What Makes a Fly Fisher?
- This topic has 20 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated Jan 25, 2007 at 11:16 pm by
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Hey guys –
Someone over on the Fly Fisherman board was nice enough to post these:
This is my reaction:
“Looks like, just spotting some trends here, we’ve got a whole, whole bunch of people in this country who are “fly fishermen” but who wouldn’t come close to my estimate of two weeks a year, which is obviously very high.
Do you really count as a fly fisherman if you only go fly fishing twice a year? If I told you at my cocktail party that I was a golfer, and you asked how often I golfed, and I said, why, every fourth of july and labor day, would you consider me a golfer? I might play, I dunno, softball twice a year, or frisbee. Does that make me a “softball player”? A “frisbee player?” No, obviously it doesn’t. What’s interesting is that, probably because softball and frisbee lack the cache’ of fly fishing, I would never claim to be a frisbee player at a cocktail party, and no one else would either. But there are people–apparently a lot of them–who will claim to be fly fishers at that cocktail party who have the same number of hours fly fishing as I do playing frisbee.
So, it would seem there has to be a cutoff somewhere, right? Is 14.1 million an accurate reflection of real fly fishers? 56% of those reporting in 2005 above fly fished only one time or two times a year! That’s 7.9 million gone right there.
A hard question to answer, clearly.”
Because I value the opinions of the members here more than anywhere else, I thought I’d get your take on this as well.
Thanks,
ZachEverybody has their own idea of what makes a fly fisherman, if you only fish dries, fur and feather flies, etc, etc. Bunch of BS IMO but if it makes someone feel like they’re better then the rest of the “bait chunkers”, then more power to them. I just hope I never have to share a boat or a stretch of water with this kind of person. Fishing twice a year doesn’t make anyone an expert but IMO it might make them a fisherman. Being a fisherman, fly or otherwise is more then casting a line out. It’s a way of life and a mindset. I grew up hunting all kinds of animals with my folks but my heart was always on the water with a fishing rod in my hand. I haven’t been in the woods with a gun in over four years, but I still call myself a hunter. I still have the weapons and the knowledge and one day I’ll get back into it.
“Do you really count as a fly fisherman if you only go fly fishing twice a year?”
I suppose the answer depends on the perspective from which you ask the question.
I think in order to identify yourself as anything, be it a fly fisher or a football player or an equestrian, you have to have done it more than the number of times necessary to just “try it out.”
OK…just want to make sure we’re not talking about bragging rights at a cocktail conversation.
As a marketer, I think you have to interpret the data for what it is.
Last I checked, a real fly fisherman is a person completely decked out in the newest Simms 700 dollar waders, a super flashy chest pack with every tool imaginable hanging off it, and casting the new Z-Axis with an Abel reel.
I actually saw a guy in Central Park, NYC casting in the ponds for carp, completely decked out in about 50,000 dollars worth of Orvis junk.
Spending lots of money and making jokes about people who fish with worms, thats what makes you a fly fisherman.
Zach I think you are correct in pointing out this surveys big failing is its failure to identify the dabblers. They do manage to cover up though, in their meticulous use of the term “fly fishing participants”. These are not necessarily fly fishers; they are those who participated in fly fishing over the past year – which could be one time.
You know, its really pretty interesting to consider exactly what is meant by announcing to someone that you are a fly fisher (and I don’t think there should be any criteria assigned here). Even though I agree that this is not a conversation based upon the concept of us vs. them, I do think that the way we perceive ourselves as fly fishers has some “us and them mentality” to it. Most of the people we are talking about take advantage of this perceived elitism, but the mentality is there even for those who do not. To say that you are anything, is in itself, a pretty big statement. Statements like these take on a life of their own outside the definitions of the words used. Take football for example. To say that you are a football player, means more than just someone who plays football…no matter how many times a year you do it. If anyone over the age of 25 told me they were a football player, I would start wondering what team they played for. Same goes for fly fishing. If you say you are a fly fisher, you are placing yourself in the group of those who fly fish (us) distinguished against those who don’t (them).
Steelhyde- I think I met your central park fisher when I was twelve. It was my first day fly fishing and this guy made fun of me and my dad for using the wrong fly and rod when we asked him what he was using. That guy almost ruined me for life. I remember very clearly that he had orvis waders. I spent the whole day trying to figure out how they kept water out since he was wearing waders and boots, and my boots were a part of my waders.
This whole thing has really got me wondering how many times I fish in a year…but all I can come up for as an answer is not enough.
I use $100 bills as leader straighteners, when one wears out then I just throw it in the river and pull out a crisp new one.
Gee, thanks Carter, I was wondering where all those $100 bills were coming from.
Zach:
1) Looks like the question ought to be “What is an avid fly fisher?”
2) I wonder if what you are seeing is not, as others have noted, a decline in an aging fly fishing community.
I have several customers who only fish 1-2 times year who have been avid flyfishers for 40 years. As they enter retirement and have health issues, they do not fish as much as they did. I think the most “avid” fly fishermen I know are in that higher age group. A few of them are also crossover hardware fishermen, but I don’t consider them any less a flyfisher.
Committment and love of the sport obviously helps us define “avid,” but if you want to know what makes a mere “fly fisher,” we should probably be generous in our labels and let people define themselves.
Zach,
I think you are setting up a straw man and knocking him down here. The survey clearly states that it is gauging “Participants in Fly Fishing”. The survey does not state a definition of “participation”, but from the results it seems clear that someone who only made one fly-fishing trip a year did “participate” in the sport. The respondents did not necessarily identify themselves as fly fishermen. They probably (although it is not entirely clear) just stated the number of times they went fly fishing in 2005.
So, to question whether those people are justified in calling themselves “fly fishermen” is like setting up the straw man in order ot knock him down. The conclusion I draw from the survey is that there are more people merely dabbling in the sport. I don’t mean to be so argumentative. Ultimately you hit the nail on the head when you state in your second post “In that sense I guess they are people who ‘go fly fishing’ but they are not people who ‘are fly fishers.'” The survey never purports to count fly fishers, only those who participated in the sport. I am not sure that any survey can give us the information to identify true fly fishers; it can only identify participants. And, for marketing purposes, that may have to be enough.
Now, if you are looking for our definition of fly fishers, I suspect that the exercise of identifying who “qualifies” as a fly fishermen is a moot exercise, subject to our arbitrary feelings about who is a fly fisherman. Does it measure Casting skill? Fly-tying expertise? Actual fishing experience? Enthusiasm? Opportunity? Conservation-mindedness? Mental illness? 😀
All of these things may contribute to one’s definition of a fly fisherman, but are they each necessary? Is any one attribute sufficient? My answer is no to both. They might describe what kind of fly-fisherman he is – your cocktail guest is an infrequent fly fisherman, GBurgFisher’s Orvis-clad jerk was an obnoxious fly fisherman, and Carter is a profligate fly fisherman ;).
😕 Busted! Yes, Zach, I am a recovering lawyer. As of Dec. 31st (3 weeks ago) I “retired” from 12 years of practice as a commercial litigator here in Baton Rouge. I am taking some time to travel, hone my spanish, fish, learn some computer skills, and tinker with a small business until I figure out what to do when I grow up!
For a long time I enjoyed the work and the camaraderie of the law, and I sincerely hope you do the same.
~Billy
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