of troll around, try some flies, see if we got anything. If something was cooking, we'd stay. If we weren't getting anything, we'd try another one. So the two lakes come from my memory of two lakes that we fished. And Ursula Lake was the more remote of the two. And I remember very, well, this is in the book, going up these mountains, roads, and thinking, oh, my God, if the car breaks down, I don't know how we're getting out of here. But I mean, we were about 25 and we said, we don't care. We'll walk out if we have to.
Katie
Yeah, think of that. That's like a future you problem. You don't have to worry about it now. You'll worry about it when it happens.
Charles
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And when we were young and dumb and confident and just thought, hey, we're fishing. We're in Canada. How could that not be cool?
Katie
One thing I noticed, and maybe this is different for every author, But and I think it's kind of my question about art in general is, you know, I'm sure there's artists out there who have a very, very specific measure that they're trying to get across. And it's, you know, they're not really wanting their work to be up to the up to the viewer, the reader. And then I'm sure there's other people who really like the idea of it being up to interpretation. Do you feel like in this book you had a very clear like reason for including a lot of the stuff? or was a lot of it just fun and kind of open to interpretation of what it means or what's behind it? Like kind of with the supernatural part of Ursula, like things started to get kind of darker as they got closer to that destination. And I wasn't sure if that was really deliberate or if that was more to be left up to interpretation by the reader.
Charles
Well, I don't write stuff that has a – I don't write because I have a moral that I want to impart or because I have anything like that. I try to create characters and see what they'll do. And if they're in an interesting enough situation, then they have a chance to really, people show what they're made of when they're under duress and when things are out of the norm. And that interests me. There's a psychologist in me that says, okay, if this were to happen, what would Scott do? What would Errol do? What would Claire do here? How would all of this, what would happen? And I have confidence that it'll be interesting. So, you know, and because I have them with real backgrounds and because I'm making them as real as I can, of course, they have a lot of issues that are real. And they'll talk about these. One of the things about fishing, as I'm sure you well know, is you've got a lot of time if you're fishing with somebody, you've got a lot of time to talk. I mean, it's not always, you know, action. I mean, there's a lot of just wishing something would hit, and then you talk, and all kinds of things come out. So, yeah, I just, but what I'm always aware of, especially in the rewriting process, is this interesting? Is this worth the reader's time? I mean, that's an important thing to me. I never want to have a reader finish something that I've written, whether it's a novel or a poem, and say, well, that was a waste of time. I mean, that would be terrible. I mean, I'm not saying it's never happened, but it's never happened willingly for me. I'm trying to be interesting. And I'm trying to interest myself, too. So, yeah.
Katie
What was it like writing the psychology of three very different characters who all, you know, you kind of, it is mostly centered around Scott. but you do occasionally get glimpses into what Errol and Claire are thinking. What is it like trying to come up with three characters and how they would each mentally or emotionally respond to what they're encountering out there?
Charles
It's really interesting. It's hard, too. And I will admit that I used my wife's input quite a bit with Claire because I was much less confident in writing a woman than I was in writing the two guys. I felt like I could kind of do them in my sleep. But Claire was a lot more challenging. So, yeah, I have, you know, I have some insight. I've certainly, you know, I'm not without insight, but I thought, no, there's nothing. I got to have an expert here. I got to have somebody who is a woman to tell me, oh, she'd never do that, or she should say this, or blah, blah, blah. So that was, so I would say I did some research on that one. And, you know, for better and worse, that's, you know, I'll say the old thing that if I blew it, it's my fault. If it's really good, kudos to my wife.
Katie
There you go. One of the things that I really enjoyed that's kind of a mix of psychology and fishing that was just like a very, it felt like a minor detail, but it actually did, I think, really shape the way the story went. And it's something that I'm not sure if it would be picked up by non-anglers. But the interaction between Scott and Errol when they're fishing and Errol is not having luck and Scott is, that was something that I immediately resonated with. And I think might seem unreasonable to somebody who doesn't fish. The fact that Scott is catching fish and it's making Errol so unreasonably angry because he can't catch one. But that's something that I feel like we've all had happen to us where, you know, you love your friend, but your friend is catching way more fish than you are. And you just want to break your rod over your knee because there's just something about that that you don't want them to not catch fish. You just want to be catching fish too. And without that balance, it makes you do and say things that you don't feel like a normal person would say. And I feel like looking at it as a non-angler, I would say Arrow was being so unreasonable. But I instead totally related to it. And I thought that was a really nice detail that might, again, only be understood by someone who's been in that position before.
Charles
Well, no, you've said it perfectly. And yeah, it's made even worse because Errol actually taught Scott how to fly fish. So it's like he's getting smoked in all kinds of ways. And yeah, you know. So you said it. I won't bother to re-say it. You said it exactly right.
Katie
Well, was there, I mean, I'm sure you've experienced it just like we all have, but was there a specific instance that inspired that? Or was that something that you said, you know, I really want to incorporate this because it's such a unique relationship between friends who fish together that, you know, you can only really experience in that way. Do you go out of your way to include that?
Charles
Well, if you mean by that, have I ever been the one who wasn't catching enough fish? The answer is yes. And have others ever been in that position? Yes. And I've seen some people really react badly. You know, there are fish counters and there aren't. And the real fish counter can be difficult to fish with because it's never good enough. But I mean, in this case, the balance, you don't have to count them to realize, oh, somebody's getting a lot more than the other person. And yeah, as you said, it drives you nuts. You don't know why that's just happening.
Katie
Yeah.
Charles
So yeah, I've had that experience. And since as a writer, I'm looking for areas of conflict because drama only happens when there's conflict. You know, if the two guys just go to the lake and everything works great, there's not a story. I mean, you can just say, man, did I have a great fishing adventure and here's some pictures. And then that's kind of the end of it. Right. So that couldn't happen. And that just seemed like a natural area of conflict. And it seemed to me, you know, when I got the idea, oh, yeah, and Errol should have taught Scott this. So it makes it even worse. and he doesn't know what's wrong. That's what will drive you crazy.
Katie
It was refreshing to read it because I feel like a lot of fly fishing writing, and this isn't a knock on that, I enjoy many types of fly fishing writing, but a lot of it is more looking at the fishing itself in kind of a poetic way or a spiritual way or something like that. Or the everything is going wrong, but we can laugh about it type conflict. And this was maybe the first book I've read where the conflict was between characters about fishing. That was kind of a new area of conflict. It's not something I often see in fishing. So that was kind of fun to have a new take on it. Especially, like I said, as someone who's been in that position, it's almost more humanizing in a way. It also was nice to be like, okay, it's not just me.
Charles
Oh, no. No, no, no. You know, and it's rendered even worse. And this really gets to Errol. And boy, did I resonate with this one. You don't get to go out that much. And you're one and this one trip that you've spent, you've had put so much hopes into in a way you're trying to make up for a bad year. And then it's, it's not going right. And it's going great for somebody else. I mean, it's hard not to be bitter.
Katie
I think that's another kind of like universally understood thing where, you know, you have a trip planned and you've got it built up in your mind and then it never goes the way you expect. I mean, with fishing as well as many other things, you know, by the time it actually happens, only about half of what you planned actually goes to plan. The rest is all making it up as you go. Then it's easy to get that, you know, get down because of it, because it feels like, you know, things aren't happening the way they're supposed to when really, you know, just because you plan for something doesn't guarantee anything. But that was another thing I noticed about the book was that kind of like wishful, but it's not going as you planned. Or like you heard this big fish there and then you get there and it's not. And you just feel so dejected. And, you know, then they're trying to decide whether they move locations or stay there. And once again, it was just a situation I feel like we've all been in. It was nice to relate to other people having that same experience.
Charles
Yeah, good. Well, you're the perfect audience, clearly, because you just get it. I mean, it's really fun to hear you talk about it because that's exactly what is going on. And I tried to make it real. I mean, this is like the real thing. This is what happens. This is what, you know, not that everything in the book happened, but that the motivations are real. And yeah, I'm really glad that you said that about not having seen that particular conflict about catching fish and not catching fish before, because I hadn't either. And I thought that was interesting.
Katie
Were you writing this with a fishing audience in mind? Was that kind of your primary goal or were you hoping for a general audience to love it?
Charles
I was hoping for a general audience because, frankly, there's not, I don't know how many fishing audience, how big a fishing audience there would be. But so what I tried to do was make sure that the fishing would be of interest to somebody that wasn't fishing. But yeah, I mean, ideally, somebody that knew how to fish would really, really get it all, as you are demonstrating.
Katie
You said you have another book in the works. Is it at all on the same subject?
Charles
Well, it doesn't have it. It's not as much based on fishing. But again, it does have several scenes in the woods and some in the mountains, different mountains, much less wild mountains than the mountains around L.A., which can get kind of wild, but they're certainly not British Columbia. And there's a couple of fishing scenes, smaller fish, because the character, again, the character in there likes to fish. But yeah, it's not nearly as central.
Katie
Okay.
Charles
But again, if you know something, you might as well use it.
Katie
Right. The character can still have a hobby, even if it's not the main topic of the book.
Charles
Yeah, yeah. And there's golden trout in the mountains. And so he's hoping he'll get a little golden trout.
Katie
You mentioned this woman takes place also in a mountainous area, though not as wild. And I saw in the document you filled out that you wanted to talk about kind of the psychology and the wilderness aspect of Ursula Lake and how that wilderness kind of played into the characters and how the story played out. It sounds like wilderness might be kind of a running theme, even if it's in different forms. Is that true?Or do you put effort into doing that?
Charles
Yeah, no, that's very true. That's very true. The thing that's interesting about wilderness is that the normal constraints of behavior tend to fall off and people are revealed more in their real self. And I find that very interesting. And I find it very dramatic because they're not, you know, the, I mean, Carl Jung talked about the persona, which was just a mask you put up. The masks tend to fall away. And you've got a lot more just, you know, the primal person. And I find that really interesting. You know, I, yeah, I mean, like when I was a kid, Lord of the Flies was a book that really, really intrigued me. I can't believe they actually let us read that in school. But yeah, I mean, I just thought, yeah, wow, what happens when there's no rules? And when I was in British Columbia those couple of times, way up there, there's nobody around. It struck me again and again that there's nobody really to enforce society's rules. And also, if something goes wrong, there's nobody to help you. And that just seemed like a really, really interesting situation. So, yeah, the book kind of grew out of that sense that anything can happen in the woods. And the supernatural element seemed almost inevitable because it feels so weird sometimes, at least it did to me, to get up in the morning and there's mist all over the place and there's nobody else around for miles except your one friend. And you think about, like, who's been here before and what might be lurking in there. And, I mean, it's just, it's very uncanny. So that's the heart of the feeling of the book that I wanted to have, just that sense of awe and mystery and beauty and fear and uncanniness that is all part of it. It's really, you know, to me, it's really a transcendent experience.
Katie
I think you can see that in the way the characters progress, you know, from day one where there's still kind of like niceties. And I don't know, they're kind of making small talk and being polite. And then by the end of it, it's much more down to speaking your mind. And, you know, I feel like I've seen that transition. Like you said, it kind of feels lawless when you get out there. And, you know, at first you're kind of transitioning away from your day to day life. And by the end of it, you've kind of entered a new a new way of being where things are said directly. And there's no there's no like I don't want to say manners because it's not like you're necessarily being rude, but just the filters are gone. And the taboo subjects that you might not talk about around polite company in civilization, that kind of just like fades away. And you're stuck in the you're stuck in the backcountry with these people that, you know, they are your lifeline. Like you said, there's no call to safety. And it kind of forms a different kind of relationship, I think, with people who have spent any significant time away with each other.
Charles
Yeah, no, I think it's true. One of the things, and I hasten to add here, that the friend that I went fishing with is not Errol and didn't look like Errol, didn't act like Errol. But I did have a friend that I went fishing with. And I remember the first time we came back, we went to a tavern in the university district in Seattle. It was called the District. And both of us felt this way. I mean, neither one of us was like a troublemaker or somebody that looked for anything like that. We tend to be intelligent, polite, decent people. But we went into there, and all of a sudden, both of us remarked that we felt like that all the guys in there were wimps and that we didn't like them. And there was this sense of aggression toward them that was really remarkable. And it happened to both him and me. And we didn't start a fight or anything, but we had this sense that we're mountain men, and you guys are wimps. And we've just been out surviving on nothing but bread and fish and tang. And you're just these idiots. I mean, you know, it went away pretty quickly. You know, by the next day, you know, went back to my girlfriend. Everything was kind of the same. But yeah, there was that feeling. And we really had that feeling in the woods.
Katie
I've never heard someone express that before, but I feel like I can identify with that. I wouldn't use the word aggression for my own personal experience, but I have felt that where you walk into a place and you think, you people have no idea. You've just been sitting here enjoying your fancy drink and you're going to get your nice, comfortable car and drive home and you have no idea what we've been dealing with for the past week. And it is almost like an animosity for no fault of their own, but you feel like you have been dealing with a lot more stuff than they have. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, like bitterness about it.
Charles
Yeah, yeah. You know, I've never heard anybody else admit to that feeling, but there it is. That's exactly right. You just feel different. You feel changed. And for a while, it seems like these people are kind of a naive and inferior breed. And then it goes away. You're back in the usual stuff and you're doing the same crap they're doing. And you're one of them again. But for that little bit of time, you weren't.
Katie
And it's funny because it's all voluntary. You chose to go do it and you had a good time.
Charles
Yeah, exactly.
Katie
But yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And it is weird to vocalize. I've never really thought about it before, but I can definitely identify with that feeling. So it is interesting to hear someone bring that up. How does fishing, like do you incorporate your fishing with your writing? not necessarily writing about fishing, but do you go out on the water with the plan to mull things over in your head? Is there any sort of therapeutic aspect of fishing that lets you come up with writing thoughts? Or do they occupy different parts of your life?
Charles
Yeah, really, the answer to that one is no, I don't. One of the things I love about fishing is that it's completely involving to me. It, you know, because I tend to have a hyperactive mind and I'm always thinking about stuff and I can overthink things. And when I'm fishing, somehow I'm able to focus my attention on what I'm doing. And no, I don't think about any of that other stuff. I may think about it afterwards, you know, like I may think about it at night. Generally, I'm too tired to do much of that. But I will certainly think about it after the fact. But no, I like to, yeah, for whatever reason, when I'm fishing, I'm thinking about fishing. You know, and I can just focus like a laser on this one thing. I mean, you know, I've got to, there's a rise. I've got to cast to it. I've got to watch the fly. I've got to, you know, I'm on that thing. And it's not, I'm not interrupted by thinking, oh God, I got this bill to pay. And that's the way I go, so I don't have to think about that stuff.
Katie
Yeah, you might be the right person to ask as a psychologist. But, you know, I hear that a lot as the reason people like fishing, because it lets them focus on something holy that is not whatever other stresses they have going on in their life. Whereas other things, even if they're maybe doing a hobby, they're still thinking about their stresses. But the fly fishing keeps them so engaged that they don't have time to think about that. Do you hear that in more of a psychology world that people have used fishing to kind of escape from their normal life?
Charles
Frankly, since I've done all of my psychology work in L.A., and there aren't that many, relatively speaking, there aren't that many fisher people. I don't think I ever had anybody talk about fishing. I tended to work with creative artists and stuff like that. So no, I don't think any client of mine ever talked about fishing. I might be wrong. So I don't know what they thought about it. But I know the guy I just went on this cool trip with, he's a medical doctor. And he doesn't think about medicine out there. One time he had to, because the first day I met this guy on the Bighorn River, he and I ended up rooming together just by luck of the draw. The first time that I met him, we were fishing on a boat together. Again, by luck of the draw, the wind came up while I was casting, wrapped a fly around me and caught me in the face. Luckily, it was a barbless hook, and it was a small hook, probably a number 18. But anyway, this guy that I didn't know took the hook out of my face. And that's when I realized he was a medical doctor. So that's the only time. But normally, you know, we go to get away from that.
Katie
Well, it's good he can conjure up that knowledge, you know, when it's necessary.
Charles
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Katie
So what is your fishing like these days? You know, being in a place that's not as fishing heavy as maybe some of the other areas in the country, and particularly coming from the Pacific Northwest where, you know, that's a big thing.
Charles
Yeah, I know. It was a lot better up there in that way. But, well, the pandemic really put a cramp in stuff. I was going pretty regularly to Montana to fish. But I just got back from a trip to the Yukon.
Katie
Oh, wow.
Charles
That's even further north than northern British Columbia. And I went with my friend, the doctor, just in case I had – this would probably be a two-watt hook in my face, which would be a different thing. But anyway, yeah, we went up there and we fished. It was great. But I was scared about all of the exposure in the airports. And I didn't enjoy having a mask on the whole time. In Canada, you have to have a mask on the whole time you're in the airport and on the planes, which is probably a good idea. But it's not the most pleasant thing in the world. But, yeah, so we so I've managed to get. But well, he and I had planned this trip almost three years ago and we got canceled twice because Canada wouldn't let Americans in. OK, so we were supposed to go in 2020. No, 2021. No, 2022. Orders were open. Boom. We were up there.
Katie
And how was it? What were you fishing for?
Charles
Well, we were fishing. I wanted to catch some stuff I hadn't caught. So we caught some nice rainbow trout, but I've caught a lot of those. But what we caught that I hadn't ever caught was Arctic grayling, which I'd seen pictures of them, but I'd never seen one. And when you open up that big back fin, I don't know, can you conjure up what a grayling looks like or have you caught one?
Katie
Yeah, I have caught some. We have a place in Colorado that I can catch them, but they're not very big. They're not large. I think they max out there, or they have for me maxed out around 14 or 15 inches. So I haven't seen like a big one.
Charles
Well, I didn't catch any huge ones, but I'd never seen one in the flesh. And so we got those. But then we also got what I was really eager to catch, which also I'd never seen in the flesh, was northern pike. That was real interesting because we were doing it on fly rods. But the lures, I mean, you call them a fly, but they're like this big. And I'd say it's probably a two-odd hook on the thing. Luckily, they're all barbless, single hook, so you can release the fish. But that was quite a trip because, I mean, I've definitely caught fish that pulled harder. But as far as the strike goes, that I never, that was really something. Have you ever fought fish for pike?
Katie
Yep.
Charles
Yeah. You see, where I live, there just weren't any. But, I mean, we just, they told us, you know, throw the fly out there and strip in as fast as you can. And, you know, we're fishing in weed beds. I'm sure you know that. That's where they like to hang out. And just all of a sudden, there'd be a flash and boom, the thing takes it. I mean, you know, I got a fish that was over a meter long. They do everything in metric up there. So it was like a yard plus. I mean, it's a big, I caught quite a few of them, in fact. But the strike is the most exciting part. I mean, it just, you know, talk about an ambush predator. And then the other thing that I caught that I had never caught before was lake trout. And we caught, we went out onto a lake that was very deep. And that was the only time we fished conventional gear because you had to go so deep. So I got a very big lake trout. They didn't weigh it. And again, they're very conservation conscious. So the thing is out. If it's worth it, you take a picture and get it right back in the water.
Katie
Well, that's probably why they have such big fish.
Charles
Yeah. Well, that certainly helps. But then I also did some fly fishing for smaller lake trout. And by smaller, I mean the biggest one I caught was probably four pounds. But that's a big fish. To me in Montana, a four-pound trout is a very big fish. So that was something else. So basically I had a great time. And neither my friend nor I was the wretch. We call it the wretch when you don't get the fish. So we both had a good time. We both caught a lot of fish, new fish to us. And, I mean, I've been seeing pictures of northern pike since I was a little boy in Houston. I'd get sports a field, field a stream. And I wanted to catch one of them. But they're way up north and east. So, yeah. So this was something.
Katie
Did you go with a guide or did you guys figure it out as you went?
Charles
Oh, we definitely went with guides.
Katie
Okay.
Charles
You know, that's really, really raw country up there.
Katie
You like fly in?
Charles
Yeah.
Katie
Okay.
Charles
Yeah. And, you know, we did some walking through some woods that, you know, the guide kept showing me, you know, like some of this is in my book. But the bears in my book are black bears, which are not supposed to be as aggressive. The bears here were grizzlies. And he's showing me all these claw marks on the trees where the grizzlies are. And we're walking through a trail that you're squeezing through. And it's like you're in the middle of bear country. And I'm just thinking, don't show up now, brown bear. I don't want to see you. And our guide for that was from Czechoslovakia. And so he's yelling out, hoop, hoop, hoop, to scare the bear. And then he's yelling at stuff in Czech, which probably scared him to death.
Katie
That sounds like a ton of fun. Do you know what other species are up there? Are there Arctic char up there?
Charles
I don't. They weren't available to us. I don't know whether because they're not that far west or because they're even further north than we were. I don't know. Have you caught Arctic char?
Katie
No, I haven't. It's high on my list because they seem to be some of the prettiest fish when I see the pictures of them.
Charles
And they're really good to eat. I had an Arctic char in a restaurant in New York. I won this award and I got flown to New York. Of all the places. Yeah, of all places. so I've had arctic char twice and it's really really delicious and they are unbelievably beautiful and if there had been a choice a chance to get them I would have been after them but no that was not offered.
Katie
Okay yeah I'm always like keeping track of where they are because I'd like to plan a trip at some point with the primary goal of catching a really nice beautiful arctic char so I'm always making a mental list of places that could be on the list for that
Charles
Yeah yeah well I don't know. But I know they're real far north. But yeah, that would be a worthy goal.
Katie
You know, grayling, I also found very tasty. I've heard they're good. Yeah, I didn't expect it. I don't know why, but based on the way they look, take off the dorsal fin and the iridescence. Their body type isn't terribly different from something like a sucker. So I don't know if maybe that is what was tainting my expectation, but I was really surprised at how tasty they were.
Charles
Yeah, I heard the same thing. They're supposed to be a kind of whitefish. And the whitefish that I know of, we would catch in rivers in Montana. And also, I catch some whitefish in the rivers in the Pacific Northwest. But we always let them go because we were disappointed because it wasn't a trout or it wasn't a steelhead. But I've heard those are supposed to be tasty too. I just haven't eaten them.
Katie
We actually kept our first whitefish this past late fall, winter. And we had heard that they were not super great. People would make things out of them that kind of hide the fish. Put them in a dip or something like that. And we just fried them and they were totally fine. I couldn't tell the difference. And maybe I would have had I baked it or something where the fish is really, really highlighted. But in the fryer, you know, I couldn't tell the difference between that and any type of trout I've had. I don't know if that's just a like a mislabeling of them as a trash fish because they're not as pretty.
Charles
I don't know either. But what I have heard is that they're a great sign of the health of a river system, that if there's whitefish in the river, that that's a good thing.
Katie
Well, that's good. I love catching whitefish. They're one of my favorite things to catch because they fight so hard.
Charles
Yeah, they really do.
Katie
The number of times I've been like, oh, I've got like an 18-inch brown on and then it's like a 12-inch whitefish.
Charles
Yeah, I've had that experience too. And the guides are so disappointed. I don't know. And I'm thinking, well, this isn't a bad fish. This thing, you're right. This thing fights really hard.
Katie
Yeah, I think it's just their looks. They don't look as nice as a trout. But at the end of the day, I'm just looking for a good time. I don't really care what's on the end of my line.
Charles
Yeah, I like them to pull hard. And if they jump, that's great. So whitefish don't tend to jump, but browns don't jump that much either.
Katie
No, rainbows, I feel like, are the jumping trout.
Charles
They are. They are. And yeah, and that fella who was on your show, he was really right about the fighting qualities up there. I was interested that they were bred sterile. Oh, the triploids? Yeah, yeah. That whole thing was real interesting to me because there's no question that those fish up there fought really hard. The only rainbows that I've had that fought as hard as the ones up in British Columbia were once at a lake in eastern Washington that the University of Washington monitored. And they were big into fisheries, and they were always trying different strains. And this particular lake was really great.
Katie
I've thought about getting somebody on to talk about triploids because it's something I'm familiar with, but I don't know a ton. I don't know if they've ever fished for them. But they seem to be kind of a hot topic these days. I feel like I've been seeing more and more stuff about triploids and controversy. Some people really love them. Some people think that they're kind of a threat to good genetics. So I'm thinking about trying to find someone who knows a little bit more about them and kind of do a deep dive. Because I was also interested in that process and the desire to have those sterile fish in the water system or in the watershed. Well, Charles, what's next for you? I know you have a new novel coming out. Do you still write poetry, too?
Charles
Yeah, I do. I've got a novel that I'm finishing, and I've got a book of poems that I have finished, and I'm going to be submitting. The press that I was publishing with for quite a while, University of Pittsburgh Press, they underwent a huge change because their editor of 40 years retired. And so I'm not sure, you know, a lot of times new editors come in and they change everything up. So I don't know what my future there is. So I may be back in the market looking for a publisher, but I've definitely got some books that are getting towards where I'm going to be sending them out and hoping that I'll land something. I'm hoping maybe Red Hen will publish the next one. I'm not sure. But at any rate, the work is there.
Katie
And is Ursula Lake out yet or is it yet to be released?
Charles
It is out.
Katie
It is, okay.
Charles
Yeah.
Katie
And where can people find that and the rest of your books? Is there a preferred place besides like the big box websites?
Charles
Well, it's very easy to go on my website and there's access to independent publishers there. There's also, yeah, there's Barnes & Noble, there's Amazon. But if you want to go on my website, the one thing you have to remember is I write as Charles Harper Webb. And the reason for that is because Charles Webb wrote The Graduate. And when I was first starting, that caused some confusion.
Katie
Got it.
Charles
So it's C-H-A-R-L-E-S-H-A-R-P-E-R-W-E-B-B, one word, dot com. And they can easily find stuff there or they can go to you know where. and there's a lot of places that offer it for sale. I noticed when I went on Google, it's all over the place. So yeah, it should be findable.
Katie
I have to ask, is any of your old rock and roll music available?
Charles
No, I have some old tapes, but mostly I was a professional, meaning I made my living at it. So I did an awful lot of work in clubs that didn't get recorded or anything. And so, yeah, I wish if I were doing it now with the ease of recording everything, it'd be a whole different scene. But no, I worked for about, you know, a little over 10 years just playing, making my living playing rock and roll.
Katie
I have one final question, not to put you on the spot, But do you have any poems that you've written that you can think of that would be particularly of interest to a fly fisherman? Like any that really focus on fishing that would be good?
Charles
I do. There's one that's very surreal. And it's called something like I Love Fly Fishing So Much or something like that. I can find it and send it to you if you want me to. Yeah. Yeah. I know which book it's in, but I'd have to dig it up. But no, I can do that. I'll do that once we're done. I will find that poem and send it to you.
Katie
Absolutely. I would love a copy of it to read through. Well, this has been a ton of fun. Like I said, I really loved your book. I liked the details of the fishing. I also just liked the story, but I feel like a thriller, you know, kind of a murder mystery thriller is right up my alley. So I would highly recommend people checking out your book and whatever else you have coming down the pipe, too.
Charles
Okay, well, thanks. Yeah, this has been the most fun interview I've done because we get to talk about fishing so much.
Katie
Well, I had a great time.
Charles
So anyway, thank you. Thank you, Katie. This was really cool.
Katie
All right, guys. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to head over to the website, fishuntamed.com, for all episodes and show notes. And also, please subscribe on your favorite podcasting app. That'll get my episodes delivered straight to your phone. And also, if you have not yet, please consider going over to Apple Podcasts and leaving a rating or review. That's very helpful for me, and I'd greatly appreciate it. Other than that, thank you guys again for listening, and I will be back in two weeks. Bye, everybody.
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