"Dreefees:" Fishing Dream Food

“Most kids have a special stuffed animal, ratty blanket or dog-eared book they take to sleep with them – and a lot of kids, lacking this talisman, go berserk and scream themselves to sleep. Bill Bob had no one special talisman: Bill Bob had dreefees. None of us ever quite figured out the etymology of that word, but when I asked him years later Bill Bob thought it might be an amalgamation of ‘dream’ and ‘feed’ – food for dreams you might say.” David James Duncan, The River Why
High school English teacher and fly fisher Jeff Lund considers the utility of “dreefees” — a word coined by Duncan in his now-famous book: “While cleaning I found a size 3 Street Walker from my Oregon fishing disaster. Well, it wasn’t a disaster, but we didn’t catch any fish. Anyway, it’s a pretty fly with purple and black secured to a black hook and reminded me of the good time fishing, regardless of the results.” In the Manteca (Georgia) Bulletin.