Fly fishing stands alone as perhaps the only discipline in our sport that is truly global. Whether you are stalking trout on a river or stream or chasing apex saltwater predators on flats in exotic climes – the tactics, tackle, and tact remain largely the same.
So why is it that the fly fishing market in the United States reigns supreme over that of its European brothers?
LINK (via: Fishing Tackle Retailer)
Yes. My “We’re in danger of pricing flyfishing out of a future, fellas. Of pulling up the social class drawbridge to anyone not just like us, too… ” by no means wild-eyed and hectoring comments in my once numerous and very well-attended public talks to my fellow British flyfishers (and to groups of non-flyfishers at their shows), then, equally gently, occasionally online from 2001 onwards, were not met with what by any stretch of the imagination could be called “universal acclaim”, particularly by the British tackle and ad-hungry magazine trades that seemed to go all out to shoot what was to them a howling, highly dangerous, bad for business Jeremiah. British flyfishing has got a lot greyer and less socially inclusive (and a lot less hands-on INNOVATIVE) in the years since.
Just so much told-yer-so schadenfreude on my part? Nah. I have bigger and better things to do with my time.
PS – Loved the Brian O’Keefe floatplane, fly rod and whisky glass in hand, Henning Hale Orviston /Ernie Schwiebert-style shot. One thing, done in all innocence and for a bit of fun back then, really did lead to another. …