Tips and Hints

A Remedy for the Summer Doldrums

After 30 years of fly fishing I am just as infected with the fishing bug as I was when
I was 10 years old. At ten, fishing for suckers in a mud puddle was an adventure. At 40, sight fishing for carp in inches of water feels the same way. The secret I have learned, beside the fact that I am hopeless fishing addict, is to seek adventure wherever and whenever you go fishing. Webster’s definition of adventure fly fishing is:

Adventure:

An exciting or remarkable experience

Adventurous:

Disposed to seek adventure or to cope with the new and unknown.

This may (should) get in the way of “peer pressure” fly fishing (PPF2). PPF2 is any kind of fishing that has status attached to it, such as, only certain species of fish are worthy of fly fishing. Beware of the PPF2 attitude it can severely limit your fun and the scope of your fishing knowledge (I know – been there done that).

Learn to think outside the box. When you let go of the fly fishing magazine paparazzi and look for adventure with a fly rod you’ll find that you can answer questions that no one else has thought to ask. Questions like: Will a brown trout rising to small mayflies eat a bass bug popper, or Will that Redhorse Carp Sucker eat a fly and How does a Redhorse Carp Sucker fight on a #6 wt. fly rod? The answers to these questions are yes, yes and what does a bonefish have that this fish doesn’t. I wouldn’t know if I hadn’t tried something different.