It probably began with Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” this literary absorption with fishing as metaphor for life. In a long line of succession, through Ernest Hemingway to Norman Maclean, the theme has been hackneyed almost to the point of cliché.
But where it involves a certain tale by Dave Ames, the connection takes on special meaning, even to the extreme.
Here was Ames, angling minstrel and self-professed trout bum, casting for golden dorado in northern Argentina when, almost at the same time, he hooked into a monster fish and stepped into a nest of virulent fire ants.
Highly allergic to the bites, yet determined to get the fish, he waded in long enough to land his prize, then succumbed to anaphylactic shock.
“I nearly died,” Ames said by phone from his home outside Helena, Mont. “I was able to get to a nurse, who gave me an epinephrine shot. They told me the adrenaline from fighting this huge fish saved my life.”
So put that in your ship log, Captain Ahab.
Ames will relate this and other less-lethal stories at the 30th annual Denver International Sportsmen’s Expo, which opens a four-day run Thursday at the Colorado Convention Center.
He will join a lineup of anglers that includes Joe Butler, Pat Dorsey, Denny Rickards, Marty Bartholomew, Eric Pettine, Terry Wickstrom, Ron Gazvoda, Brian O’Keefe, Ron Seehoff and Chris Schaeffer in a dazzling array of seminars.
Hunting experts include Chad Shearer, Guy Eastman, Web Parton, Mark Kayser, Jay Houston and Cameron Hanes.
Ames’ slide presentation, “Dances with Sharks and Other Tales of Fly-Fishing and Life,” is a riveting blend of humor and emotion he describes as “the story of a guy who grew up intending to get a job but went fishing instead.” He will present it Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 5:30 p.m., Saturday at 1:30 p.m. and Sunday at 12:30 p.m.
After an extended stint operating a guide service in Glacier National Park, followed by a broken marriage, Ames was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer and given just two years to live. One of those odd fellows who claims to actually have enjoyed writing theme papers in school, he had other ideas.
“So, I decided to write a book,” he said of what turned out to be one of those highly acclaimed first works that drifted into that free-flowing milieu of fishing as life.
“True Love and the Wooly Bugger” thrust Ames into a spotlight that continues to spread. He credits fishing, nature and maybe even his thesaurus for his survival, which he now, at age 52, proclaims as a cure.
Never one to stop telling stories, he has emerged as something of a cult literary figure. His third book now is on the shelf. It’s called “Dances with Sharks,” and the focal story is about the time he got attacked by this 6-foot-long bull shark. And lived to write about it.
So here we go again.
Staff writer Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
