Fly fishing is bewildering as there are so many disciplines embedded in the sport and catching numbers of fish is the be all and end all for some.
I've been fishing for over 65 years. Like others, at first it was catch A fish, any fish, didn't matter and luckily my local brook was well stuffed with minnows and sticklebacks. It wasn't long before it was catch as many as I can, and the lake in Austria where I was born had vast numbers of one of the whitefish species that were suicidally attracted to bread.
It was not too long before yet another 6" whitefish started me thinking about how to avoid them and so enter ledgering in 30' of water and several good sized roach.
By the time I was in my early teens I was bordering on specimen hunting as I had a small lake with a lot of carp in it. Not big fish - a 7lb fish was the biggest - but it was using tactics specifically designed to catch the larger fish rather than the hordes of half pounders. That all came to a juddering halt in 1963 when the winter that lasted from Boxing Day '62 to Easter '63 killed every fish in there.
Then I began trout fishing and the start of the learning curve again. First to catch A trout, then to catch several trout, then to catch bigger trout, and here it didn't matter what the actual size was. It was whether it was a big fish for the water it came from, so a half pound trout from a small stream was as good as a 2lb trout from a reservoir.
When I was approaching my 40's I got involved in competitions and here the numbers game became important. I did that for 14 years at loch style, rivers and small stillwaters and didn't do too badly at it. However, all things come to an end and our horizons change over time.
I now do more guiding on chalkstreams than I do fishing, though that is going to change this year. Many of those I guide for are anglers whose experience is much less than mine and I enjoy getting them into a position to catch fish. They use my flies and I often wonder at the end of the day when the client goes home glowing, with a brace of fish gutted and bagged up, with three or four more returned how he would have done without my presence. They often show me their box of flies 90% of which are totally unsuitable. I have to be a bit diplomatic sometimes, especially if they have tied them, & explain that the sort of flies that would work on a Scottish loch are unlikely to be too effective on the Test.
One of the reasons I gave up competition fishing was the attitude that was creeping in. It soon became a matter of not did I catch my limit, but did I catch them before xxx or
yyy or whoever was asking the question. The curse of time bonuses had turned the fish into a commodity and I finished my competition days a year or so later.
Fly fishing is a broad church and there is room for all variants of methods & techniques. I would counsel craig not to turn his back on any of them because there is enjoyment, and moreover, learning and experience to be had and that will turn him into a better angler.
I've been fishing for over 65 years. Like others, at first it was catch A fish, any fish, didn't matter and luckily my local brook was well stuffed with minnows and sticklebacks. It wasn't long before it was catch as many as I can, and the lake in Austria where I was born had vast numbers of one of the whitefish species that were suicidally attracted to bread.
It was not too long before yet another 6" whitefish started me thinking about how to avoid them and so enter ledgering in 30' of water and several good sized roach.
By the time I was in my early teens I was bordering on specimen hunting as I had a small lake with a lot of carp in it. Not big fish - a 7lb fish was the biggest - but it was using tactics specifically designed to catch the larger fish rather than the hordes of half pounders. That all came to a juddering halt in 1963 when the winter that lasted from Boxing Day '62 to Easter '63 killed every fish in there.
Then I began trout fishing and the start of the learning curve again. First to catch A trout, then to catch several trout, then to catch bigger trout, and here it didn't matter what the actual size was. It was whether it was a big fish for the water it came from, so a half pound trout from a small stream was as good as a 2lb trout from a reservoir.
When I was approaching my 40's I got involved in competitions and here the numbers game became important. I did that for 14 years at loch style, rivers and small stillwaters and didn't do too badly at it. However, all things come to an end and our horizons change over time.
I now do more guiding on chalkstreams than I do fishing, though that is going to change this year. Many of those I guide for are anglers whose experience is much less than mine and I enjoy getting them into a position to catch fish. They use my flies and I often wonder at the end of the day when the client goes home glowing, with a brace of fish gutted and bagged up, with three or four more returned how he would have done without my presence. They often show me their box of flies 90% of which are totally unsuitable. I have to be a bit diplomatic sometimes, especially if they have tied them, & explain that the sort of flies that would work on a Scottish loch are unlikely to be too effective on the Test.
One of the reasons I gave up competition fishing was the attitude that was creeping in. It soon became a matter of not did I catch my limit, but did I catch them before xxx or
yyy or whoever was asking the question. The curse of time bonuses had turned the fish into a commodity and I finished my competition days a year or so later.
Fly fishing is a broad church and there is room for all variants of methods & techniques. I would counsel craig not to turn his back on any of them because there is enjoyment, and moreover, learning and experience to be had and that will turn him into a better angler.
