Young People and Fly Fishing

Had a great day yesterday guiding James and Chris, two 21 year old students from Virginia in the US. These guys were really surprised when I told them I was in the minority when it came to my age and fly fishing. In the US particularly 'out West' (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado etc) it is now pretty fashionable and cool for young people to get into fly fishing. This is partly due to the 'trout bum' culture that has emerged, a culture that Josh and myself can relate to very well and one that we have tried to adopt here, although I am yet to meet a girl who is really impressed by the fact I can fly fish. One day perhaps...

For a long time I have maintained that New Zealand has traditionally adopted the English approach to fly fishing. This is a very technical, fish number hungry, sometimes elitist perspective of the 'sport'. The North American trout bum approach is becoming more popular here and has many aspects that we can learn from. The main thing would have to be the minimalist approach to the whole idea. This includes sleeping in the car, having fun with mates and just generally caring more about having a good time than catching fish. Ironically, this then can improve your catch rate as you are more relaxed when fishing and this is when you can have some of your better days. Trying too hard when casting or putting too much pressure on yourself can also result in poor fishing performance. So chill out and try to see the bigger picture when out fishing. Sit down under a tree for fifteen minutes and have a beer or a coffee and just take a bit of time out. I can almost guarantee you will fish more effectively after this.

Here are a few snaps from James' and Chris' day out.

The fishing out there is getting real good after the rain over Easter. Plenty of fat fish are feeding up in our small streams as we got onto a few guiding and I had a good afternoon today on a local stream. Water levels are about standard and the clarity good, so get out this weekend if you can, or even earlier as there is some rain forecast. Get amongst it.