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Isn't each and every day a new day? When we
get up in the morning (or whatever time your work schedule allows) isn't that
a 'new' day?
And just how do we treat or approach that new day? Is the newness of the year
2000 something different? Or is it just another number and some more hype?
If you stop and think for a moment, we each have an opportunity to treat in any
way we chose each day, each job, each situation, each challenge, each person
we encounter in a variety of ways. We can do the same things we have been
doing in the same way - especially if the results are what works for us - or we
can change.
It's been said before, those who repeat the same behavior, expecting different results are
clinically crazy. We can apply that to most everything in our lives. Our work, our
relationships with friends and family, just about everything. Drinking to excess and
expecting it not to affect the rest of your life and relationships is nuts. The same with
drug abuse. Some folks who realize the behavior isn't working do get help, clean up
their act, and amazingly, their lives change! Things get better. It may take some
time, but hey, they didn't get where they were overnight either.
Those little facts of life also hold true in fly fishing. A person can fly fish for a
number of years and not have very good results. Instead of having say ten years
experience, it's one year's experience ten times. Go back and read that again.
So how much experience do you really have? Are you learning? Have you really learned how
to cast? On a short cast can you drop the fly under the overhanging branches upstream and to
the left? Or right? How long a drift can you get drag free? Do you ever need to make a
downstream mend? Or is all line mending done upstream? Hmmmmm, that's not a trick question!
Can you put the slack line on either end of the cast to compensate for faster water on either side?
Or in the middle?
Can you identify the major insects in your region? And when they hatch? And what color are
they on the bottom where the trout see them? Accounting for regional variations what is the
color and size of your hatches? And if you are fishing barbless what size leader should you
now be able to use compared to using the same size fly with a barb?
I'm not trying to play "king of the hill" here, I'm not an expert, and I'm still learning! Which of
course is one of the many joys of fly fishing in the first place - but! Some folks seem to feel if
they have been fishing a couple of years they are "expert." They have no idea what they are
missing.
It is the joy of learning something NEW! Making progress, solving just one of the myriad of
mysteries of fly fishing, another step toward understanding the fish in their world. And maybe
a little understanding of ourselves in the process.
Want to do something that will really make a mark in the new millennium?
Improve your fly fishing skills. ~ LadyFisher
If you would like to comment on this or any other article please feel free to
post your views on the FAOL Bulletin Board!
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