On the internet, you can find a lot of insane opinions about any topic you’d like. Sometimes, the joke gets taken so far that I think people repeat it simply because it becomes a subconscious trope, rather than something that they actually, actively believe. One of the most ridiculous assertions, as well as one of the oldest, is the errant belief that gear fishing is somehow easier to pick up than fly fishing. That fly fishing — solely the activity itself — is elitist and makes fishing more difficult than it needs to be. There is absolutely nothing on earth that could be farther from the truth.
Well… you’ll run into some elitism on occasion.
I think that the explanation that uses the least amount of assumptions here is the fact that most people pick up fishing with traditional tackle first, rather than a fly rod. The native language will always be the easiest for most people.
I fell into this ass-backwards, apparently. Sure, some disconnected fishing trips here and there as a kid, but I never assimilated it into my personality until much later, perhaps as the neurons and grey matter in my adult brain had begun to cement themselves into their final forms. That’s a longer story for a different day and a different medium.
I took a bifurcated approach to learning this way of fishing as a greenhorn — through the world-class mentorship of a friend, and through self-guided study of hours and hours of Youtube videos from Mad River Outfitters. Over the course of my first wave of education, it was made abundantly clear that the the minimum list of things that a new (trout-minded) fly fisherman needs to be successful is as follows:
- A 5-weight, 9′ fly rod
- Reel to match
- Floating fly line and backing for the line
- Leader and tippet
- A couple flies to choose from
- Nippers
- Fly floatant
That’s the soup-to-nuts rundown of everything you need and nothing more. Everything is assembled from the top of the list to the bottom, just like that. It’s easy and entirely non-arcane and anyone can do it. Sure, some other things will really come in handy: waders, boots, a net, a vest or bag for all of your accoutrements… but you can hit the water running with a bare minimum of the above.
The cast is easy and straightforward — also something that anyone can do after maybe an hour on the Orvis and MRO Youtube channels.
Add a little bit of gas in the tank and that is it. Of course, you can specialize from there with nymph rigs, sinking lines, lighter or heavier weights… but we’re not talking about that right now.
I picked up a spinning rod by necessity, no longer blessed with immediately-accessible small streams to fish. Instead, we have one notably large lake and huge rivers inhabited by stripers and carp. It’s been an adjustment to say the least, but as I’ve said before… I’ll take the bad with the good here.
To some degree, I like change. Everyone enjoys learning new skills. However, as the great Yogi once said — “in theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice they are not.” Translating some amorphous point cloud of terminologies like swivels and Texas rigs into usable information while lakeside has been a bit of a head scratcher, though like everything else, this conundrum would likely be quickly alleviated by a few hours with some sort of mentor.
That brings us to the final ingredient, the final necessity, and the most precious of them all. Time.
You might pick it up quickly or you might pick it up slowly, but time is still a factor. Time to practice casting and reading water understand the minds of the fish and the formulas of where and how to find them.
Time is the issue for me. Real trout fishing is at the very least three hours away, and shoehorning this into normal life is difficult. So for now, when I have a hundred bucks and a free morning to drive down to the river and wet a line, it’s with the old spinning rod. I am growing more to appreciate this art form, perhaps because what choice do I really have to either complain about the ability to fish at all, or embrace sitting outside for a bit on the baking limestone in the Mojave heat, waiting for an errant carp or cat to take the bait? It has charm and a tradition and history of its own, which is vital to my enjoyment of any given pursuit.
I’ve always said that if you’re too open minded, your brains will fall out, but I think the fly fishing community as a whole (whatever that means) needs to all head down to Wally World, pick up a $20 pole, and tie on a worm every now and then.
A change is as good as a rest.
