In the film A River Runs Through It — Robert Redford’s cinematic adaptation of Norman Maclean’s book of the same name — a young Brad Pitt triumphantly hooks a huge brown trout while fishing in a running river. It pulls him dramatically downstream, until he emerges with the fish in his hand and a smile plastered on his face.
It’s the stuff of dreams for anglers, said John Grace, public relations chair of Santa Barbara Flyfishers.
“It was the fly-fishing scenes that people globbed onto,” Grace said. “You yearn to get back to the river with them.”…