Thanks for the comments since it means that someone is actually reading this stuff. As I indicated in the article one of my main purposes for writing much of this stuff is to make the reader think . Perhaps I should have used the word "purpose" rather than "challenge" to make my readers think but it apparently caused some of you to think about what you are doing and why you are doing it. We certainly can disagree on some of the historical reasons since we do not have the ability to go back and ask those individuals why they did what they did but the reality that it is more difficult and time consuming, therefore more challenging, to catch fish using artificial flies has to be a given.

Thanks for all your comments. Keep fishing and keep enjoying what you are doing.