You should have been here yesterday!

 If only you could have been here yesterday. That is the the admonition so frequently given by one angler to another, when the fishing turns out to be not so great on that particular day. But, as anglers are also heard to state quite frequently, the sport would be called catching, not fishing, if you could expect go home with one for the fry-pan, every time out.


Nice fish

Tying flies, is often referred to as the art of the fly fisher, and matching the hatch is one of their sacred credos. This latter expression means that the expert should use flies that accurately imitate the genus, species, and life cycle stage, of the insect that their quarry is showing a taste preference for at that particular moment in time.

This in turn encourages many anglers of the fly fishing persuasion to become amateur entomologists, and consequently to become very involved in the study of nature. This apparently entitles at least a few of these fly-boys and fly-girls to assume an air of superiority over the participants in all other forms of the sport. Indeed they frequently refer to the others as bait chuckers, and occasionally use even less attractive epithets, with the addition of a few choice four letter prefixes and or suffixes.

May fly

Of course, I am not one of these hoity toity individuals, believing rather that if you don't have the skill to cast a number 16 midge (that is a very small size), on a 2 pound breaking strain leader (that is very thin) into a head wind, and to drop the fly temptingly, without the slightest splash or even a ripple, with great precision, right beneath a low overhanging tree branch, and precisely in front of a poor unsuspecting trout's nose... then you simply should not be entitled to purchase a fishing licence.

There you are, you blankity blank bait chuckers, now you really know how we superior beings feel. It's actually a bit like the sail-boaters vs. the power-boaters who refer to each other as wind-baggers and stink-potters, as one sort gets in the way of the other out on the water.

Oh yes, we anglers of different preferences, undoubtedly do get in each others' space on the streams and in the lakes... and even afterwards in that other, more comfortable, type of watering hole.

Tight lines everyone!