The forum charter here has been loosely but cleverly worded--and successful too I think.
Yes, this is a forum for talking about collecting and tying classic flies;
but today's experiment might well become tomorrow's classic. So anything goes,
as long as it isn't usenet-like lord-of-the-flies insults and name calling.
Great group. But in a wider context--beyond the boundaries of yuku fly tying--there
is a long and slightly puritanical tradition to fly fishing. Halford didn't like
Skues and his nymphs, didn't like fishing downstream and a host of other complaints.
Many fly fishermen don't like spin fishing. Some don't like egg flies. Sylvester Nemes once said to me,
about small bead head wet flies (and with a deadly serious straight face)
"Why don't you just get a spinning rod."
I've never understood that attitude. I have a Ray Bergman plate somewhere of
a big, bushy Yellow Sally wet fly with a Colorado Spinner built onto the fly.
I occasionally toss stuff like that, usually during high, off-color water conditions.
But perhaps I finally had a glimmer of understanding, just yesterday.
I do have two old San Francisco-era Winston bamboo rods my dad left me.
And I'll soon receive another brand new one (not a Winston, however). And just today I realized I'll
never fish anything but unweighted flies with any or all three of those rods.
I have a Sage 6wt that's currently on it's fourth or fifth tip. Each time
it was cracked at first by a weighted fly. And then snapped on a subsequent cast.
It's one of those cheap, entry-level Sage rods (a bit softer and easier to load, and hence
a better rod, in my opinion, than any of their 600 dollar long distance casting cannons).
So I don't care so much when I crack that rod.
I'd have a hard time living with myself if I ever damaged the new bamboo rod.
And I do plan to fish it. Maybe bamboo rods are the wellspring of the puritanical
impulse. Heavy flies are sinful, because they're off limits to bamboo.
But maybe purist fly fishing, with tiny, unweighted spring creek bugs is like desert:
often the high point of the meal. But you can't live on desert alone.
That's the answer, I think. The great beauty of fly fishing is inextricably related
to it's rich complexity. And the richest diet of all includes Colorado Spinners
as well as #22 emergers. Beadhead nymphs as well as Catskill classics.
Fiberglass rods as well as bamboo.
That's it: the well rounded fly fisherman, at the peak of his or her
development and skills, has to be both puritan and sinner.
That's the model to emulate.
:-)
Yes, this is a forum for talking about collecting and tying classic flies;
but today's experiment might well become tomorrow's classic. So anything goes,
as long as it isn't usenet-like lord-of-the-flies insults and name calling.
Great group. But in a wider context--beyond the boundaries of yuku fly tying--there
is a long and slightly puritanical tradition to fly fishing. Halford didn't like
Skues and his nymphs, didn't like fishing downstream and a host of other complaints.
Many fly fishermen don't like spin fishing. Some don't like egg flies. Sylvester Nemes once said to me,
about small bead head wet flies (and with a deadly serious straight face)
"Why don't you just get a spinning rod."
I've never understood that attitude. I have a Ray Bergman plate somewhere of
a big, bushy Yellow Sally wet fly with a Colorado Spinner built onto the fly.
I occasionally toss stuff like that, usually during high, off-color water conditions.
But perhaps I finally had a glimmer of understanding, just yesterday.
I do have two old San Francisco-era Winston bamboo rods my dad left me.
And I'll soon receive another brand new one (not a Winston, however). And just today I realized I'll
never fish anything but unweighted flies with any or all three of those rods.
I have a Sage 6wt that's currently on it's fourth or fifth tip. Each time
it was cracked at first by a weighted fly. And then snapped on a subsequent cast.
It's one of those cheap, entry-level Sage rods (a bit softer and easier to load, and hence
a better rod, in my opinion, than any of their 600 dollar long distance casting cannons).
So I don't care so much when I crack that rod.
I'd have a hard time living with myself if I ever damaged the new bamboo rod.
And I do plan to fish it. Maybe bamboo rods are the wellspring of the puritanical
impulse. Heavy flies are sinful, because they're off limits to bamboo.
But maybe purist fly fishing, with tiny, unweighted spring creek bugs is like desert:
often the high point of the meal. But you can't live on desert alone.
That's the answer, I think. The great beauty of fly fishing is inextricably related
to it's rich complexity. And the richest diet of all includes Colorado Spinners
as well as #22 emergers. Beadhead nymphs as well as Catskill classics.
Fiberglass rods as well as bamboo.
That's it: the well rounded fly fisherman, at the peak of his or her
development and skills, has to be both puritan and sinner.
That's the model to emulate.
:-)
your hands at the damn bugs buzzing about, and start fishing a godawful monstrous chartreuse clouser, maybe size 2/0. The myriad other nattily dressed
fisherfolk, in their Simms waders and LL Bean hats, waving top of the line SAGE and Winston rods bearing $150 muted gray fly lines with 16 foot leaders
culminating in the tiniest and most perfectly dressed Catskill dry, will all simultaneously turn to you, and you will see the light of pure joy in their eyes.
They will positively glow as they start to form the hallowed arguments, the references to traditions and the observations on the death of fishing as we know
it, that they will use when describing you to their similarly afflicted brethren. Soon they will all start to congregate in little groups of two or three and
speak in huffy almost hushed tones, but just loud enough for you to hear, of course for if you do not know of their indignation, what good is it? They will
discuss the disgrace you have brought to fabled waters, you will the Gordon, invoked with great sadness and see the shaking of sage heads, with downcast eyes
and the slumping of shoulders. And these discussions will last into the night, through the next day and well into the day after. They will be recited on every
annual Beaverkill pilgrimage and passed on to their children and grandchildren. And you can go home secure in the knowledge that you have brought to these
fine, if somewhat straightjacketed gentlemen, the, ultimate gift. A story they will tell long after the fishing is forgotten, they will relive the indignation,
the disbelief, the grand feeling of being better than that. They will complain about you, psychoanalyze you, read the death of all that is good in the world
into your actions, ascribe you myriad devious plots and dark motives, question your intelligence, parentage, upbringing, social skills and sportsmanship. They
will even question your meager claim to membership in the human race. They will talk about you up until they take that final dying breath, before retireing to
a place where people like you are rightfully shot on sight.
