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There is an old Aggie joke about the yuppie who moved
to the country. Every day as he drove into work from
his new place he passed by an Aggie's farm. The Aggie
was out in his orchard using a sling and hoist to raise
pigs up into apple trees. After several days of observing
this remarkable sight the yuppie could not stand it any
longer. He parked off the road, hopped the barbed wire
fence and approached. "Hey" he remarked, "I can't help
but notice that you are out here every day hoisting pigs
into these apple trees. What's that all about?" The Aggie
replied that he was hoisting them up so that they could
fatten up on the apples; that due to the quality of the
apples they could not be sold so he was using them to
fatten the pigs.
The yuppie asked, "doesn't that take up a lot of time?"
At which the Aggie said in a condescending tone, "Man,
what is time to a pig?"
What is time to a fly angler? Speaking from my point of
view only, I have a family, a single income and lots of
bills to wrangle as well as two boys. I volunteer at my
church whenever I can and do my best to back up my wife
who currently has a full time job as a mom and housewife.
(Please never say that a mom and housewife does not work!)
So my fishing time is precious to me.
I posted a thread in the Fly Anglers Online Warm Water Forum
a while back which brought me to realize that I have been
managing my fishing time all wrong, at least to me it's all
wrong. I have found that when I get out on the water, that
I tie on a fly, start chunking and stripping it and to hell
with the consequences! I am fishing and that's what I came
here for. "Combat fishing" to coin a phrase, "spray and pray"
to steal a phrase. There has been little or no time for
observation, evaluation, or introspection.
The concept of taking each section of time as a brand new
unit of time, not as a blur with every other unit of time,
has been missing. I have simply been trying to cram a
quantity of fishing into each minute as opposed to quality.
What do you do with your fishing minutes? How do you allocate
each precious minute of time on the water? That is the
question I have posed for myself. I humbly submit it to
you, my fellow angler, in hopes the asking might improve
your quality of life. ~ Robin Rhyne
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