Fly Fishing,    Fly Tying,    Underground Entertainment

Fly Fishing Biggest Time Waster of Outdoor Sports? (McManus Thinks So...)

By Tom Chandler 9/8/2010

I've often said that everything I own carries a maintenance cost with it - a tax you basically pay just for owning something (in time, attention or money). It's why I want to whittle down my bamboo fly rod collection - and why at one point in my life I realized I needed to enact a moratorium on fly tying stuff.

Now, outdoor humor writer Patrick McManus echoes that thought - and puts fly fishing in its rightful place in the time consumption food chain:


I had a gun safe crammed with rifles and shotguns and handguns, modern firearms and muzzle-loaders. Each one had a tiny mouth attached to it, unless, of course, I wanted to use it for hunting. Then it instantly grew a huge mouth. But firearms could not hold a candle to fishing paraphernalia. Every little artificial fly in my fly boxes, which were the size of trunks, came with a huge and insatiable mouth. My whole life could have been used simply to organize my collection of flies and the gathering of fly-tying material and tools.

True, I avoided organizing any of my fishing gear, and thereby saved some time from its thousands of time-gobbling mouths. But that made me feel guilty. It was years before I realized that fly fishing is a full-time endeavor that gobbles up whole lifetimes. Any kind of fishing does.


And frankly, minimalist types like myself (as if the word could be applied to any fly fisherman) can't hold a candle to Obsessive-Compulsive avid fly tyers like Dave Roberts and "King of Roadkill" Singlebarbed (whose materials dyeing practices just got his house listed as a Superfund site).

See you feeding all the little mouths, Tom Chandler.

AuthorPicture

Tom Chandler

As the author of the decade leading fly fishing blog Trout Underground, Tom believes that fishing is not about measuring the experience but instead of about having fun. As a staunch environmentalist, he brings to the Yobi Community thought leadership on environmental and access issues facing us today.

It does, it shows that he read Moby-Dick. Sorry about the late post, just returned from California and some urban lm bass fishing.
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I'm not sure the word "seriously" applies to any portion of this post...
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I have it on good authority that fly tying materials can be taken with you into the next life, you just need to cram the coffin full then insist on being embalmed using Naptha. Frankly, this explains a lot.
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Aren't you already?
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Got something better to do? Seriously.
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Do you need help thinning that bamboo collection? I'm thinking I need a small stream rod with a nice soft action.
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I love messing with tackle and tying stuff. I also keep a journal filled with pics / poetry / stories of the days spend on the water. Tying, organizing/ collecting materials, lubing the old perfects, and waxing the rods make winter and other times I can't get on the water a real joy. The guys make fun of me when we tie at a show my "travel" kit is close to 45 pounds in a huge rolling duffel...... ... more I'm not sure "whittling down" is the right way to refer to reducing your bamboo rod collection...I'd be more than happy to store them offsite for you for a few years in case you change your mind.... It is after all a fine and pleasant misery.
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Waste of time? Not on your life. I have it on good authority that fly tying materials can be taken with you into the next life, you just need to cram the coffin full then insist on being embalmed using Naptha. Silly Pharaohs took handmaidens and servants, jars of intestines and precious jewelry - all of which are subject to inflation and worth spit after resurrection. A fistful of Dun capes and a ... more sack of baby seal and your set for this life or any other.
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Waste of Time? Maybe that's true; but if so, I'd like to waste the rest of my life!
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