There’s No Right Answer
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I have some bad news for you. You’re not doing it right.
I was reading an article on fishing streamers and the author was pressing the importance of neutral buoyancy. The idea being that the fly neither sinks, nor floats. His assertion being that, when fished with a drift and twitch presentation, these flies more accurately imitate an injured baitfish. I have a good friend who is a master of this technique and, after watching him coax some very big fish out of cut banks, I started using it a fair bit myself, but here’s the thing. It’s not the right way to do it.
I was out on the river one day tuning up my spey cast in preparation for a steelhead trip. When I was done, and headed back to the truck, a woman who had been watching me asked, “Are you some kind of expert?”
“Ma’am, this is fly fishing,” I replied, “we’re all experts.”
Each of us, regardless of our level of expertise, is largely a self-styled angler. We learn by trial and error which techniques will catch us a fish and when. Generally, in our own minds, we know the right way to do it. Or do we? I know this is kind of an esoteric fishing tip, but my point is this.
There are no right or wrong answers.
Dead drifting streamers is a great technique. So is jerk stripping heavy patterns, and fishing floating flies on a sinking line. All of those techniques, and many more, produce fish at the right time. They are all equally right and equally wrong. The question is not, “What’s the right way to fish the fly?” The questions is, “What’s the right time to fish in that way?”
I have a good friend who has been learning to fly fish the last couple of years and this is something he has really struggled with. He will ask me for advice on fishing in a given situation, and when he gets it, he’ll frequently point out that it contradicts something I told him before. “Yep,” I’ll tell him, “but that was then, this is now.”
Most of us, especially when we are learning, want the “right answer” that’s going to work all of the time. The truth is, it just doesn’t exist. Conditions change constantly as does the mood of the fish. It’s our ability to adapt to that change which makes
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November 9, 2017 at 05:02AM