Your thoughts on helping others on the water?

[popperfly]

I am in the first camp
If there a fly fisherman struggling to catch fish but most important they practice catch & release, sure I will offer my two cents worth and give them fly I am catching fish on.
Back a few weeks ago there was this family down on the river, the husband was fly fishing and not catching anything. I walked over to them and struck up a conversation while WarrenP was trying to get his number 20^th fish (didn’t happen by the way…LOL). After talking a short bit I found out they just moved in town and this was new water to him, so I pulled out a Fluorocarbon furled leader a fly I was catching fish on and hooked him up. Within 10 minutes he caught his first fish. During our conversation I invited him to our next fly fishing club meeting and lone behold he was there at the club meeting. It feels good to do a good deed and hopefully everyone will pay forward. I have found out over the years fly fisherman are the most helpful on the river and willing to give advice if there not part of that upper elite group.

[Prairieschooner]

Helping someone on the water is one thing (although no one who's seen me fish is likely to ask for my help ); telling anyone about "special spots" is quite another, for the very reason Hap mentioned.

[Betty Hiner]

Sharps? We fishing the same Missouri? There are all kinds of places, many not well known, to fish! Usually, I am of the bunch that will share places, furled leaders, flies, and techniques with whom ever asks me. Usually .....

[farleycat]

Although my knowledge is severely limited I subscribe to the school of "pay it forward". I try to live by that in all my endeavors.
Bernie

[bobbyg]

Funny, all the fly fishermen I meet on stream all ready "know it all"!

[Uncle Jesse]

Funny, all the fly fishermen I meet on stream all ready "know it all"!

That is usually the guy in the boat who float right on top of me. The guy I see who probably knows the most about the Hooch is John Scalley of A River Through Atlanta guide service. He usually says hello and ask how I'm doing and using and tells me the same. I see him with "Anglers" who can barely hit the water with the line, but he has them catching fish.

[sgallas2]

My answer is just about identical to "oldfrat". The older I get the harder it is to get to my secret spots but by the time I'm ready to share the few I have, my memory will be too shot to be worthwhile.
Best,
Steve

[PA Dave]

I'm perfectly willing to share knowledge of fly fishing, but in all honesty, I look like a hobo angler when I fish and no one ever seems to ask me. Generally I get looks that say, "please don't talk to me"...and that's okay. As for secret spots, I have none except for one smallmouth river that shall never be mentioned online, but when I'm on it and people ask me if it's any good, I tell them the truth.

[4590Sharps]

I expect so Betty but I probably should have better qualified the places I fish most of the time. That and I automatically assumed trout were the intended quarry. I fish the Blue Ribbon areas almost exclusively and almost as exclusively here around Rolla. There are a couple I have been to way the Sam Hill and gone that are so tiny you wonder how the trout survive. Those are the ones I meant that don't have trails...or they didn't a couple years ago. I hope they've been left alone as fragile as they are. I know you fish Bennet and have fished Montauk so I'm sure you're familiar with how the trails are out of those parks, down the Niangua and the Current. Meramec is the same...a blind man could follow them. Cardiac and Suicide...they get hit plenty. So do the Blue Ribbon areas around here and the others I've been to. Once in a blue moon I'll hit a Red Ribbon area but...they just don't hold the same attraction and White Ribbon areas...well, if you get there before the local worm dunkers do you can have some fun. They are a put and take fishery so that's ok...I don't like to eat the stinking things anyway. Now if we throw warm water into the mix....I have more private water to fish than I can get to. I would not have to hit the same spot twice every 3 years and I'm talking about creeks. I have two places of approximately 3/4 mile each on the upper Bourbeuse I have wanted to hit the last 2 years and haven't made it yet. Same with an entire mile of the way upper Meremac...haven't been able to get to it either. According to the owners no one fishes them as they tell me they never see tracks around. From what I've seen of them I doubt a poacher would hit them very hard for a bunch of longear. They're all pretty skinny water. I only fish one body of still water and that's the neighbors lake when my wife wants to go.

[Steven]

I very rarely run into people, but a few years ago I ran into a young guy just starting out. He had got out of the water downstream of the bridge I was on. Being polite, I asked him how he did.

Turned out, he was a complete noobie, had bought some gear because he was going to be in SWW for the summer and tried to learn from a Dave Whitlock book. Anyway, it was a disaster and he was dejected as hell.

I asked him if he wanted to fish upstream with me. We took turns, I corrected some of his misinterpretations, and he got his first couple of trout.


I'd like to think I did some good.