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3. Just what is the definition of “FLY” fishing?

Entoman:


And the lines often get blurred these days between what we fling at the fish and what we call “FLY” fishing.

A fly reel wound with fly line is attached to a fly rod from which we fly cast a tied fly. But the meaning of the word “FLY” seems to have become obscured. When we cast the myriad imitations of the scud, shrimp, sowbug, leech, crayfish, mice, eggs, muddlers, sculpins, buggers and streamers, is that considered fly fishing? If we cast an imitation of any insect, is that fly fishing? If we cast the non-flying form of a winged insect, is that fly fishing? Could fly fishing only be construed as casting “only” the imitation of winged or flying insects? Is it that anything cast with a fly rod, is fly fishing. Or is fly fishing something else entirely?

Definitely not the last thing you said, cuz when i was growing up, my grandfather would take me trout fishing up in the Adirondacksand we would use worms on a fly rod.Mr ,graqndfather, god bless his soul, did not know squat about fly fishing but used fly rods probably out of habit because there was no such thing as a spinning rod outfit until like the 1950's or so.IMHO, flyfishing MUST involve fishing w/ some type of fly, be it an insect imitation, minnow(i.e., streamer)egg, or other and also, be with a flyrod,spey rod or maybe even a Tenkara rod but certainly NOT a spinning rod!!

a while back it came to me: using a fly rod is called fly fishing.

using a spinning rod is called spin fishing.

using a Sprite can with a length of monofilament is called illegal by the various enforcement agencies around here, and so is pitch-forking the snakeheads when they are spawning.

simple, see?

now i will go tie some flies and order some Never-Fail lures. flies mostly don't work well on a spin rod. lures don't work as well on a fly rod. both methods give hours of pleasure.

worms are for 8-year-olds and those feeding their families seriously. most of us are neither.

When I got the unforgettable experience of sitting down with Sylvester Nemes, and showing him my method of easily tying his softhackles in small sizes deploying an xtra small, black plastic bead at the head of the fly then applying the feather rather than wrapping it Sy said, "No bead, that is not fly fishing."

Hi Allan -



Man, you got that right. For that matter, also what we fling with.:) Adirman is right that prior to the second world war bait anglers fished with fly rods (unless the bait and sinkers used were heavy enough to require bait-casting gear). Lures too... Remember the "Fly Rod flatfish"? Then there's combining them. In the middle of the last century, a worm trailing close behind a Colorado spinner blade was all the rage. Spinning came along and reversed the situation. It wasn't long before anglers began to use floating bubbles with flies trailing behind.

AS far as what we fling - I remember flies with clamp on bead-heads (Jim Prey and his Optics come to mind) and such back in the Joe Brooks era were separated from jigs with the argument that they weren't tied on jig hooks. That can certainly no longer be said. There are some guys out there tying flies with stuff glued to hooks they call flies. Others claim this is fly tying as long as natural materials are used.. OK... What about Rapalas or similar balsa wood plugs glued to hooks. I think Rapala markets what they call a fly rod size.

Bottom line is people can define it any way they want. As for me, I like simple definitions:

Fly - Any hook with stuff tied to it.

Fly casting - where the line provides the inertia to make a cast of distance, not the weight of the lure.

Fly fishing - When the two above are combined in use.

This works for me!:)

Regards,

Kurt

Sayfu -

Ha! That's a rich story about Nemes. Marinaro, when asked about Schwiebert's book Nymphs replied, "Nymphs, that is not fly fishing". Though they were good friends before publication, Marinaro never spoke to him again afterwords for his blasphemy. Makes you wonder how the three are getting along now in the hereafter.:) I can see Marinaro (sitting at the right hand of Halford) accusing the two (along with that demon Skues) of precipitating the breakdown of morality resulting in the use of the dreaded beads and strike indicators. I can hear the charge, "You guys encouraged piscatorial promiscuity and now look down your noses at those that do it with the lights on!" Lol

Kurt

Entoman:


Falsifly:


Entoman:


Falsifly:


Entoman:


Falsifly:
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Entoman:


Falsifly:

Falsefly -



Ha! I sense a bit of the spirit of Marinaro in you.:)

One of my mentors as a kid (mentor hell, I thought he was a god at the time) had a sporting philosophy that went this way: Ducks should be shot over decoys with wings set, quail should be shot over the point of a dog, and trout should be caught on a dry fly. Anything less was unsporting and an insult to the nobility of the creatures pursued. This attitude was possible in his prime years, since they immediately followed the second world war when fish and game were plentiful and sportsmen were few in California. It was also all blood sport to him. The idea of catching a fish only to release it would be as strange as shooting a duck with a stun gun only to release it. It was all fun in the field and delicacy on the table. When the legal limit was caught or shot, it was time to go home. Only a cretan poacher would stay afield or astream longer.

The reality of our present circumstances has made my philosophy a bit more catholic.:) Wow, have times changed...

Regards,

Kurt

Did we have the same mentor?

Yeah Tony, there was definitely a "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" wasn't there? Sounds like we had a couple of charter members!:)

Fly fishing accounts for casting a tied imitation of any form of food that a trout will eat, even if that means casting 'pellet' flies to trout directly out of a hatchery.

Once fished a pay to play pond. The owner had an automatic timer, fountain in the center of it, and fed his rainbow hogs dog food pellets. Sometime later he felt obligated to pass a rule...no pellet flies. An angler tied up some small, brown strike indicators, and a 3" fly dropper below it hoping to snag one. I wanted to get a picture of one spoofing folks that I caught it on local waters, but the one that I did hook bottomed his big belly out in shallow water, and I couldn't get out to capture it.

Fly Fishing-The gentle and active art of fishing by using a rod with the appropriate line weight for the rod to cast the fly- an imitation of a living creature fashioned on a hook, wherein the weight of the line, and not the weight of the imitation, propels the imitation to the desired spot in or on the water.

I'm sure this not the way everyone thinks of it, but it is what it is to me. Maybe I'm a little "old School" when it comes to this.

Mark

The truth is we chose to fish with fly tackle, with the exception of fly fishing only waters. Many of us put more stringent deffinitions of what is allowed on ourselves than the IGFA would .

FRed

Very good definitions all around, I think mine would be a combination of Mark and Jesses'. Anything that is tied to a hook that imitates food that requires a fly line to propel it.

Which kinda brings us back to weighted flies. How much weight before we don't consider it a fly?

Some of these nymphs that are lacquered over, I don't know. Looks kinda like an ice fishing jig to me. That said I'll probably make a few this winter.

I've fished egg flies with a spinning rod for example. Not much weight on the fly but used weight to get it down into a hole. That's not fly fishing though. I've set up a dry fly and a bobber for friends to catch bluegill on with a spinning rod, that's not fly fishing either. Although, they might like to think so.

Wasn't it said the only true and ethical way to fly fish is with a dry fly casting upstream, during a hatch? Now how is that, am I not right saying wet fly fishing came before dry fly fishing?

Well anyways. . .I'm going fishing, call it what you want. I'm just looking forward to saying fish on!

http://www.flyfishinghistory.com/skues.htm#



Strmanglr,

I think, in my opinion you have basically hit the nail on the head here. "they might like to think so"...

If this question wasn't coming from Allan I would normally say that these sorts of "semantic" type things are posted to either stir the pot, or from someone who wants to "justify" whatever it is they may do, even when it may not truely fit a particular definition. For example, I've been a vegetarian since I was 16 and ever since that time, I would be rich, if I had gathered a buck everytime I heard someone say to me, "Hey. I'm a vegetarian too, but I eat fish, oh and chicken occasionally, and turkey at Thanksgiving of course." You either is or you ain't, but we humans find comfort in our gray areas.

I was a very lucky kid when my grandfather took me in to the woods to hunt as a young child. He taught me a great deal about animal behaviour and gave me a love for the place I still carry with me. He taught me how to do my homework and sometime before opening day figure out where deer trails existed, feeding areas, etc so I could "hunt" when the time came. Sitting in a blind listening to the football game some Saturday taking pot-shots at deer over a bait pile would not of been hunting to him, but harvesting.

I don't want to get anyone's "Tidy-Whities" in a knot here, I am only stating my opinion. I really don't care personally what anyone else does or believes...I think the history of our sport is pretty much traced back to the chaulk streams of England and I believe that "fly-fishing" is done with a rod that has evolved from those early days that was designed to deliver an imitation of a fly which I take to mean "insecta".

When I fished my old Michigan Big-Uglies or if I were to construct a "lure" (I know that this term is taken as a perjorative, but here I mean lure in the old English sense as something other than a "fly") from those Fish-Skulls I would not call it fly-fishing but "Streamer" fishing. The tools involved may look like I was fly fishing, but to me I am not.

When I fished the Pere Marquette this last September for salmon (my post is still there) I used a 10' 8wt fly rod and there was a "slinky" rig at the terminal end with a weight and two flies...Well the stonefly nymph was a fly, the egg pattern was not. The rod was not used as a "fly" rod but a delivery device...It was a variation of "chuck-and-duck"...There was absolutely no false casting involved. The line was running line and not even fly-line.

In Michigan we have had an on-going discussion over what might be called "gear-restricted" streams &/or flies-only stretches...The only thing that is actually "restricted" is the fly on the terminal end. So, a guy can walk down the middle of the Holy Water on the Au Sable with a spinning rig and as long as whatever is hanging from the end is a "fly" it's ok.

I remember years ago an old-timer that had a cabin near where I fished within the Holy Water. He did just as I said above and walked down the middle of the stream with a large/feathered monstrousity hanging from the end of his spinning outfit...He would say to me something along the lines of, "I've owned my damn cabin since the 30's (this was actually a lie, but whatever) and I can damn well do as I please here. Those rules don't apply to me. I'm grandfathered!" (Hey Strmanglr. I don't know where it is here, but you might enjoy my story, which I know I told on this site, from when this same old-timer took a shot at me with a pistol...He missed...Claimed he was shooting at squirrels...Another activity that though illegal he thought he could do anyway..."Them rules just don't apply to me!" He was pretty damn old. I haven't seem him in at least 15 years or so. He's probably poaching on a stream somewhere in Purgatorio...;)

I think that's how it goes..."A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest" (P Simon). We want to claim we are fly fishing when we are actually just using the tools to do as we please and are probably stretching the envelope a bit.

My salmon fishing above took place in a flies-only/catch-and-release section of the PM. I was "legal" not because of the rod in my hand, but because I had what passed, for the state anyway, as a fly on the end of my line...It didn't matter to them that the rig was prone to snagging the fish, or that I was foul-hooking some fish that were supposed to be released.

I know our equipment has evolved and folks use some of the same gear I do to do whatever type of fishing they like to do...But to me fly fishing is limited to flies and the other stuff is just that, something else.

Spence

I want to explain that I'm not passing judgement here what-so-ever...You will have to atone for your own sins, once you are face-to-face with your maker...:) As will I... (that's an emoticon there boys so please don't wet yourselves)...

I think the key in these things is just not to worry about what others think... Fly fishing is whatever you want it to be. While I much prefer to use fairly traditional methods,I've got no problem throwing egg patterns, marabou jigs, and even occasionally a woolly bugger with a spinner attached to it on my fly rod. I call it all fly fishing, because that's what I think it is, and that's pretty much the end of that.

Maybe so, but chucking flies w/ a spinning rod and a bubble ain't!!

Well I personally wouldn't consider it fly fishing...But I do know some people who would, and who am I to say that they are wrong?

Hey Spence -



I agree in a way. The only time you see the word "fly" in the common lexicon involves either dries or wets.

Dry fly fishing
Wet fly fishing
Nymph fishing
Streamer/bucktail fishing

This is usually the way we see them written up. Of course anglers named Skues, Sawyer, Hewitt & Schwiebert from the nymph proponents would probably disagree. Streamer guys like Welch, Oatman, McLeod and Rosborough might have had something to say on the topic as well. There's an awful lot of salmon/square-tail anglers in Maine and steelheaders on the West Coast (with a whole lot of nymphers in between) that think they are fly fishing.

Regards,

Kurt