Gents et al.
Myself,having stated in many previous posts that I merely choose to flyfish and/but do NOT consider myself a “flyfisherman” ( with all the implied "baggage :>), My curiosity urges me to pose THIS question. Speaking for myself, I’m a “very” casual member of TU, I’ve had dinner with someone who, at least, owns a flyrod , maybe ONCE in the last year. I’ve had perhaps 20 occasions in the last year to utter the word “flyfish” in ANY of my conversations . In short, I LOVE to flyfish, and do none other, no less than the the most dedicated of y’all BUT, it’s not my alpha/omega of interset nor is it of most of my friends.
My question therefore is: Of all who contribute, post and lurk here , how many of y’all are “all in” or to what degree ARE you “in”?
I am ‘all in’. President of a fly fishing club & on the board of directors for the Washington State Council FFF & auction coordinator for those two organizations & I work WSCFFF booths at various sporting events & most important of all, I love to fly fish, mostly in WA and Montana, sometimes in WY & OR and the Great Lakes for Steelhead and sooner or later I will actually stop in ID to do a little fishing rather than just drive thru it. Yup, I am ‘all in’ and lovin’ it. Larry —sagefisher—
my family laughs at me because there are no “hobbies” in my life–only passions: fly fishing and baseball, and skiing when those two are off the menu. Casting for Recovery, Chesapeake Women Anglers, Central Pennsylvania Women Anglers, TU, IFFF, IWFF and more magazines than are healthy for one household…
I am a very avid fly fisherman, but unfortunately don’t get to fish much because it is quite a ways to a lake that has fishing that is any good. The Texas panhandle has everything necessary for good fly fishing…well…except we are pretty thin on water.
There are few flyfishermen around here, so only get to visit with another flyfisherman on rare ocassions. I read the bulletin board and FAOL frequently, but not as much lately due to too many irons in the fire.
I’m probably a little on the “obsessed” side. I can’t get enough reading about tying flies, and fly-fishing. That said, I haven’t used my fly rod in weeks, if not over a month. Partly weather-related, partly because of the dead battery in my vehicle (now replaced), and partly because of changing fishing with the change of the seasons.
I guess I’m what you’d call a “stealth fly-fisherman”.
My passion for flishing in general, and fly-fishing in particular, is quite strong. I have read every book in the local library on fishing, most of them twice. I have purchased a number of books myself. I regularly read the articles on FAOL and other sites, as well as posting occasionally myself. I’ve listened to every single Orvis fly-fishing podcast, many of them more than once. I keep at least one fishing rod (fly or spin) in my car at all times, and if I take a different car, I move all of my stuff to the other car “just in case”. I typically fish 3 times or more a week during the warmer months, and several times a month in the cooler seasons.
But I’m not very active in the fly-fishing community. I have 5 kids at home, and a very tired wife, so I never spend a whole day fishing. My longest outings are usually a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon between church services while the babies are napping. Becasue of my busy home life, most of my fishing is an hour on weekend mornings before the family wakes up, during my lunch break at work, and sporadically otherwise. I almost always fish unassuming small creeks that have mostly smaller fish and are overlooked by others, but are nearby so I can fish them with limited time. So other than an occasional trip to the local fly shop to get some tying materials or new leaders, the rest of the local fly-fishing community doesn’t even know I exist.
Well, let’s see. I’m president of the local fly fishing club, on the board of the regional FFF Council, ties flies, and wrap rods. Sounds all-in-ish, but first and foremost I am a fisherman and will use commie tackle when appropriate. Casting into a headwind with a three foot surf is challenging but I will use a spinning surf rod without hesitation. So, I guss I’m part-in.
Well, let’s see here … I first picked up the fly rod and attempted to fly fish the summer of 1949. Would like to think, well I know, it’s been major progress since. A leave of absence for a hitch in the Marine Corps (they did not consider a fly rod as part of their 782 gear), but really made up for lost time when I got back home. Fly fishing and the long rod have been my main stay and only on rare occasion have I used any other kind of rod. Never have I lost interest (well, O.K., maybe when I was sick as a dog that fly fishing lost it’s obsession). In fact fly fishing became all the more interesting when I took up fly tying.
Do I golf … naw, tried it and I’m lousy at it, and almost no interest. Tennis … are you kidding! But let me pack up the little popup camper and gather up all the fly fishing gear and you would have my top attention! By the way, it’s great to set up the fly tying gear at the National Forest Campground picnic table (right next to the stream), between wading times when I’m trying out some of my masterpieces! Now, this is living!
I guess I’d be called ‘all-in’. I fly fish only and when my fishing buddy offered me a plastic fluke with salt flavoring late this fall when he was killing smallies with his ultra-light gear and told me to put the fluke on one of my flies so I could catch something on just about every cast, I simply declined. My success rate was quite a bit lower than his but as I explained to him many times before “It’s not about the destination, it’s all about the journey.”
Yep, I’m stuborn and all in.
I would say all in considering I have spent my entire savings getting into the business. If you took away fly fishing away from me you would loose a lot of who I am.
-Jeff
Guess I’d say that I’m “all in”. I fish around 60 days a year and spend quite a few hours a year tying flies, tying leaders and otherwise tinkering with tackle. I won’t say that all my friends are flyfisherman, but I do have a good number of friends that I met through fly fishing. I’m also a TU member, an active TU volunteer and have been a TU chapter board member.
I am a fairly hardcore flyfisher, 100+ days per year, but my interest wanes rapidly away from the river. I am not political about it, don’t belong to groups, clubs, associations, etc. I used to be much more active here, but my interest wanes every time this site goes through a period where people can’t keep their opinions and facts separate. Attractive women aside, flyfishing is about 50% of my hobbies, shooting about 30%, and birding about 20%.