“Just Do It”, Commit To Your Fly Fishing Journey!
“Just Do It”, commit to your fly fishing journey! We have all heard this saying from Nike for many years. It motivates us on many levels! One of my favorite aspects of instructing and teaching others since 1987 is taking away what I am fortunate to learn from each lesson. Often, that role is reversed which occurred the other day while working with Charlie Nichols from Greeneville, SC. You can just tell he is top at what he did in sales over many decades. Check out fly fishing four stages of successful training!
It is exciting to have met so many wonderful folks from different walks of life and it helps motivate me to bring my “A-game” for each lesson. Regardless of my duties as a coach, teacher, instructor, friend, or motivational cheerleader to share information! Regardless of my teaching fly casting, fly fishing techniques, strategies, or fly tying.
Intent -What Are You After?
In reality, regardless of what our position is to coach that day, you the student needs to establish their intent and baseline goals. What Charlie shared with me the other day was a powerful lightbulb moment for me. It helps me break down many facets of instructor and student teamwork. Egotistical positions that are fueled by pride have existed since the inception of the sport. This includes the rank beginner to the iconic expert! This is human nature in every sport or discipline.
Donut Pie Chart Illustrates 2.6% Anglers (outer ring) Catches Over 1/3 Total Numbers Fish (inner ring)
Motivational Creel Survey Pie Chart!
Good Enough Mentality for the Majority
This is an area that is the most difficult to assist folks. You have to have the drive to move forward because no one can give that to you. The tools and techniques are available but it is you that has to seek. Most folks never rise above this level. This also justifies why so many businesses in the industry want to cater to the “good enough” crowd.
So for the traveling angler that fishes one day a year-be all you can be for that one day! If you like it you will go more to the water and learn many intricacies along the way of the whole sport. Same as making “widgets” in the corporate world. Do you want to be the top widget maker? It will require a roadmap to success!
We see the “good enough” crowd and fluffies here on the Delayed Harvest. Probably 95% of the visiting anglers fall into that class including clubs from all over the east coast. NCWRC evidence base studies back this up (pie chart above). It is good for our areas economic impact boost. What will you do to move forward?
Deception from the Fluffies
Abraham Lincoln had a saying on deception: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” This has quite powerful meaning when it comes to identifying the fluffies and wannabes in our sport today. Show promoters, clubs, and fly fishing gatherings owe a certain amount of commitment to the sport to promote talented communicators at their events to convey and share this knowledge.
Be leary and shy away from the fluffies. The tendency is to teach “principles” or “fundamentals” of their tiny “flat” world revolving around them. Seek mechanical truth because it will always prevail. The world is full of fluffies and no matter how many hashtags, tweets, and followers they have, they remain shallow in bringing nothing to the evolution of the sport.
We live in a strange time period when self-promoter “fluffies” that bring nothing to share at the table are ranked above peers that are living legends! I have witnessed this more the past decade than ever before at big events. Perhaps this makes me old school? Good people doing good things in their areas raising the bar higher. That gets my vote over social media verbiage any day! Evolution over stagnating tradition is the correct direction.
Truth Matters Still
Regression is a reflection of a lack of promoting this knowledge. I could compile an entire book entitled “Fly Fishing Fallacies“. One line quotes from icons that are still repeated to this very day. What does a student think with a description such as “let the rod do the work“? “The anchor loads the rod“? “Shorter rods cast further than longer ones!” “The line goes where the rod tip goes“. “The fly line loads the rod“. If you believe all of these things to be true find out why they have major flaws! It takes a long period of time for a sport to clear up fallacies. Question everything before believing! Phrases accepted by a majority has nothing to do with the truth.
Thanks for reading and happy fly flinging to your own self-discovery of new things!
“Just Do It”, Commit To Your Fly Fishing Journey!
“Just Do It”, Commit To Your Fly Fishing Journey!
“Just Do It”, Commit To Your Fly Fishing Journey!