We carry a heavy burden at the Underground; we believe in providing a Quality Fly Fishing Online Entertainment Experience, and when you’re not looking, we throw in a few fishing reports, photographs, informational articles, industry snark news and "what the hell are they doing" environmental posts.
Of course, we’re also the Fly Fishing Blogosphere’s Leader in Giving Stuff Away (which frankly isn’t saying much).
Today, we’ve got a twofer going — the winner gets to chose between an AEG Fish Bum 1: Mongolia DVD, or a copy of Patrick McManus’ Kerplunk (outdoor humor essays).
Win an AEG DVD or McManus’ latest humor book (Kerplunk)
"How can I win one of these incredibly valuable prizes" you ask?
Simple. Post a comment stating — in your own, incredibly lucid prose — whether you reel left or right (if you reel neither, then pick one and pretend).
We’ll award bonus points for those comments that hint at the deviancy of the other camp, and then chuck ‘em all and pick a winner based on a random number generated by atmospheric noise.
See — at the Underground, the giving never stops. Never.
See you at the random number generator, Tom Chandler.
{ 45 comments… read them below or add one }
Like the saying goes, “Left is right and right is wrong.” That’s why it’s right to reel left.
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I reel left in freshwater, and right in saltwater. The reason bein, bzzz, ffphit, zzhh, ddssttz…
Sorry…I think the atmospheric noise is attracted to my keyboard.
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This is what’s left of your promised give-away? It ain’t right.
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Left, of course. Don’t all upright standing, opposable thumb using right-handers. Guess I can cut some slack for southpaws. Never made any sense to me to switch hands just for the heck of it. Just like sensible eating – beer in one hand, grub in the other.
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You can do it with your left hand or with your right hand. As long as it feels right when you do it and you get it done quickly. (Oh … let me add ;-) if you don’t understand the euphemism involved)
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Wade in, cast up, drift down, strip left, and reel right. Did I leave anything out?
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I’m a righty because when I was a kid I was the opposite of ambidextrous, and now all of my reels are set up that way. I’ll be darned if I’m going to waste my fishing-time messing with fixing what ain’t broke. My contempt for “the other camp” stems from their misguided and rather annoying inferiority-complex…because, let’s be honest, it really doesn’t matter. I catch fish, you catch fish, and we both know we lose fish too. I’ll take the RiverWolf please.
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I reel lefty, mainly ’cause I don’t want to be one of them silly folks who has to switch the rod from hand to hand every time they get a fish on.
However, once in a while I reel right-handed because, well, it feels like someone else is doing it.
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I cast right and then reel right as well. It’s the way I learned and it works for me.
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Kentucky: So you’re saying the (free) Web site you’re visiting (for free) isn’t providing valuable enough prizes (for free)?
Tough crowd.
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I have to reel lefty because I’m holding the copy of Kerplunk that I won in your last contest with my right hand. So I’d like to win the DVD so I can download it to my iPhone and watch it streamside while reading…
OK?
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This is trout,why not play the fish with your
dominate hand and reel left.You can teach your
left hand to go around in little circles.Now
salt is a different deal with big game and you
may need that right hand to crank them in per
the gurus.
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The last couple of days the only thing I have had on the reel is a couple of rhododendrons. They fight pretty good and I like to reel with the left when battling them.. so I don’t get too tired when it comes time to break them off:)
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I reel lefty because when I started fly fishing last year, everybody said….”You HAVE to reel left.” It seemed very important to those saying it so I didn’t argue. So there…I said it…I reel lefty and I don’t know why!
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Hey Dude!
Man, it’s been a while, dude! But hey, sign me up for the free stuff, yea? Man, don’t listen to that Kentucky Jim guy. I think I know him. He’s like a guide, man. Gets all his stuff for free, you know? Pro-deal this, pro-deal that. It’s a great scam, is all I have to say. Buy a cheap-o California guide license (fog a mirrior and it’s yours, dude!) and start reelin in the free goodies. Its been good for me, dude. Buy like 2 or 3 of each, then ebay the ones you don’t need. Pays for the one you want, right? Kentucky Jim must have that figured out big-time, no? Probly a guide living full-time in the bay area that has his business card showing his home water is like 300 miles a way, dude! But what the hey! Cheapo fly lines and give away priced waders is where its at. Specially with me hustling in the parking lot at Marriots! Get them dudes coming back to their cars, they get great deals, and I get the cash.
Yea, back in LA. Mom got out of the hospital, right after I got out of CJ. Yea, couldn’t beat the rap, even with Mom swearin on a stack of bibles that I didn’t do nothin! This elder-abuse stuff is like totally out of hand! You couldn’t believe the laws they say I broke! Mom did get me a good attorney, so I got em pleaded down to misdemeanors, so’s I could still guide, you know?
So, yea, I’m back livin with Mom. But hey! It’s not like I’m the only guide in California livin with Momma, right? Yea, I’m still cool. Probly get some kinda support group goin’, ya know? Cal Guides depending on Mom or something like that, you know. Or Moms on Depends living with their guide sons? I can make fun of that now, dude! Social services is coming in all the time. They take care of that shit, now..heh..heh..I can laugh at that now, dude. Last month it was seriously not funny, dude.
And I thought I had a new source of indicators, too! Tore up some of those Depends and tried em out. Not good, dude. Stick with the macrame rope.
So, look man, I’m seriously interested in your free stuff. You know, I didn’t have the internet in CJ. You get caught trying to log onto the “good sites” , the man rips you. So I was like persona non porno for months dude! Yea, yea, the free stuff. So like I said, I’m in. And like I also said, I been without the net for a while, so I missed your previous free stuff. So, it’s kinda like you owe me from before, right? So it would be cool with me, and everybody else here if you like bumped me to the front of the freebie line, right? Can’t have that Kentucky guy gettin all the stuff. I’m needy, man. More than Kentucky dude is. And like I all ready told you, I’m a guide, living with Mom. Kentucky never told you he guides and lives with his Mom. But you and me, we know, right? Kinda read between the lines?
So you take care, and I’ll write you again, right after I win. OKl?
Cool Eddy
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Ladies and Gentlemen, we are once again in the presence of greatness.
Cool Eddy has returned.
Tomorrow I will try to dig up all the original posts from our anonymous fly fishing caricature, and post them somewhere handy.
Those of you who didn’t experience Cool Eddy the first time around, well, get ready to laugh.
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cast left, reel right. That’s how the truly enlightened do it. Switching hands is a little like “switch hitting”, if you know what i mean .. .i mean, you gotta decide which team you bat for: )
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I ALWAYS cast right, reel left unless wearing boxers, then all bets are off, because I almost always forget my compass at home.
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I reel lefty with a fly rod and spinner and righty with a baitcaster. I never put any thought into it…it’s just what’s natural for me.
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Depends on the fish I’m chasing.
If my number wins, pass it along to cool eddy
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Always cast right, reel left – I had to convince those bastards at SDS that I was leaning that way and still sorta normal, but they still looked at me cross-eyed anyway. I tried, I tried, but just cause you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. Right? I mean, right? Left? And then there’s that voice in my head, I think it’s from the left side, or is it? “Cmon, one more try and then change the damn fly already!”
-Steve
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always reel right; dominant hand
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Cast right, reel right — because it’s right, and, because I’ve never done anything different.
DVD, please; I’ve already read the book.
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Cast and reel right, of course. The opposite would be, by definition, sinister. Dexter may be sort of a dork, or at least you would expect him to be from his name, but he’s certainly right. I’ll admit to a bit of lefty baitcasting every now and then just to keep the arm working. BTW, Tom, about that alternative to the traditional trout opener: I did it, but the stench of skunk is strong with me. If you can imagine two old farts in short, wide kayaks trying to paddle 2.5NM into a headwind with 40-knot gusts, you’ll understand why I’m not casting much at all for a few more days.
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Cast right, reel left.
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Cast w/ right, reel w/ left, naturally.
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I started out as a youngster reeling right, being as my home town is where Senator Joe “Tail Gunner” McCarthy got his political start. Attending the liberal University of Wisconsin – Madison, I of *course* began to reel left. And I still do that to this day.
I’m thinking of changing back though. The other day one of the right-reelers asked me why I hated America so much. As a patriot, apparently I *have* to reel right.
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Excellent comments.
Not only has Cool Eddy returned, but this was clearly an exercise in acquiring The Bigger Picture, and several have done so with gusto (political commentary, TV serial killers, mental health, underwear, sexual innuendo…).
Keep ‘em coming.
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I’m a switch hitter, I prefer right but can do left when called upon.
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I cast right and reel left because I don’t wear tweed sport coats and knickers when I fish.
I cast dry flies downstream, also.
And well, I am not a little girly man who has to switch hands when I hook the beast cuz my casting arm is too weak to do both.
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I reel left, but I recently found myself with four Pflueger Medalist 1492 1/2s which only reel right. So, cheapskate that I am, I’m learning to use the things as opposed to buying more suitable reels. I tried turning them around backwards, but that violated something in my psyche I don’t understand. Anyway, I go both ways…er…you know what I mean.
hawgdaddy
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I reel left. Makes no sense to lose time switching hands to reel.
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I think the “real” question is the general lack of any reeling goint on right now. I can’t remember which hand I last used.
I need some fishing. Give me a cane pole for all I care.
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I reel Left cause I don’t have a choice…It is a long story. Happened years ago when I was wrestling Gators. I wont bore you with the details…Cant blame the Gator, I probably looked like a one winged Green Drake caught in a Back Eddy…
I don’t want to hear all these sorry little stories about your ambidextrous reeling handicaps…Try driving a motorcycle on the NJ Turnpike and not being able to Flip the Bird..
If I win I will take the DVD, it is easier to use the remote than turn a page on the toilet…See ya on the Water, I gotta go polish my alligator boots..
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Left is the new right.
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I reel with my left because it is the only thing my left hand can do with anything approaching proficiency. The right gets to do everything else and it would be cruel to take away the left’s one raison d’etre.
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Don’t ask…Don’t tell.
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Oh left all the way, using the right and switching is just plain posh.
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oatka: A hint of pathos… excellent.
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Cast right and reel left for freshwater–why change hands and risk losing a fish?–and reel righty in the salt. Salty fish build up more slack line than my left can keep up with.
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Lots of entrants, and if you want to enter, but haven’t, better get moving.
I plan to wrap this up Thursday (tomorrow) so we can have a winner before my trip to the SF Bay Area for the CalTrout fundraiser.
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Wow! This has become a big hatch.
Ok, when it comes to flyreels I turn into a lefty.
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By the way, I’d really like the DVD if I win.
No, you don’t; Yes I do; No, you don’t; Yes, I do;……….
…..Steve
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I cast with my right, and reel with my left, but I noticed on a trip to the Southern Hemisphere last year that I did just the opposite down there. Must be the Coriolis effect, what?
I have been completely unsuccessful in trying to convert my southpaw brother my RIGHT way of fishing, but he has developed a nice stutter and a shifty look.
Regards,
Larry Nash
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I cast with my right arm and reel in with my left hand, unless i’m fishing south of the Equator, in which case i cast with my left hand and reel in with my right, of course.
One other exception is when i’m casting stones into holes being fished by Dave Roberts. In that case, i use two hands and throw large stones in an overhead fashion in the vicinity of his soft hackle.
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