Pleasures of Fly Fishing

It’s fortunate for me that the pleasures of fly fishing are not limited to the catching of fish. If you were to come upon me on a trout stream any time between April and November, you would most likely find me futilely attempting to untangle a Gordian wind knot in my line, or trying to retrieve the last of my hare’s ear nymph, wrapped around a willow branch eight feet above the bank. You’re less likely to find me actually with my fly in the water, floating in the drift, and even less likely to find me with a fish on. None of those pictures you see in outdoor magazines of anglers playing a strong fish, taut line spraying in backlit sunlight, or kneeling in the backwater, holding out an unseemly large brown trout, beaming in triumph – none of those pictures is of me. I’m the one around the bend trying to get my butt up the bank and through the brush without snapping off the tip of my rod.