How many of you get these kinds of comments when you tell others you're a flyfisher?

[papaguss]

" Daddy, what's he doing?"
" Hes fly fishing!"
"What's fly fishing?"
"that's how you fish for trout!"
yeah.. I turned and added " and bluegill, bass, catfish, crappie, anyhting you could want to fish for. Even sharks..."

hat got the conversation going.
Most th time it's simply explaining that yeah, I'nmnot fishingfor trout. I'm aiming for something else that's actuallyin teh Urban ponds.

[quivira kid]

The one I get the most is "I always wanted to try that... is it very hard?" Seems like most people think it's difficult, and you just catch small fish.
Some will come over and ask if I ever catch much "with that thing". I LOVE being able to pull up a basket of big bluegills or a stringer of crappie to show them...

[Bear742]

Fessing up to being a fly fisherman has its rewards sometimes. Some people, especially those who saw The Movie, get that look of awe as if they are looking at a living saint. On the other hand, when I fess up to tying flies, a goon will remark,"I tried that, but I was never any good at catching them." Normally I get a look that says,"Wow, who would have thought? You look just like a normal white caucasian." It is like I admitted being half Maori Warrior. That is a distinction I would like to claim by the way, though, unfortunately, I cannot.

Before spinning gear became popular, c. 1950, fly gear was a lot more popular. Today that has changed. I have seen an estimate that said about 10% of fishermen are flyfishermen. I think that is high unless you count the myriad of fly rods gathering dust next to exercise machings in the basements and garages of America. I plan to try exercising some day too. Since I grew up in a fly fishing family, I never realized I was in a minority. I wish my father would have told me.

[Bluegill222]

Unless I'm at work, where it's part of my job to, I've quit defending flyfishing. I figure if they want to believe it won't work in warmwater or for fish other than trout, then that leaves that much more water and that many more uneducated fish for me!

[kglissmeyer]

Living in the middle of the best trout waters in the world I don't hear too many comments questioning what kind of fishing I do. Most questions and conversations take it for granted that you fly fish and not some other type. The questions I often hear are, what fly were you using? or, sinking or floating line? It's good to live where I do

Kelly.

[Wes]

haven't fished that much in kansas. no comments here. in idaho the question of the day was "WHERE?" and the answer was "NOTELLUMCREEK". one fly fisher of good repute once said "Steelhead can't be caught on the surface." he and i went round and round with this for years but he would never fish with me.

[kbproctor]

try living in Brooklyn, New York. some are surprised that there are fish in the lakes!

I was surprised that you had lakes.

[jszymczyk]

When I got moved to the deep armpit of the deep south in Southeastern Alabama, I walked into the largest "outdoors" store in town and asked (without a local accent) if they carried any fly tying gear. The one -person- gave me a confused fight-or-flight kind of look, and the other one snorted and said, "Boy, there ain't no trout 'round here!!" and they both had a good laugh.

Later I met a nice guy who's family owned a few ponds and he gave me permission to fish them- mostly because there was no way I could catch any bass on a "Fly Pole" and he thought it was a great joke. I tied him a box full of huge nasty rabbit strip and rubber legs creatures that weighed about an ounce-and-a-half when wet and he caught some of the biggest bass ever from those ponds, casting them with his winch and broomstick gear. His opinion was changed by the time I left.

[Bass_Bug]

Tsk tsk Kevin. Even a kid from Ohio knows NY has 50+ miles of Lake Erie Shore line and 200+ miles of Lake Ontario shoreline? Not to mention the famous Finger Lakes? Where do you think they dump all the bodies from "down state"?

[Uncle Jesse]

Where do you think they dump all the bodies from "down state"?

I thought that was what NJ was there for.

I have had a lot of people ask about fly fishing over the years but even back in my home state of Mississippi, which probably has the lowest population density in the SE, fly fishing was not that usual. It was mostly for bream in folks minds, but I am sure the bass, catfish, etc., got caught also. I will have to admit Bill's fishing within NYC has been a surprise to me. I have been told many times "I wouldn't eat a catfish, they live in the East River." So I knew they had fish around NYC, just never thought about anyone flyfishing in ponds and lakes there.