Recently, I received an unexpected invitation. An old friend telephoned to say that he was taking his grandson to the Orvis Fly-Fishing School in Manchester, Vermont, and asked whether I would care to come along. I have fly-fished for most of my life, and few things have given me more pleasure over the years than sight fishing for trout on transparent streams in Patagonia and New Zealand, or for bonefish out on the flats in the Bahamas or the Seychelles. My enthusiasm notwithstanding, my abilities have remained modest, and I have never really mastered the double haul to my satisfaction (a technique that allows you to cast a fly around 30 percent farther than would otherwise be the case). Maybe Orvis could teach an old dog some new tricks. Besides, there would be the pleasure of reimagining myself as an 11-year-old boy, learning to fly cast for the first time.

Manchester is located in southwestern Vermont, a four-and-a-half-hour drive (211 miles) north of New York City. In winter, it provides a dormitory for the nearby Stratton Mountain Ski Resort, and in summer, it attracts golfers and hikers, as well as trout fishermen, who come to try their luck on a classic Northeastern stream, the Battenkill. Since 1968, Manchester has been home to the American Museum of Fly Fishing. But it was 1856, the year that Charles F. Orvis opened a tackle shop, which really shaped its destiny. Subsequently, Orvis began to distribute catalogs to a list of satisfied customers, thereby laying the foundations of the modern mail-order business.