Steve Duda is an inimitable storyteller. His recent book, River Songs: Moments of Wild Wonder in Fly Fishing, showcases a collection of essays written by Steve over the past twenty years, combined with a smattering of new material. It’s an anthology of work that John Gierach describes as “compelling stories told with skill and intelligence.”

Throughout River Songs, it’s clear that Steve—who edited The Flyfish Journal before becoming Head of Fish Tales for Patagonia—holds himself to the same rules he held his writers to as an editor: Don’t brag about the crazy things you’ve done; keep your dead family and friends out of the plot; and “for the love of God, try not to be the hero of your own story.”

As both a participant in and an observer of fly-fishing literature for decades, Steve is reverent of the field’s past, proud of its present, and optimistic about its future. “To be a great writer, you must write beautifully about terrible things,” he says. “As fly fishing writers, we are friends with disappointment. We fail more than we succeed. There are terrible things we confront in our writing.”

“I don’t know why people love to read about fly fishing so much,” Steve says. “Perhaps because we carry it so close to our heart and we have such intimate and fond memories of not just the act but everything that surrounds the act. Our friends, the settings, and all those things that combine to make memories we carry with us when we think about fly fishing.”

The composer Claude Debussy once said music is not just in the notes, but in the silence between the notes. A professional musician for many years, music is often a pillar of–or a catalyst for–Steve’s stories. And consistent with Debussy’s sharp insight, the power in Steve’s words—whether written or spoken—often comes from the golden silence between them.

In the eighth episode of the Reading the Water podcast, “Things Are About to Get Even Better,” Steve joins host Tim Schulz to share insights about the past, present, and future of fly-fishing literature, the components of a strong fishing story, his musical career, and he reads from his essay, “Pressure Drop.”

“Fly fishing teaches us a few things about a few things,” Steve writes as his book’s opening. And so, too, do the people like Steve who write about it.

You can listen to the entire discussion with Steve Duda in Episode 8 of the Reading the Water podcast, available through Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Pocket Casts.