People who fish for food, and sport be damned,
are called pot-fishermen.
The more expert ones are called crack pot-fishermen.
All other fisherman are called crackpot fishermen.
This is confusing.--- Ed Zern
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August 17th, 1998
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All About Entomology
By Ed Zern, excerpt from HOW TO CATCH FISHERMEN
Probaby out of print, check your used-booker sellers!
"While a reasonably good kowledge of aquatic insects
is an important qualification of the master fly fisherma, this interest
may be carried to extremes - as in the case of a man I used to meet
on the Brodheads.
From carrying a few vials for collecting insect
specimens while fishing, he had progressed to lugging about all sorts
of collecting paraphernalia in a cumbersome canvas bag, and finally
stopped carrying a rod at all, because it interfered with his bug
hunting. When I last saw him he had the double distinction of knowing
more about natural trout flies and catching fewer trout than any other
fisherman in the world.
But there's no denying that every trout fisherman
should have a thorough grounding in stream entomology, and that it often
comes in handy. Thus, when a reader of The New York Times wrote
to Ray Camp, the rod-and-and editor, reportng an outlandish green-and yellow
underwater bug he had found in the Beaverkill while trying to retrieve a flask he
had dropped into the river, Sparse Grey Hackle, the Wall Street Walton, was able
promptly to identify as the nymphal stage of the common stomach butterfly.
Incidentally, I have a serious complaint about all
automobiles designed since about 1934, when I was all ready much too old to be
learning new tricks. Up to about that time cars were sensibly designed, with
the radiator bared to the elements, and it was possible to drive a few miles
alongside a trout stream and then get out and, by examining the bugs on the
radiator, tell what flies were about. It was then a simple matter to match them
from one's fly box. Since then the automobile designers have barricaded the
radiator behind a mess of chromium grille work and slicked up the whole front
end of the car to abominable that flies skid off instead of being properly
squasked - with the result that in selecting the pattern of fly to fish with,
I am obligated to rely on guesswork. And damn poor guesswork, too,
I might add.)"
~ Ed Zern
Copyright © 1951 by Ed Zern
You Might Be A Fly Fisherman If . . .
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Creative Counting | Best By Test |
E Pluribus Unum|
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