A FISHING PHILOSOPHY

Years ago when JC and I were teaching fly fishing classes we told our students that fly fishing has a place for everyone. There are so many facets to fly fishing that there is a niche for everyone. Each angler need to establish their own "philosophy" about fly fishing practice.

What attracted me to seriously consider the sport of fly fishing nearly 50 years ago was the technical aspects. I grew up in upstate New York on my parent's dairy farm, and although I had an uncle that fished with flies, I fished the local brooks and creeks with garden hackle for native brook trout. In my early teens we moved to Michigan and I began to fish the various lakes around our southern Michigan home for a variety of warm water species with minnows and garden hackle. Occasionally I caught a few fish on poppers fished on a fly rod, but mostly I used bait. It was a few years before I was introduced to the Au Sable River.