Owen Killman drove, Len Elzie rode shotgun, and I sat in the back seat of Owen's van, tying flies on a lap board made for just that purpose. The flies were easy. The Golden Fleece is a jig-like fly with painted lead dumbbell eyes, an ice chenille body, and a shiny mylar tinsel tail. Number 2 stainless steel hooks made for quick tying in spite of the almost continuous motion caused by uneven road surfaces, the van's acceleration or deceleration, and the occasional swerving to avoid potholes almost as large as our car.

I had forgotten just how much motion you feel back there, but I did remember the automobile commercial that ran on television a few years ago and the subsequent parody of it done on Saturday Night Live. The original commercial has an expert diamond cutter in the back seat of a luxury car, and to show how smoothly the car rides, he is going to cut a diamond while the car is in motion. A look of concentrated determination on his face, he sits with the blade carefully positioned on the stone, the hammer raised. The car rolling smoothly, he brings the hammer down. "Perfect," he says, in triumph.

In the SNL version a rabbi is in the back seat, about to perform a circumcision on a baby. He also looks concentrated and determined. The car rolls. The rabbi snips. The baby doesn't cry. "Poifect," the rabbi says.

One of the more memorable pit stops we made during the trip was in Hardy, Arkansas at a gas station/convenience store that appeared to be the focal point of the entire town. Most of the customers were travelers like us, but a few locals sat in formica booths along the wall, sipping styrofoam coffee and talking about whatever it is that Ozark Mountain locals find to talk about. It was then that we noticed that the store also sold fly fishing equipment.

A display rack of hot orange fly lines turned out to be from Hobbs Creek, the brand sold by Bass Pro Shops. Weight forward 5 and 6-weights hinted that we were in trout fishing country, a suspicion which was confirmed when we saw the selection of "flies." Actually, there were a few real flies, but these were mostly crappie jigs, each in a cellophane bag with two dozen of the bags stapled to a piece of faded cardboard that looked to be about the vintage of an original Burma Shave sign. Even at 49 cents apiece the dusty cellophane showed that the flies weren't selling too quickly. When we saw the other merchandise, we understood why.

For every one fly for sale there were ten jars of salmon eggs, and in all the best colors: white, orange, red, pink. Shiny new jars indicated a rapid turnover, and the sheer volume of eggs showed a high demand. For those who prefer not to use salmon eggs as bait, there were also cans of corn, right off the supermarket shelf and repriced for a tidy few pennies profit.

Of course there will always be those fly fishers who like to get close to the source; fly fishers who want to understand the fly they are using; fly fishing purists who want to "match the hatch." In this store, these fly fishers could find what may be the ultimate trout catcher of all.

The clear plastic bag was the size of a tobacco pouch and contained a handful of brown lumps. The label unsubtly said, "Trout Pellets," with an even more unsubtle explanation: "just like they feed at the hatchery."

We rode the next few miles in contemplative silence.

The fly fishing show for which we were making the 750-mile drive was called the Sowbug Roundup and would begin the next morning in an American Legion hall in Mountain Home. Continuous programs and workshops were scheduled that would cover both general fly fishing techniques as well as local tips for catching fish in Arkansas' famous White River system.

The show's main room contained thirty or so fly tiers and more than a dozen vendors, including several bamboo rod makers and antique tackle dealers. One of them had a barrel full of joblot rod blanks which were selling for about $40 apiece with a set of guides and a tip top thrown in. I went outside to the casting area and tried an 8-1/2 foot, 4-weight the dealer had made up, finding it surprisingly responsive for an IM6-type rod. I'm still not sure how this happened, but I actually convinced myself that I didn't need another rod. I think this is a sure sign of impending old age.

Len and I were invited to Sowbug as demonstration fly tiers, and we tied for the best part of two days, Len doing, among other flies, his Byrd Special, a cork head floating bass fly. I tied braided mylar, neutral buoyancy baitfish, which I then dropped into a plastic shoe box filled with water to show how the flies neither floated nor sunk, but suspended a few inches below the surface.

A surprising highlight of the weekend was a late afternoon guided tour of Wapsi, one of the largest distributors of fly-tying materials in the country. It took an hour to work through a building with floor space the size of an average Publix and piled virtually wall-to-wall with feathers, fur, and synthetic materials in staggering ranges of colors and sizes. We left Wapsi dazzled and reeking of mothballs.

Sowbug Roundup was put on by the North Arkansas Fly Fishers, a club that lets neither bureaucracy nor convention stand in the way of getting things done. Admission to the Roundup was only $5 for both days, and kids were admitted free. Food from the kitchen window was priced so everyone could afford to eat: hearty breakfast for under $2 and a big lunch for under $3. A Friday night sit-down dinner was part of the event, and just before digging in to the roast beef that was being served to the 100 or so people in the room, a club member addressed the group.

"Last year we spent the money from this event on a speaker," he said. "This year we decided to buy food."

He sat down to resounding applause.

Both days of the show featured auctions of the silent and Chinese varieties, and these events supplied some unexpected excitement.

Silent auction items included fly reels, rods, vests, flies, and other fly fishing equipment as well as an out-

of-place Ambassador casting reel that Owen bought for less than one third of its list price.

Auction items are difficult come by these days as most manufacturers are besieged by requests for donations, and many can only afford to give away a discount so that "winning" means winning the chance to buy an item at dealer cost. Those were the conditions under which Len won both a Sage rod and a Sage reel of his choice. I won an Orvis reel under the same conditions, and then ended the Sowbug roundup with the greatest success of the week.

One of the Chinese auction prizes was a green, plastic frog about a foot long by a foot wide and standing almost 6-inches high. As if that's not enough, it also had a light detector mounted proudly in its nose and with help of two AA batteries croaked loudly when someone walked by. I wanted it from the first instant I saw it.

A great deal of strategy can come into play when trying to win an item at a Chinese auction. You usually take into account the number of tickets already in the jar and then balance your chances of winning against your desire to have the item. For me the decision was easy. Eschewing opportunities for rods, reels, portable boats, and guided fishing trips, I dumped most of my tickets into the jar by the frog.

The drawing was drama of the highest sort. For the other items, a continuous murmur of voices provided a background of human Muzak, but when the auctioneer got to the frog I remember there suddenly being absolute silence. I couldn't bear to watch the hand pull the ticket out.

And then the auctioneer read the winner's name.

"Tom..."

Good so far. But how many Toms might there be in the room?

"B-..."

He couldn't pronounce the last name. Good, I thought. The way I scrawl, that could be me.

"Brod... "

Oh, come on with it!

"...eridge."

I don't remember much at that point, only that I was on my knees, head thrown back, fists raised in the "just won Wimbledon" position. I'm told I shouted something like, "Yes!" which would have been incredibly unoriginal but unfortunately not at all unlikely. I turned the frog on in the motel later, making it croak by waving my hand in front of it. Owen and Len both had that look like it was going to be a long ride home.