The Great Hat Race
Flyfishing Stories by Bob Lawless

I began to notice that people fishing on the Russian River in the sixties in California started wearing these god-awful hats. You were supposed to wear a baseball cap (Giants or 49ers, of course) and a jersey pullover with a hood. Apparently somebody got tired of this monotony and put on a beret. I thought he looked very cool so I sidled up to him to ask how he was doing. He had caught nothing so I dimissed berets as being no good as a hat. Then it just kept getting worse. I bought a big, cheap cowboy hat with an Eisenhower button on it (actually I hated Eisenhower). I noticed that I got a lot of approving looks and guys sidled over to me with big smiles and asked how I was doing. I was in a nasty slump at the time and I told them so. They went away disgusted.
But the last straw was when this guy at the end of the season, strolling down my favorite riffle, had a beanie on with a propeller on top. The wind was hellacious as usual and I couldn't keep from sneaking peeks at his 3,000rpm prop. I pretented not to notice the beanie and he told me that he had released four fish on a boss fly #4.
I have tried to buy a prop.job beanie without success. Any help here?