Hawgdaddy at the TVA blog recounted the exposure of one of his “secret” spots on a fly fishing forum, and fired off what we’re calling “Fly Fishing Blogger One-Liner of the Week“:
“If you’re going to engage in such questionable behaviors as promiscuity and fly fishing, you ought at least be discreet about it.”
(I’d suggest promiscuity is getting a bad rap, but that’s only because I know a lot of fly fishers.)
Is it time for online fly fishermen to institute their own “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy?
See you at all the Secret Spots, Tom Chandler.
Technorati Tags: Fly fishing,fishing,secret spots,promiscuity
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Well there are the guys (sluts) who just have to tell the whole world every detail. Then there are the exhibitionist types who tell us all about it (with pictures) but keep the stream and locations to themselves. :>))
“Never kiss and tell” should be the fly fisher/bloggers mantra - if you did you will soon find you run out of people willing to show you their sweet spots !
I always understood the custom of sharing fishing spots this way: Say my best friend took me to a spot. I could go back there with him, or alone. But I could never take someone else there without my friend’s assent. Application of this principle has led me to take friends to places I might otherwise not have visited with them, because they’d then be unable to share the spot with others. Preventive action
The web is just not suited to this principle. That’s why I’m going on record now: I have absolutely no fishing spots at all. Nope.
Greg: Rest assured I take my taunting responsibilities seriously.
Alistair: Half the fun of the sport is the discovery aspect.
Don’t ask don’t tell I always say when it comes to anything other than hatchery water. I am also starting to rethink showing people how to fly fish in general (unless I really like them);-). The sport it far to hard to learn and too expensive. Also many of the local streams are full of poison snakes etc. You know somewhere out there is a guy who taught Donnie Beaver how to cast.
Hey Tom - Have you read Robert Traver and his take on Kiss and Tell fisherman ? V. Amusing !
Such is the conundrum of the fly fishers’ lot. Threats seem to abound, both from within and without this quiet sport. Fly fishermen can be a contradictory crowd. We hope for the political clout to fend of the largest menaces (like Nestle and Pebble Mine) and the smaller and just as dangerous urges of local politicos. Yet the traditional secrecy (as urged by W.D. Wetherell, et al.) essentially insures that all but the most stubborn of new fly fishers are shut out from the enjoyment that keeps us fanatical about the sport, thus imposing limits on our political clout.
What are we to do?
I’m going fishing. I’ll post photos later.
Patrick has nailed it as far as I’m concerned. I grew up in East Tennessee where the the Little Tennessee tailwater was dammed up to create Tellico Lake and a slew of lakeside golf communities. The project wasn’t popular at the time but fly fishers were barely heard from. The “Little T” was widely compared to Western rivers because of it’s long riffles, prolific hatches, and numerous large trout.
Those same type of issues are present all across the country while many of the most dedicated fly fishers grow more antisocial all the time.
I don’t think we need to trim the number of fly fishers, just encourage folks to get out and try to discover places for themselves. Regardless of the internet you can easily tell the spots where fly shops and magazines steer people.
Patrick: I have to disagree with half of your contention; an active constituency is great, but an unwillingness to give GPS coordinates to favorite water doesn’t equate to selling the sport’s future down the… uh… river.
After all, access to somebody’s favorite water isn’t an entitlement. In the case of the Upper Sac, if a newcomer is too cheap or lazy to buy the map detailing all the river accesses, I’d suggest they’re not long for the sport — or a reliable prospect in the fight to protect our waters.
Ian: I’m raising the “unfair example” flag. Tellico Dam was built in the 70’s — long before the organizations that would fight such a monstrosity today had their sea legs (or even existed).
Fly fishers are notoriously difficult to rouse for political fights (ask me how I know), but it’s far better than it used to be. After all, we’re now fighting to have dams removed instead of fighting to prevent their construction, so something good’s started to happen.
Tom, I raise a point without a solution to offer. Even as a relatively new fly fisher I hold some “secret spots” close to the vest. But particularly as a new fly fisher, I worry about those who might have become a valuable part of the constituency but didn’t have the mentor(s) that I have lucked upon to share encouragement (and a few hints) rather than side-long glances. On the other hand, I don’t want ‘em crowding my water… My brain hurts.
Patrick: I’ll give you the mentoring thing. It’s interesting how another fly fisher can transmogrify from asshole to buddy on the stream after the exchange of a few words.
I’m happy to help people catch more fish, but not necessarily on the few places I’ve found by hiking to them…
Too many people want information handed to them on a silver platter like everything else in life. Like everyone else is saying, for me the exploration is half the fun. I never cease to be amazed at all the people wanting specific instructions on which pool to fish and which rock has a fish behind it and what fly is needed to fool said fish…
It is incredible the amount of specific information you can find on the internet with just a little bit of effort. If people were as selective with sharing information as some of the fish we target are with what they’ll eat, there would be a lot more honey holes to discover on your own. Unfortunately, finding solitude can be a difficult chore these days usually involving a long walk (but it is worth it!!!).
So, in the spirit of sharing, all kidding aside, here is the exact location of one of my best kept secret spots.
Funny how with all the secret spots around Larry the Wonder Poacher just fished “in town” and knocked them blind from all reports with salmon eggs.
Personally I think that if a place causes you pain to get to and also entails a certain risk to life and limb it ought to be kept secret for “safety’s” sake…
But to me the most sacred and secret spot is the one the Hatchery Stocking truck cannot get to. ( and thus the likes of Larry)
Mark and David: So true. The experience that cemented my pursuit of fly fishing, was in a little spot about a X-mile hike east of XXXX XXXXXX with a bunch of little trout that gave me a lot of fun and showed that I could fool fish with the general skills passed along by willing mentors. Of course I’ve never been a stranger to hiking-for-fish.
Tom: Maybe that’s the key, I think, sharing of the general knowledge…the specifics you have to learn/earn for yourself. Like my cast, no one casts like me…thank goodness.
OK OK… I’m badgered into posting my Secret Spot. I give freely of this information the fine readers of the TU. Keep it under your hats, and be ready for a long, difficult hike of some 20 yards to the actual area of the Huge (10+ Lb) trout.
I GUARANTEE they are waiting for you.
Lots and Lots of fingerlings there too.
¡ shhhhhh !
41.3082° Lat
-122.329° Lon
Many of my local spots have been burned by guys I used to think were friends but were merely trying to use me to find fishing spots. Now I see one in particular acting like the “Big Man” and bringing other folks in there and three of those other idiots even went out and bought their own flats boats. Dicks!!!
Cap’n: The saltwater world seems to be facing more secrecy problems than even the largely covert trout crowd.
What is it? More competition? GPS?
I even got an earful on Jamie Howard’s Destination X TV show. The backchannel information suggests a lot of animosity aimed at the one guy who sold out the spot that was being shared by several folks.
Yow.
Well, Tom, with all due respect (and I should say RESPECT) I must point out that you have done great things and questionable things for the Sacramento River.
The Blog is a mixed blessing; on the one hand you are getting respect for the River and more people responding to it and thus protecting it from the likes of Larry; the Blog has garnered support for the Water Issues of Siskiyou like little before it… and it’s fun as hell.
On the flip side you are helping to increase pressure exponentially on my little River. I cannot help but think of thousands of felt or even steel spiked wading boots polishing the rocks, staffs pushed deep between the rocks damaging the Caddis nests and Pteronarcys dorsata larvae
—the ripped lipped scarred fish lolling about everywhere on the dole now… “Hey Bud… got a spare Pautzke’s?®”
I remember evenings spent with Grandpa in the quiet pools below Town, him taking a few trout for the neighbors as they were pretty poor and fresh fish meant the world to them—evenings spent
without seeing another fisherman. Many of them spent until dark with only the occasional child floating by on their way to be picked up in Castella, truck tube and all. This when the Dunsmuir population was 8000! (and the Stonefly population was 8 trillion)
I appreciate You Tom and the Blog and the way Fishing is in a way Saving Dunsmuir, but part of me wants to pat you on the back and part of me wants to paste you one! ;—)
—ultimately it’s not you I’m pissy about… it’s that there are simply too many people, even in Dunsmuir, lolling about fishing or pretending to, haunting places which used to be rarified and special and in some cases leaving salmon egg jars or worm containers or beer cans or damaged stream beds. Privacy on the upper Sac. is gone. Water bottles are the new beer can.
But you know Me Tom, I see the dark cloud behind every silver lining!
Mark: Based on anecdotal evidence from guides and other fly fishers, if the Underground’s having any effect at all on the Upper Sac, it’s been to drive fly fishers away; there are far fewer fly fishermen on the river now than there was when I first moved here almost a decade ago.
Used to be I’d stay home on weekends during the Fall; now it hardly matters.
If there was the potential for a problem, it’s been short-cut by the fact I’m a pretty middlin’ fly fisher who pretty much only fishes dries.
Empty river? Disgusted readers headed for better water with bigger fish?
It’s Mission Accomplished here in Mt. Shasta.
We got into this issue recently, and I’d to hear the Underground’s opinion. We have a lot of water in Oregon that we just don’t talk about, we’ve got the “big names” that we do talk about, and then there’s stuff that’s in between. We recently posted about a hatch we heard might be coming off on a well known river near a populated area. We posted a map to a town and said “Fish around here”. No GPS coordinates, just a Google Map link to a town. Find your own access — and if you do find it, good luck climbing down the gorge to the damn river. That wasn’t burning a spot in my opinion, but at least one reader disagreed and was pretty pissed. I think the perception of “drawing a map” from the graphic may have angered that person more than the actuality of what we were saying, but I’m curious as to what constitutes burning a fishing spot online. And what’s the difference between Online and print? Did NW Fly Fishing “burn” my town run on the McKenzie this month? They named my boat launch for crying out loud. Or are they promoting a fishery, sending business to local fly shops, and promoting conservation of the resource. Is there a double standard for print vs. Web?
Whether a spot’s been “burned” or not probably hinges on whether it’s your favorite water — or the other guy’s.
I’ve seen people fly into a tizzy because somebody posted photos that could somehow lead to an ID, and yet I’ve been hammered for playing it a little too cute by not revealing my favorite places on the Upper Sac.
In other words, there’s no winning, there’s no right or wrong, and I simply refrain from positive IDs because A) I don’t want a half dozen guys standing in my water waiting for the hatch to start, and B) Some of the smaller, out of the way waters definitely would be affected by increased pressure.
As for the destination magazine, they’re not generating tourist dollars for the locals, they’re executing a business plan that leads to profit for them.