One of the pleasures of outdoor writing -- whether it's an outdoor column in a newspaper or my thoughts on this blog -- is hearing from readers.
Nothing is more boring than listening to yourself, so I'm always happy to get comments and e-mails. I've learned a lot -- and made some friends. Even the sarcastic comments have value -- as some of them get me to thinking....
One reader, who seems like a nice guy, can't resist commenting when I write about using a strike indicator -- actually a Thingamabobber bobber -- while nymphing in rivers. I don't always use an indicator -- sometimes I tie my nymph leader onto the shank of a grasshopper fly or Elk Hair Caddis -- particularly when the fish are shallow and very active.
Anyway, this guy wrote this a while back: "I'm not putting that style of fishing down, but it isn't fly fishing."
Really?
Even if I'm casting a fly tied to a tapered leader tied to a floating fly line which is spooled onto a fly reel which is attached to a fly rod? Just putting on that tiny bobber makes it something else?
If that is so, what is fly fishing, anyway?
Good grief, writing that sentence reminds me of watching the start of a "Sex and the City" episode -- the part where the star sits at her computer and types out just that kind of question. However, I promise to never discuss my sex life on this blog -- or anywhere else on the doggone Internet.
Was it fly fishing when I hooked this cutthroat trout last fall as it stole salmon eggs out of a chinook salmon redd? Is is fly fishing to fish barbless egg flies or use bobbers or even use plastic lines?
Let's get back to what is fly fishing.... I suspect we all have slightly different ideas about what is fly fishing and what is not. But I also suspect those ideas have changed over the years.
For example, I'm pretty sure my anti-bobber commentator fishes with a graphite or fiberglass rod, with a plastic-coated line and a modern nylon leader. He may also fish nymphs -- but without a bobber. He probably even casts a dry fly on the water when he can't see a fish.
Is he fly fishing? Sure. But he would not be considered a fly angler on certain English trout streams I've been lucky enough to fish. Nymphing is not allowed, and anglers can only cast dry flies to sighted, rising trout or, in a pinch, grayling.
My anti-bobber commentator might have gotten some frowns if he arrived onstream with his modern tackle about 70 years ago. Back then, most fly anglers used split bamboo rods. And all fly anglers used silk lines and leaders made out of stretched insect guts.
Those anglers in the 1930s and early 1940s may well have frowned on what we happily use today. They may have thought it cheating to have such snazzy, modern stuff that made it easier to cast, hook and play fish.
There are still some anglers out there -- delightful cranks -- who refuse to cast a graphite rod or use synthetic materials while tying a fly. Never mind that a steel hook is not found in nature.
I think each one of us figures out exactly what is fly fishing. For me, if it is a tied fly, tied onto a leader that is tied onto a fly line that is attached to a fly reel that is mounted onto a fly rod, well, it's fly fishing.
But does all this painful analysis really matter?
I like to to hang out with any group of anglers, and I really like talking to those who fish for winter steelhead with hand-tied jigs suspended under foam bobbers. These anglers don't fret about whether their tackle is socially acceptable to each other. They're just into cooking up jigs that fool winter steel.
I don't fish winter steelhead -- during the rare times I can pull my slacker self away from Puget Sound sea-run cutthroat -- with bobbers and jigs. But those anglers casting bobbers and jigs on long spinning rods are just as skilled -- in their own way -- as the fly anglers swinging wet flies.
To me, angling skill is something to be admired -- whether it is in the form of plastic worm tapping on the bottom 30 feet under the water or a dry fly alighting on the swirling surface of a Deschutes River back eddy.
Actually, some of the most skilled anglers out there are those that fish plastic worms for bass. Those anglers are mad scientists, homegrown biologists and safecrackers rolled into one package.
In the long run, I believe that fishing is fishing is fishing, and no legal, sporting method is somehow better than another. I do believe that fishing single, barbless hooks and releasing all wild trout and salmon is the right thing to do. I also believe that fishing an artificial fly or lure is more sporting and easier on the fish.
About 95 percent of my angling addiction -- mainlined almost daily -- involves fly fishing. I'm sure that's not a shock to anyone who has browsed through the ramblings and ravings on this blog. Why? Fly fishing, for me, is the most effective, most fun, most beautiful and most interesting way to pester fish.
But I don't feel that much different from the kid winching in bluegills on a Spiderman rod and reel.
Now, where are my Thingamabobbers?
