Standing in a river waving a stick.

Ok, so I plagiarized the title. Why wouldn’t ya?

I consider myself a fly fisher. I have a fly rod with fly line, more flies than I’ll ever possibly need (with many more to come) and I catch fish with this equipment. Pretty much in my limited experience this counts. At least I thought it did. Winds up there are people out there called fly casters. At first glance I’m tempted to say “oh yeah I’m one of those too!!!” After all, why wouldn’t ya?

Apparently fly casters are people who can land a size 18 BWO on a dinner plate from 70 feet in “Katrina-like” winds. Personally I consider a successful cast one that lands in the water without throwing a wake. There’s also talk of tailing loops and such that I don’t truly understand. Sure I’ll tell anyone who asks that tailing loops should be eradicated from the face of the Earth, but it doesn’t really matter. After all, who’s going to test me?

So I started to review my “cast”. It’s not as pretty as I had convinced myself to believe in this winter season of non-fishing. I use too much wrist, or maybe not enough. My arc is too long or maybe too short. My acceleration is too fast or maybe too slow. Anyway I guess I don’t know what’s wrong with it. I do know that I’m not a fly caster.

But I still catch fish. Doesn’t that count for something? In the great scheme of things isn’t it the number of fish caught that matters? According to fly casters, sure it is. But you could be catching so many more. They say all it takes is practice. 15 minutes a day for a month and you’ll be one of the elite. Don’t forget to relearn all of the things you’ve been doing wrong of course. I don’t know about you, but if I had an extra 15 minutes a day for a month I’d want to save it all up and, I don’t know, say, go fishing? Sure it’s not practice and I may not catch as many as the fly caster, but I’ll be standing in the river waving a stick. Just watch out for my wake.