'Most Trout Don't Read'

Scot Bealer loves to tell stories. And it turns out his love of fishing works well for this because a life spent fishing results in many adventures and misadventures that become fodder for good stories. That's all wrapped up in his new book, "Most Trout Don't Read," published earlier this year by Farcountry Press in Helena.

In his book, Bealer wanted to break out of the mold of stuff y technical writing on fl y fishing because he said it's repetitive. Instead, Bealer teaches the fundamentals of fishing through his own personal stories and observations while on the water, weaving in conventional and sometimes unconventional bits of fishing wisdom. "I decided the way to really make it diff erent is talking about my stories, where I did something that illustrated a fundamental technique," Bealer said.

"And a lot of this goes back to observing what's going on or some kind of comical situations when I was guiding someone." The 23 chapters in the book range from small water to still water fishing, setting the hook to reading water, fishing with children to fishing around moose and much more. The name of the book comes from a bit of wisdom Bealer shares with new anglers intimidated by all the information surrounding fishing: "Do I really need to learn all of this, to actually go enjoy fl y fishing? And my answer is, you know, I have never caught a fish that can tell me the name of a single bug that it eats, let alone a fl y pattern," Bealer said.

"And the reason is, well, these trou.