The Thing about Fly Fishing is…is that it is for everyone.
If you ask 100 fly fisherman why they fish, you may get 100 different answers.
But I would speculate that many of the answers would include fellowship, friendship, enjoying the outdoors, and escape from our very real everyday lives.
I think that may be the underlying reasons for many of of our passion based pursuits. It usually starts with a friend introducing us to fishing It may not have been fly fishing, or it may have been. But fishing is a passion that many have found throughout their lives and memories of family, neighbors, and mentors fill our minds as we pass on through this fly fishing life.
The thing with fly fishing is that it lies within the entirety if the experience. We commonly start out with the fascination of just catching the fish. Whether it be a trout, a sunfish, crappie, perch…it matters not. The wiggle of the line in our shaking hands drives us just nuts. What is it about that first feeling of joy, total loss of control, and success of landing that first fish.
Friends and family are along for the ride from beginning and throughout our fishing travels. While we may occasionally fish by ourselves, a vacation by our lonesome; we cannot go through the process without one or both of these two very important subsets.
Fly fishing has become a pastime, a sport, and a passion for many of us. You can participate at whatever level you desire. No longer do you have to be a hardcore angler that spends every evening tying flies while practicing casting each and every morning.
There are some that choose to fish a few days a year. On vacation whether it be for cold or warm water fish. Some even choose to fish the salt. There are others that fish when they get a chance on the weekends and after work.
What is great about the current evolution of fly fishing lies in the styles of types of fishing you choose to do. Not too long ago, certainly in my lifetime, an angler was defined as well as confined to dry fly fishing. Or fishing wet flies. All of that has gone by the wayside as nymphers, dry fly anglers, trout spey swingers and streamer chuckers all belong.
The exchange of information and the availability of the massive volume of internet information allows us to learn at a breakneck pace if we so wish.
We commonly see anglers that love to dry fly fish, but will nymph fish until insects appear on the surface. Why not? If you define matching the hatch in a manner that includes matching the hatch subsurface, then we can participate at at least a couple levels.
Nymphing continues to evolve daily as new fly lines, leaders, bobbers, camouflage split shot while not forgetting the plethora of new nymph patters debuting yearly encourages all anglers to personally grow with every fishing experience.
Dry fly lines, 12′ leaders, stronger tippet, and here too the continual creativity of the dry fly designer keeps us on our toes and this exciting environment plays right into the hands and minds of the dry fly addict.
Streamer rods, hi-tech streamer lines that give us a way to achieve the proper depth we choose, articulated streamers, fantastic new materials for dressing up our patterns that not only look great in the fly shop but perform amazingly well.
Clothing for the angler available today is as diverse as the angler. Sunproof hats, gloves, and shirts not only look and feel good they are tailored for our fishing lifestyle.
This really is a fun time for the fisherman. The freedom to learn, fish, and communicate with others is unprecedented. Social media lets us keep in touch with those prized fishing partners, family, and long lost friends. There too the exchange of information, pictures and techniques has never been better.
So enjoy this era of fly fishing. It has never been better for us the angler. What a great fraternity we belong too. Fly fishing is a sport that we invite all to attend, to participate, to fish! Teach your kids, your neighbors and your co-workers. Join a Trout Unlimited chapter, a Federation of Fly Fishers club, or just enjoy the good of the common angler.
The thing about fly fishing is…that it is for everyone.
4 Comments. Leave new
thanks for the ‘rant’, SOL. good one. the late/great Scott Waldie interrupts one of his trilogy books (‘Travers Corners’) to expound on the fallacy that fly fishing is a “sport”, rather a “pastime”. not trying to be argumentative or disruptive of a good rant (I LOVE a good fly fishing rant!), but I would tend to agree w/Waldie. I find nothing in a competitive nature in my fishing. none. FWIW. tight lines
thanks GeeDubYa. Appreciate you!
SOL – GeeDubYa – All
To live to read and absorb a Rant… an act of pausing that results in a smile…
Michael Checchio – Peter Hellar – John Voelker ( Testament of a Fisherman provides a compelling answere to the question why we fish) – Harry Middleton –
These writers, like you both, have spent lifetimes writing, explaining, describing, in fact ranting with passion without preaching, not just why some fish, they have shined a light on WHY WE SHOULD FISH… life is so very short, and most of us get sped up along the way, caught in the passing lane believing we can keep up… but these authors, like the prose you both put out, well the start with a different premise… stay slow, seek calm, desire simplicity, observe the grandest of stories ever told … our lives lived well… for me some of the momemts likely to flash the brightest when I take my last breaths… sitting on a bank holding a bamboo rod, practicing a trait so rare that AI will never learn it.. patience filled with gratitude and views of running water below which lurks pure beauty and… memories of friemds SOL… like minded Good People exist
Peace calm
From Harry Middleton
It’s been said that we pass through life with a diminishing portfolio of enthusiasms. My problem is having had so many to start out with. Now, at the age of fifty-six, I have painting, my four beautiful children, fly casting, writing, friends, wing shooting, printing, family and extended family, cooking, and Marusia, the light of my life, not at all necessarily in that order. The problem, if you want to call it that, is there is no time left for things that don’t matter. Years ago, after watching someone waste endless hours on some pointless project, Tom McGuane observed that the fellow obviously believed the average human lifetime to be ten thousand years. I’m treating it as if there were less than a minute to go.
Harry Middleton, The Earth Is Enough:
Awesome. As always well thought through John. I read your words a few times to let it all seep in! Thanks from the banks of the Mo.