Mark Bachmann: Life on the Water

Mark Bachmann has spent more than half a century in pursuit of fish – and something deeper. His book, The Virtue of Fly Fishing V2, published last spring, gathers those decades of reflection into a 409-page work that is part memoir, part natural history, and part meditation on how humans fit within the living systems that sustain us.

“The Virtue of Fly Fishing,” Bachmann writes in his foreword, “is about the art, science, history, politics, religion, romance, and adventure in the sport of fly fishing.” It is, at heart, the story of a life shaped by rivers – a book that blends the tactile craft of casting and tying flies with big questions about nature, stewardship, and survival.

Early reviews have been glowing. One reader described Bachmann as “a painter using words rather than brushes and pigments,” noting his ability to shift between scientific precision and poetic mysticism. Another called the book “an enormously interesting and educational read,” praising its depth and breadth – a mix of personal story, environmental history, and sharp-eyed philosophy.

A re-edited and expanded version of his 2023 release, The Virtue of Fly Fishing V2 adds six new chapters and keeps the larger print that readers of the first edition appreciated. The essays move fluidly through time and geography – from Bachmann’s boyhood in northern Idaho to the river canyons of Oregon, from early conservation battles to modern-day reflections on the cycles of nature.

The title, Bachmann says, grew out of years of thinking about what fly fishing really teaches. “I’m absolutely fascinated with the natural world,” he recently told me. “And how the natural world works – and how humans fit into it. We’re part of it ourselves. Most of the time we’re totally out of control, even though we think we can control stuff. We really can’t control very much.”

Bachmann’s fascination began young. He grew up fishing the creeks and rivers that crossed his family’s cattle ranch near Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho. At age eleven, he caught his first trout – a seventeen-inch native cutthroat from Grouse Creek – with a worm impaled on a bare hook and presented with a long, homemade tamarack pole. That stretch of private water, he writes, became his first classroom.

When he moved to Oregon in 1963, his curiosity found new currents to explore. He caught his first steelhead from the North Umpqua River and, two years later, his first winter steelhead on the Sandy River. By the late 1960s, Bachmann had become one of the fly-fishing pioneers on that river. During the winter of 1969-70, he landed sixty-four steelhead, including one measuring forty-two inches.

If those numbers sound like the exploits of a driven angler, Bachmann would agree – but he insists the pursuit has always been more than the catch. “I’m just a detective,” he says. “I’m searching for clues, trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t.”

That detective’s instinct served him well when he and his wife, Patty Barnes, opened The Fly Fishing Shop in Welches in 1981. The couple built it into one of the most respected fly-fishing businesses in the Pacific Northwest – a place known for expert advice, strong coffee, and the camaraderie of anglers who made it their morning ritual.

The shop’s reputation soon extended far beyond Mt. Hood. In the early days of the internet, when online shopping was still an experiment, Bachmann and his team built FlyFishUSA.com, one of the first e-commerce sites devoted entirely to fly fishing. It grew to thousands of pages and attracted customers from around the world.

He was ahead of the curve when the internet came along. I remember helping the shop with its computer network and printed catalog back in the 1990s. Mark saw what was coming and just figured it out – like he always does.

He retired from retail in 2023, though “retired” hardly fits. Mark and Patty now spend their free time traveling around the Northwest – and fishing, of course. And when they return home, they’re glad to be back. It’s all part of the cycle.

That same long view informs The Virtue of Fly Fishing V2. The book doesn’t shy away from the hard truths about rivers and fish – the decline of steelhead runs, the politics of dams and water rights, the ways human ambition has reshaped ecosystems. Yet Bachmann’s tone is neither nostalgic nor despairing. Instead, he writes with the curiosity of someone still learning from the water.

One of the most striking passages explores how nutrients from spawning salmon nourish entire forests: “From these fish going to the ocean and feeding and storing those nutrients in their bodies so they can run up this river and spawn ... their bodies die and decay and are absorbed by the water itself and by all the vegetation along these streams. It just becomes a cycle,” he writes.

For Bachmann, those cycles – of water, of life, of attention – are the heart of both fishing and writing. “The water cycle is a good example,” he says. “Water evaporates from the oceans, forms clouds, drifts inland, rains over the mountains, and runs back to the ocean again. I think there are many cycles like these that we’ve interrupted without even understanding what we’ve done.”

That awareness gives The Virtue of Fly Fishing V2 a moral and ecological dimension that goes far beyond tackle and technique. The chapters range from playful to profound – “Dynamite Politics,” “Lessons in Catch and Release,” “Sport Fishing Tribalism,” and “The Rock Lady,” a reader favorite about a mysterious figure who builds rock cairns on gravel bars along the Sandy River. Through it all runs Bachmann’s belief that the act of fishing, done thoughtfully, connects people back to the systems they depend on.

As one reviewer put it, “The book exudes tender love, rugged conflict, scientific explanation, and a deep exploration of the human condition – all backgrounded by an ancient method called fly fishing.”

That ancient method has shaped nearly every chapter of Bachmann’s life, from his days guiding on the Deschutes and Sandy rivers, to his years running one of the Northwest’s most beloved fly shops. Now, in his eighth decade, he still follows the currents wherever they lead. “I don’t like to just accept things,” he says. “I like to dig into it and figure out what’s really going on.”

For readers – anglers and otherwise – The Virtue of Fly Fishing V2 offers that same invitation: to look closer, question assumptions, and find meaning in the quiet motion of a cast or the flow of a river.

It’s available now in paperback, hardback, and Kindle editions through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, both in print and digital formats – a fitting reach for a man who helped bring fly fishing itself into the digital age.

After all these years, Mark Bachmann is still doing what he’s always done best – teaching people to see the world through water.