Mojo (or how to not suck at fly fishing)

I’m fascinated and compelled to reply to an excellent post by Alex at 40 Rivers to Freedom about sucking or not sucking at fly fishing. Go read it then come back.

I’m reminded of an article I read a while back about a guy who had an so-called epiphany. He’d decided to clip the business end off his flies because he’d found enough satisfaction in “the eat”. Having proven his non-suckiness by fooling the fish to take his offering he felt didn’t need to fight and land the fish causing it undo stress. What a total asshole!

Fishing is hunting. Fly fishing is hunting with a long bow and homemade arrows with feather fetching made from the gobbler you blew away last spring. Okay, you see where I’m going with my long analogy. We choose the long rod because of the innumerable challenges it presents (physical and mental). But we are hunters at heart. I haven’t evolved so far beyond the “hairy man” that I don’t need to struggle with and bring a fish to hand. whenever I hear some guy say “long distance release” or that he’s cool with fish that get away because he’s caught enough fish in his life, I want to vomit. That’s bullshit.

I’m just south of 40 years old and I remember the first bream I caught at age 4 on cane pole in an Alabama farm pond, my first striped bass and trout on fly. I’m never bored with it, and it’s never enough. When a fish comes loose I’m supremely disappointed. Yeah, OK, I’m going to let it go but I get  satisfaction from holding and observing a fish’s beauty. And they are beautiful. Anyone who says it’s not about the fish deserves none of your attention.

Children who don’t like fishing bother me on some deep level. I tolerate them (like I tolerate cats) but I don’t understand them. Some kids catch a fish and they’re done with it. They’ve had enough. It holds no more mystery for them. Others become consumed by it. Maybe our IQ’s are lower and therefore we’re more easily amused.

It started for me with a cane pole and a cage full of crickets. After years of chasing everything that swims with conventional tackle, there was no where else to go but the fly rod. Thank you.

People who come to the fly rod with no other fishing frame of reference are severely handicapped and the odds are low they will stick with it. The frustration factor is high. And, there is an inherent cultural disadvantage when, fish-less, you observe the guy above you adroitly picking up fish like heron. You will ask the wrong questions and you’ll get answered in riddles.

See, one is handicapped whose never dunked a worm or caught,  killed, cleaned and eaten a fish. Or remained motionless and watched for hours as a water snake slowly devours a brook trout.  Running barefoot through the woods and water, I’ve caught (and occasionally killed) snakes, fogs turtles and just about everything that walks, crawls, flies or swims at some time or other. “And I’m here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you done to Ned“

Never done any of those things?  Then, sorry to say, you probably do, in fact, suck.  But now you can begin the happy journey to not sucking.  Not sucking is quantifiable: by the amount of time spent in the woods and water in close observation of critters doing what they do to make living.

What really makes an angler not suck is the insatiable, childlike desire to see what’s around the next bend, in that dark pool, beyond the “No Trespassing” sign and the smarts to figure out how to catch the fish that live there. No matter when you come to the fly, if you have that you won’t suck at it… forever.

Now to the business of assholes. You will run into them. You might even run into me.  I’m not a nasty prick but I’m not the most outgoing character either. But if, as Hannibal Lecter says,”you’ve been courteous and responded well to courtesy,” things will work out nicely.

I don’t suck. But I can be an asshole — I live In Connecticut.

Cheers