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By the third day in camp, word of Harold's eccentricity had spread. Everyone had taken fish except the bearded fellow from California, who grinned at the gentle stream of abuse sent up at his expense, nodding as though in agreement, as if to freely acknowledge his own perverse obstinacy.

The jesting was led by the man who had caught more fish than anyone else and who therefore spoke with the kind of temporary hierarchical authority that is quickly established at fishing camps. "I dunno, Harold. You may have to just get wet like the rest of us meat fishermen."

I wondered, was there a little nastiness brewing here? The sense that Harold was putting on the dog, posturing, playing the lofty purist?

Harold flushed slightly. "I know, I know," he said.

"The thing is, I really like dry-fly fishing. One steelhead on top, for me, is worth 10 on a streamer. It's...it's just the way I feel."

And so to go along with the spirit of the thing, to play into it, I suppose, Harold began his morning rapier charges. He waited until everyone was rigged up and ready to hit the river, then emerged from the cabin, thrusting his flyrod forward and yelling, "Dry or die!" as he charged, Quixote-like, to the riverbank, fencing the air while the others stood back and laughed and shook their heads.

Keep the Faith: But by the fourth day of our six-day stay, I noticed a change in the tenor of things. Gathering for a presupper drink, the tone of the inquiries seemed more hopeful, more respectful. "Hey, Harold, how'd you do?" "Get one today? Any rises?" Everyone in camp had caught fish using the standard dredge methods. Only Harold remained skunked. His intransigence, particularly in the face of the gibes and the clear frustration of his guide, began to seem rather heroic. Some of the other fishermen even started rooting for him, so that on the fourth morning, when he made his Quixote charge and yelled, "Dry or die!" the others called out, "Go get 'em, Harold!" "Today's the day, Harold. Keep the faith, baby!" At lunch on the riverbank, anglers would meet and ask one another, "What's the poop on Harold? He get one yet?"

On the evening of the fifth day, Harold strode into the main lodge, still in his waders, his cheeks sunburned and glowing, his teeth looking very white in his black beard, and someone asked, "Did you...?" Harold nodded, and a cheer went up. His guide, following, beamed triumphantly and told all about the fish, a bright 20-pound buck that saw the fly skidding, moved over a good three feet in the current, rose, kicked its tail fin for a burst of propulsion, and socked the dry as though it were a long-sought enemy. Harold played the fish expertly, bringing it to hand and releasing it while the guide operated the video camera, which had been lugged along hopefully each day. That night we all gathered around the camp TV and watched the footage, which ended with Harold lifting the big steelhead slightly from the water, admiring it, gently removing the fly. Then he looked up and yelled straight into the camera, at us, of course: "Dry or die, goddamn it, dry or die!" He released the fish, which zipped away, as we clapped and whistled and patted Harold's back in genuine admiration. He had caught only one fish to our many, and yet he had made of his pursuit and catch something greater, an effort in sheer quality, a gesture both personal and creative; almost, you could say, a work of art.

Strangely Seductive: My own stake in the subject of dry-fly fishing, I must admit, is neither as lofty nor as heroic as Harold's. I don't know that I would risk a whole week's dream trip on such a narrowly defined, obstinate goal, but I do agree that the allure of fishing with a floating fly, of enticing fish up to it, is strangely seductive. As with other forms of seduction, reason and good sense are rarely factors in the process.

Certainly I have spent, or "wasted," many hours and days trying to do things with a dry fly that run distinctly against the grain of common sense. Bonefish on a dry? It's been done, but-despite more than a few mornings of delicate casting on mirror-calm flats-not by me. Not yet. Permit? I admit to an unreasoning, almost devious urge to get one of these intractable bastards to come up and whack something on the surface, maybe a floating crab fly, I don't know. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that this desire is probably not going to work out in real life. But one can dream.

Other dry-fly attempts have been more successful, if only slightly less odd. Walleyes, largemouth bass, lake trouttaking these fish on true dry flies (not poppers) borders on the strange or freak, but I have done it purposely, and with much pleasure.

Mend, Adjust, Watch: Trout are the main thing, of course, the real deal. We goof around trying to get sheefish or channel cats or lingcod to rise, but in a way it's more or less a stunt, at best an occasional thrill. As a steady addiction, as a way of life, dry flies mean trout fishing. And for some anglers the reverse also holds: trout fishing, at its peak, anyway, necessarily means dry flies.

Let me quickly separate from any "purist" implications. I'm not suggesting that those who cast a floating fly are somehow superior to the hacks who stoop to wet flies and streamers and egg patterns. Dry-fly snobs are as boring and self-deluded as any other kind of poseur. Nor can I buy the age-old claim that dry-fly fishing is more difficult, more technical, than other methods. If you want difficult, try free-floating a No. 24 nymph off a 12-foot, 8X leader, cross-current, without a strike indicator, in a glassy spring creek, where the trout have elephantine memories and X-ray vision. Compared to this feat, dry-fly fishing is reasonably straightforward: lay it out there, mend, adjust, watch it float-the whole cast laid bare before your eyes.

It is true that underwater foddernymphs, emergers, eggs, fry-forms up to 80 percent of a trout's diet. But the point is: So what? Speaking for myself, the bottom line is not pragmatic. I can't claim Harold's level of aestheticism, but I do love the way a dry fly looks as it flutters onto the water, the way it bobs and rafts along, high and pretty. And I live for the sweet instant of the take. The sudden splash or the quiet sip or kissing smack that is always a surprise, no matter how cat-flexed you feel in mind and body. Then comes either a cursed, heartbreaking miss or the thrill of a hook-set, the electric attachment to an explosive life.

I'm no purist. I'll use a nymph. I've pitched thousands of buggers and muddlers. I've got nothing against an egg fly or a leech pattern. But more and more often, as I face trout water and prepare to rig up, I realize what I really want to do is float a fly over the surface, with little regard for the statistical results.

To expert fishing companions who shake their heads over such an unsophisticated, odds-off approach, I can only fall back on Harold's ultimate, and to me, fully adequate, explanation: It's just the way I feel.