There's a difference between being helpful and revealing secret fishing places. If I encounter you on the river or lake I am more than happy to tell you what is working for me and give you a couple if I have a spare. I also ask other anglers what they are using.
Want to hear God laugh? Tell him Your plans!!!
Once took a "friend" to a very good secret spot with the promise he would not bring anyone else in there. The following week I was supposed to return to Prudhoe Bay for two weeks of work. My alternate called and asked if he could work an extra week and have me work three weeks the next trip up, a not uncommon thing. Suddenly I had that week to go back to my secret spot.
Guess who I found there with three of his buddies! One idiot (me) ruined the tiny little spot... Even the road side guide books have it listed now...
I am absolutely in the first camp. I am only too happy to share what I know and share flies that work well for me. I don't consider fishing a competition but a sport to be shared with others, even people I just met or people I may never meet here on FAOL.
Jim
I have no secret spots. In this part of Michigan every place I have ever fished shows plenty of signs of previous anglers in terms of litter and beaten down bank-side paths. I try to limit help to one or two ideas not because I'm protecting whatever knowledge I have but because that seems to be enough to assimilate while on the stream. I have long since lost count of how many leaders I have reworked while explaining about the use of tippet material. That and a quick explanation of mending will let most beginners who were getting skunked start catching fish. I think the most I have done with strangers was trading a casting lesson in the parking lot for beer from a guy who asked for help assembling the kit he had just bought.
I can think of few acts more selfish than refusing a vaccination.
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