K.I.S.
Acronyms. We live in a world filled with acronyms. Acronyms are an easy way to shorten a long title into a short and easily recognizable line of letters. Rather than writing out Internal Revenue Service we use an acronym – IRS. Tell me what adult person in the USA – United States of America – does not automatically recognize that acronym. K.I.S.S., an acronym that has been used in an attempt to remind people to keep things simple, also indicates that a person that fails to do so is somehow less than intelligent. I prefer to drop the derogatory last letter [stupid] and simply use the acronym K.I.S. – Keep It Simple.
It has long been my belief that we tend to make many things in our world overly complex. What starts out as a relatively straight forward idea quickly becomes a complex nightmare. If you doubt that supposition just look at the tax code [read IRS code]. What should be a relatively straight forward process takes a cadre of lawyers, accountants, and bureaucrats to decipher and administer, and then it’s anyone’s guess if they got it right! I think the whole process is suspect when the IRS tells you that if you use the information proved by their employees to file your return, and if that advice is wrong, too bad, it’s still your mistake.
Unfortunately, in our zeal for perfection, fly-fishing has become almost as complex. Roll back the clock to the time of Izaak Walton circa 1653 and take a stroll with old Izaak as he heads out for a day of fishing. “Indeed, my good scholar, we may say of angling, as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, ‘Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did’, and so, If I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling” The Compleat Angler 1653
Without a question old Izaak was not much of a fly-fisher, in fact it was Charles Cotton that wrote about fly-fishing in Walton’s 5th edition of the Compleat Angler. Izaak was mostly a bait fisher but he fostered the idea that angling should be a contemplative form of recreation.
When you read any of the old fly-fishing literature you are struck by the basic simplicity with which they approached the sport. Rods were simply long pieces of wood, the line was attached to the end of the rod, and the fly, or more likely flies, were attached to a simple extension of the line. When a fish was hooked they were simply derricked ashore, hit on the head and dumped into a wicker creel or strung on a branch cut from a nearby tree. The flies were simple things consisting of fur and feather, and mostly drab in color. Despite this rather simplistic approach they did manage to catch their share of fish.
While few of us would want to return to those days we could all benefit from a return to a more simplistic approach to our fly-fishing. I recently have had the unenviable task of sorting through the accumulated fly-fishing gear of the late Castwell. He was an old friend, and I was struck by how much of his gear was similar, if not a direct duplicate, of mine. I was also struck by how much of that gear was barely, if ever, used. There were boxes of flies, some of which we gave away on FAOL, a closet full of fly rods, gadgets, doo-dads of every description, vests, waders, hats, jackets, angling bags, fly boxes of every description, fly-tying material and tools, plus a several hundred volume angling library consisting of many books that had never been read! My old friend could have benefited from a bit of simplicity.
I recall our early days back in Michigan when all of our accumulated angling equipment, including fly tying stuff, would fit in an Orvis® bag and a small plastic sewing box. We each had one vest, a couple fly rods, and not more than a half dozen fly boxes between us. We tied flies using mostly fur and hackle, much of which we secured ourselves by hunting, picking up road kills, and bartering with farmers for hackle from their barnyard roosters. We caught bugs and tied imitations that we thought matched them and then we went out and tossed them at the fish. Amazingly many times they did.
So if you are a beginner or even an old hand at the fly-fishing game, and your bank account does not allow you to purchase all the latest and greatest equipment that you see in the fly-fishing catalogues, take heart. I don’t believe that the fish that swim in our lakes and rivers today are any smarter than they were when old Izaak Walton went a-fishin’ with Piscator and Venator. K.I.S. and you will save money and still have just as much fun. Maybe even more!