A Mediocre Flyfisher

I’m at best a mediocre flyfisher in my home waters of the Driftless Area of the upper Midwest. I catch some fish on most outings, no fish on an occasional outing, and very occasionally I have an outing where I seem to do no wrong (or blind luck more likely). I’ve been on several western waters, and except for a couple of guided trips, have generally done little but whip the water into a froth. I do little different now than when I first started flyfishing some 25 years ago. I use the same few flies, three nymphs and a couple of dry flies when (seldom) the fish are feeding on top. They seem to work okay, and I’ve never been one able to match the hatch (identify the food the fish are eating and use a fly that mimics it; I can neither identify what they’re eating or usually have the fly that mimics it). But my fishing has never been motivated by catching fish, either number or size. Of course catching fish – and the occasional 12”+ fish – helps keep me going, not a goal so much as an object. If I never caught a fish I wouldn’t go out again. But most of why I fish is just to get out on the water, on the streams, in the quiet of running water and bird song, wind in the trees and sun on the riffles, the deer and the muskrats. The silence and the solitude. The escape and the promise.