THE LATEST NEWS and advice on fly fishing, fly fishing gear, fly fishing trips, and fly fishing books and media.Yobs, Blobs and Boobies
One of the truisms about fly fishing is that it provides fodder for endless debate, self-limitation being inherent in the sport. Often the focus of disagreement is whether or not a particular piece of gear, technique, or fly is legitimate. Since there is no central governing body of all things fly fishing, no rules committee or international court of appeals, and since fly fishers are probably more inventive than most other sorts of anglers, every so often the classicists rise up in anger over the introduction of a "new way." And that, many would say, is how it should be.
So it is with the latest fashion in England, which involves the use of "blobs," balls of fiber that are stripped through the water and have upped the catch rate considerably on English lakes. (You can see blob fly examples here and here.) "England fly-fisherman Jeremy Lucas said while the use of the blob and the booby - a brightly coloured lure with polystyrene 'eyes' - could encourage novices, it was 'repulsive' to see them used by experienced fishermen. He said: 'Most of us would wash our hands of it. It reflects fly-fishing in a very bad light.'" Keith Perry in the U.K. Telegraph.
Comments
Hmmm...look a lot like many of the saltwater and steelhead patterns we use here in the States, huh? LOL
I saw flies on those two pages that looked like "poorly" tied Wooly Buggers, Bunny Leeches, Egg-sucking Leeches...
And what exactly does a sky blue popper with dark blue feather tail and collar imitate? How much chartreuse do you ACTUALLY see in freshwater fish forage?
To ME, the sport of angling is about enticing the fish to strike of their own volition. What motivates the fish (territorialism, appearance of an easy meal, etc.) is REALLY highly subject to guessing anyway...since the fish can't tell us what they were thinking when they took our offerings.
Don't we have this debate about three times a year? LOL Haven't we gone through the surface v. subsurface, weighted flies, beadhead flies, synthetic materials v. natural materials, imitations v. attractors debates ad nauseum since time immemorial?
In the end, traditionalists (purists) are simply trying to avoid challenges that come from outside their OWN comfort zones. I find that narrow-minded, self-serving, and cowardly. Instead, they should step UP to the new challenges and embrace them. They can still choose to fish imitators if they want to. (these same types railed against the Hare's Ear Nymph that they now point to as "traditional about 100 years ago) And if they cannot out-fish the boyz tossing shiny, synthetic bugs and streamers; so be it. Isn't their mantra self-limitation anyway? So self-limitation is only good so long as the limits one chooses allow him/her to catch more fish that "the other guys?"
This is all about EGO. And I dismiss ego-driven arguments and actions as soon as I recognize them.
Posted by: KW Morrow | June 1, 2008 9:24 AM