Fishing on Irati River as Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises
How in the novel about sex, alcohol, and bullfighting, Ernest Hemingway put a hardcore chapter about fly fishing.
Disclaimer: unfortunately, I did not have a chance to visit the Irati River. Because of this, I figured out Hemingway’s spots from other people’s stories and photos.
In this article, I expect the reader to be familiar with Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises. Thus, I will not discuss the plot, main characters, and their motivations, especially since there is tons of literature on this subject¹. In this amateur research, I tried to clarify some points about fly fishing and focus on finding places that the book’s characters visited during their fishing trip. All other Spanish places are represented in the article «Spain in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises».
By and large, the chapter on fishing does not affect the book’s plot, but it is in there because Hemingway was an avid fisherman².
So, the fishing part of the novel is the twelfth chapter, but the preparation starts a few chapters earlier.
Three main characters of the novel, the protagonist, Jake Barnes, and his friends Bill Gorton and Robert Cohn, decided to go on a fishing trip before the Fiesta (Festival of San Fermín). The chosen fishing spot was on the Irati River, near Burguete, 45 km from Pamplona, Navarra, Spain.
While being in Paris, Jack received a letter from Cohn asking him to buy some tackle.
…I had a letter from Robert Cohn, written from Hendaye. <…> Hendaye had a splendid beach, but he was anxious to start on the fishing-trip. When would I be down? If I would buy him a double-tapered line he would pay me when I came down. [Chapter 9]
Another man, Mike Campbell, also wanted to go (but he would not be able to come to Pamplona in time) and asked what kind of tackle he needed.
«Tell me what tackle to send for.»
«Get two or three rods with reels, and lines, and some flies.» [Chapter 9]
And here is a crucial thing: they are not going on a regular fishing trip, but on a fly fishing! Therefore, Hemingway uses specific terms related to fly fishing tackle. For this reason, some nuances could be watered down in foreign-language publications of the novel if the translator did not know much about the subject³.
- Line or fly line — a specialized fishing line that supplies for casting artificial flies⁴;
- Double-tapered line or double-taper — a particular shape of a fly line⁵;
- Rods — a specialized type of fishing rod designed for casting fly lines and artificial flies⁶;
- Reels — a specialized type of fishing reel designed for holding fly lines⁷;
- Flies or artificial flies — a type of fishing lure [fly-fishing flies have such extremely deep lore that it is pointless to give any reference].
Then, passing through Bayonne, the characters bought more missing parts.
…so we hunted a tackle store and finally bought a rod for Bill… <…> …we bought a pretty good rod cheap, and two landing-nets. [Chapter 10]
- Landing net — a mesh that helps catch a fish.
Finally, they reached Pamplona on Sunday, the 26th of June, and, on the following day, headed to Burguete by bus. Robert Cohn fell away from the company, and Jake and Bill went fishing together.
Upon arrival, they rented a room in a cold and overpriced inn, but dinner and wine were included in the price.
We went up the street, past the whitewashed stone houses, families sitting in their doorways watching us, to the inn. <…> It was cold in the inn and the wind was starting to blow outside. [Chapter 11]
The inn is still operating under the name Hostal Burguete. Hemingway visited this place only twice: in July 1924 after Fiesta and in 1925 before Fiesta⁸. Despite the fact that when he came for the second time, he found that lumbermen had run logs down the river and ruined the fishing, he based the idyllic fishing expedition for Jake and Bill on it.
The room in which Hemingway most likely stayed in 1924–1925 is № 23⁹. There is also an autograph, «E. Hemingway 25–7–1923» carved on the piano, but it seems fake. First, Burguete was not mentioned in any of Hemingway’s European journalistic reports related to fishing¹⁰ in the early 1920s. Second, according to scholarly studies⁸ and his biographer Michael Reynolds, Hemingway visited Burguete for the first time only on the 13th of July 1924¹¹, after the last bullfight on Fiesta. Therefore, the writer could not leave an autograph in 1923.
During their stay at Burguete, Jake and Bill hiked a pretty long distance to a fishing spot, as Bill mentioned: «That’s a hell of a hike».
«We have to follow this road along the ridge, cross these hills, go through the woods on the far hills, and come down to the Irati valley,» I pointed out to Bill.
<…>
It was a long walk and the country was very fine, but we were tired when we came down the steep road that led out of the wooded hills into the valley of the Rio de la Fabrica. [Chapter 12]
From the quote above, I did not find out which valley was mentioned, but the endpoint of the walk was near a small village, Arive (Basque: Aribe), which is about 10,5 km from Burguete.
Later in the text, the writer accurately described the fishing sport on the Río Irati’s dam.
«Yeah. I’m going to fish the dam here.»
<…>
I got my rod that was leaning against the tree, took the bait-can and landing-net, and walked out onto the dam. It was built to provide a head of water for driving logs. The gate was up, and I sat on one of the squared timbers and watched the smooth apron of water before the river tumbled into the falls. [Chapter 12]
The dam is downstream of the river, outside the village (42°56'26"N 1°16'26"W).
This place is off the hiking trails, and it was hard to find a photo of its current condition.
Despite the exact landmark of Jake’s fishing spot, Hemingway himself preferred another one — «Los Banos»⁹ (42°56'29.7"N 1°16'04.7"W). It is called that by the abandoned bathhouses standing on the riverbank¹².
This spot is still popular among fly-fishing tourists¹³, but it is available for fishing in May and June only (official Spanish regulations)¹⁴.
As for the bait, Bill used flies and caught four fish. He used a special kind of artificial fly, a McGinty fly, also known as a wet fly for trout, developed in 1883 by Charles McGinty¹⁵.
«I’m going to fish a fly. You got any McGintys?»
«There’s some in there.» [Chapter 12]
Jake used worms (as Hemingway himself preferred¹⁶) and caught six fish, but all about the size of Bill’s smallest. The fish is a trout (most likely a brown trout because it is the dominant species in the Mediterranean¹⁷).
Knowledgeable tourists cool down wine in a stream¹⁸, as Hemingway’s characters did.
«How about putting the wine in that spring up the road?»
«All right,» <…> I found the two wine-bottles in the pack, and carried them up the road to where the water of a spring flowed out of an iron pipe. There was a board over the spring and I lifted it and, knocking the corks firmly into the bottles, lowered them down into the water.
<…>
I walked up the road and got out the two bottles of wine. They were cold. [Chapter 12]
Jake and Bill stood at Burguete for nearly a week. The writer provides contradictory information about the length of the vacation and the time of the fishing trip should be perceived as fiction.
We stayed five days at Burguete and had good fishing. [Chapter 12]
<…>
«What day of the week is it?» I asked Harris.
«Wednesday, I think. Yes, quite. Wednesday. Wonderful how one loses track of the days up here in the mountains.»
«Yes. We’ve been here nearly a week.» [Chapter 13]
At the moment of departure from Burguete, their new friend, «an Englishman named Harris», presented a true fisherman gift.
…as we got on the bus he handed us each an envelope. I opened mine and there were a dozen flies in it. Harris had tied them himself. He tied all his own flies.
<…>
«They’re not first-rate flies at all. I only thought if you fished them some time it might remind you of what a good time we had.» [Chapter 13]
Hemingway emphasizes the fact that Harris tied (the professional term for this activity) flies by himself because it takes time, knowledge of entomology, and great skill to do that.
Most of Hemingway’s works on fishing are collected in the book Hemingway on Fishing by Ernest Hemingway edited by Nick Lyons, 2002.
References
- Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises by Lesley M. M. Blume, 2016;
- Fly-Fishing the Ernest Hemingway Way, John Clarke, 2020;
- Essential Equipment to Get Started Fly Fishing — Fly Fishing Basics by Clint Losee, 2012;
- Fly Lines 101 by Clint Losee, 2012;
- An Expert Guide to the Types of Fly Fishing Line: How to Choose What’s Best for You by Robert Levin, 2022;
- Fly Rod: How to Choose the Right One for You by Rylyn S., 2023;
- Choosing a Fly Reel by Clint Losee, 2012;
- The Cambridge Companion to Hemingway edited by Scott Donaldson, 1996;
- In the Footsteps of Hemingway by Bob Beamish, New South Wales Rod Fishers’ Society Journal (2014–2015);
- Tuna Fishing in Spain (The Toronto Star Weekly: 18 February 1922), Fishing the Rhone Canal (The Toronto Daily Star: 10 June 1922), Trout Fishing in Europe (The Toronto Star Weekly: 17 November 1923) from By-Line Ernest Hemingway: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades edited by William White, 1967;
- Hemingway: The Paris Years by Michael Reynolds, 1999, see Chapter Eleven;
- Las aguas medicinales de Aribe, Aezkoa. Crónica del balneario. Siglos XVIII–XX;
- Fly fishing in the Spanish Pyrenees by Matt Collins, 2023;
- Fishing pilgrimage in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway, Yvon Zill;
- The McGinty by Panfish On The Fly, 2017;
- Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost by Paul Hendrickson, 2012;
- The Brown Trout of the Spanish Pyrenees by Phil Monahan, 2018;
- Burguete & Ernest Hemingway by Michael Ostrowski, 2019.
Take a look at my other related articles: Spain in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Hemingway in Spain.
A copy of this article is available on Substack.
