I hazard a guess that those who nymph without an indicator could say that watching an indicator all day is neither challenging or fly fishing. However, we know that there is more to indicator nymphing than watching the indicator.

Perspective is a funny thing. I propose that that same lack of understanding is prevalent in this discussion.

My definition of a challenge is doing something out of my comfort zone and not fishing the same way all the time. Fishing the same way is the antithesis of the definition of "challenge". The first definition of challenge is "a call or summons to engage in any contest, as of skill". Sounds like competitive fly fishing to me.

I have never competitively fished, but I have no doubt that it is more challenging that my usual day on the river.

Secondly, to say a form of fly fishing is not challenging implies that that person has completely mastered that form of fly fishing. In my experience, one cannot say any sport is not challenging until and unless one has completely mastered it. I think there is a fundamental lack of understanding of the skills necessary to euronymph.

Replace nymphing with euro nymphing and nymphing with fly fishing and you have the, "Is 'nymphing' really 'fly fishing', question of Halford & Skues. Gentlemen, we should be well past that era.

To say that there is no fishing, casting or water reading skill in Euronymphing is simply wrong. If you doubt that, see if you can cast a 30 foot leader accurately and then detect the strike at the end of that leader during the drift. The same skills of stalking, reading the water to locating fish, choosing flies, following the drift, identifying the take, striking, and fighting and netting the fish come into play.

We are better than trying to decide what is or is not fly fishing. We are better than having say, because we don't get "it", that means "it" is somehow a lesser form of fly fishing. As for chucking and ducking, there is less of that in euronymphing than in other forms of fly fishing such as streamer fishing.

Nor should we denigrate spin fishers. Most of us, including myself, started that way. There are very, very, few fly fishers that have not used a spinning rod before we transitioned to fly fishing. Were we lesser then than we are now?