Opinions, musings, ideas, pearls of wisdom
Opinion
By Kent Hull
Opinion
By Kent Hull
Women generally have an unfair advantage over men in becoming very effective fly fishermen because they are unable or unwilling to take the time and effort to appreciate one of the richest aspects of the sport.
One morning about twelve years ago, I was standing at the footing of Swallow Falls Bridge over the Youghiogheny ("Yock") River in Western Maryland with five or six companions who had come up from Metro DC to fish over a long weekend. Most were huddled in little groups over open fly boxes, leader wallets, shot assortments and other stuff in our (over) loaded vests discussing what would be best to start with, or at least what they thought would be worth trying out. One member of the group (brother-in-law of one of our usual suspects) who identified himself as a spin fisherman and not a fly fisherman (though I later saw that his casting stroke and line handling were generally better than the rest of ours) was looking at these intent little groups with some bemusement. I said to him, "I guess you didn't realize, half the fun of fly fishing is playing with all our s--t."
He started laughing and managed to say, "I always suspected that, but you're the first I've heard admit it."
I got to thinking about that. I'm sure each of you has seen a tee shirt or sweat shirt proclaiming, "The One Who Dies With the Most Toys Wins." Have you ever seen a woman wearing one of these? I haven't. I am firmly resolved and claim that each item that each of us carries in a vest or fishes with (or bought to use while fishing even if we never get around to it) counts as one toy - each fly pattern, each leader size, each accessory, each tool. If we men tie flies, we can double (or better) our toy count. And I, for one, am loath to throw anything away.
Yes, it'd reduce the awesome (my wife says disgusting) clutter in my study. I use the typical pack rat justification, "I know I'll need it within two weeks of throwing it away," but the truth is, it would reduce my toy count.
I (as do a lot of other men, many of whom won't admit it) take great pleasure in poring over my large collection of current fly fishing catalogs and spending hours on line browsing these and other listings. And making long lists of stuff I'd like to buy, reluctantly pruning them (severely) to fit my available cash from time to time when I actually intend to place orders. Most women fly fishermen I know don't even have one catalog! (Well, maybe a Cabela's.) What kind of a fly fisherman is that?
So, women fly fishermen I know just ignore this aspect of our sport, and generally refuse (or don't even think about) spending time immersed in this deeply enjoyable pursuit. They just don't seem to "get it" about this half of the fun of our sport. I sometimes wonder why they even bother with fly fishing. (My wife complains that almost all of my interest in fly fishing is in acquiring and fooling around with my fly fishing stuff. I think I resent her complaint mostly because of the truth in it.) Instead of spending time in appreciating this rich aspect of the sport, women spend nearly all of their time learning how to be good at the actual fishing part of it. (I define a good or effective fly fisherman as one who can consistently choose an appropriate fly and present it in a manner that will hook fish when they can be hooked.) The result is, women who take up fly fishing seriously, seem to get really good at it faster than men do. Excluding professionals such as Ed Marcillac, Jay Murakoshi, Walt Robinson, Brian Bommarito (and perhaps Lauren Kitamura), about half of our club's really great fishermen are women, yet substantially less than half of our membership are women, and women make up a pretty small minority of the state or national population of fly fishermen.
What do you think?
(Yes, I know that the logically valid reasons for women gaining prowess faster and maybe even to higher levels is probably related to comparative levels of body awareness, analytic vs. synthetic cognitive styles, greater inclination to accept instruction and advice, and greater affinity for finesse and deception rather than force and speed - but there's no fun in getting into that. Seriously, I believe on the basis of observation and some informal statistics, that women do seem to gain fly fishing skill faster and often to a higher level than men and they generally do it while spending less money on gear.)