Why Fly Fish?
Fly fishers are the "good guys" of the fishing world. We hold these ethical pursuits to be not only self-evident but immutable, a lifelong mission. In this sense, fly fishing is both sport and religion.
We fly fishers are Panglossian We blindly expect favorable outcomes when we fish. The grail-like honey-hole of all fishing honey-holes is always just around the next stream corner A day's failure never dims our light.
This first edition of Fly Fishing Made Easy (another magazine offered several decades ago by Scientific Anglers/3M carried the same title) is designed to help you take your first steps into our sport. We have been writing helpful, informative pieces on the sport of fly fishing for 40 years. Our philosophy as editors of Fly Fisherman has always been to share the wealth of information that drives and informs fly fishing so that more people can enjoy its promise and fulfillments. What this issue makes clear is that fly fishing is the most technique- intensive sport in the world. Thus instructional information is the golden key to its promise and fulfillment.
A brief justification of that assertion follows. If you are just beginning your lifelong journey in fly fishing, here's what you can, and should, expect--hours learning how to cast effectively, in effect learning that casting is truly "presentation." This can take an hour for first results but a lifetime for expert achievements. Basic fly tying can be accomplished quickly (or never attempted), but expertise is a pearl of great price. (There are an estimated 30,000 extant fly patterns, all different, and one could spend a lifetime just learning to tie mayfly imitations or Atlantic salmon flies.) Stream entomology and matching the hatch by imitative impressionist or exact imitation tying can become a micro-obsession within the macro-obsession of fly fishing. Rod-building (graphite, glass, or bamboo) can become a source of wonder and fulfillment for you, demanding long hours of labor (as much as from 75 to 120 hours to finish one bamboo rod).
The search for a "life list" of fish can also take a lifetime, sending you across the globe in a quest for that "next species" to catch, photograph, and release. You can become a "gear junky," buying the next high-performance rod, reel, line, flies, fishing clothing, books; the list of passion-driven purchases goes on. We fly fishers are afraid to enter flyshops; we know that we will depart loaded, smiling and our plastic burdened.
Welcome to this introduction to a challenging and fulfilling journey. (Many books are written on each introductory subject in this issue.) You will find an ongoing offering of more information in Fly Fisherman, where we hope you will become our lifelong reader and companion. You will find that the sport of fly fishing is a worldwide club, in effect an extended family of enthusiasts who will welcome you. We all speak the same language--fly fishing. Its dictionary is contained in this issue, written and prepared by Editor Ross Purnell, Art Director David Siegfried, and illustrated by Dave Hall.
Copyright © 2012 Intermedia Outdoors
Comments