"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing." Norman Maclean, author and narrator of A River Runs Through It, makes sure the first thing the readers see is that particular passage. Yet for the Maclean family, fly-fishing was its own religion. There was no clear line because the line did not exist. It is not; therefore religion in the Maclean family was Presbyterian and fly fishingism. It qualifies as a religion by today's standards on many levels. It compares with more prominent religions in many ways: there are places of worship, higher powers, worship, objects of praying. Fly fishingism is a religion as much as any other religion out there.

In religion you need a higher power, and with fly fishingism for the Macleans, it is Jesus. Norman's father makes a reference to the "word of the water" on a couple of occasions...