If you’ve ever tried to learn to fly fish, you know how difficult it is. It takes time and patience, and at times it seems like nothing new can be learned.
But if you go out and do it, you will quickly find how rewarding it can be. There are a lot of new skills to learn, and learning to fly fish doesn’t just teach you how to fish. There are a lot of skill-enhancing benefits to learning to fly fish too, so just about any skill that you can master, you can do.
For a lot of anglers the fish they are trying to catch are the ones thats already out there. They are waiting for a fish to jump out of a hole, or sit on a bed of worms in the current. These are the people that will try to “fly” their fly, and catch a fish.
Fly fishing is a sport that requires an active mind-set. When you are working with just a reel and a fly, you are not actively trying to catch a fish, but instead are trying to catch as many fish as you can. But when you’re actually catching a fish, you are actively trying to catch as many fish as possible and not just catch the ones already out there. That’s what fly fishing is all about.
Fly fishing is an active sport. It is so because it requires a lot of energy. Whether it be the tension in the line, the speed of your reel, or the amount of fish you catch, the act of fly fishing requires constant exertion. It requires you to be so engaged in the act of catching fish that you dont feel the line drag, but rather the line is pulling on you, and instead of having a full energy reserve, you are constantly using it.
Fly fishing is an active sport because it is a sport, a physical one. It could be argued that it is also a mental one as well. We can’t really control our mental energy reserves, but instead of having a finite reserve, we are continually using it.
Fly fishing is really a mental one. It requires constant mental effort. And like most sports, you have to pay to play. The physical effort required to fly fish is a lot more than fishing in general. But it is the mental effort that is the important one, because it keeps you hooked.
The only thing people can do with their physical energy is to consume it. You can’t do anything with it. But you can use it to fuel your mental energy and then use that to fly fish. Fly fishing has a lot of mental energy because the more mental energy you have, the more mental energy you’ll have to fuel your physical effort. There’s a lot of mental energy in the effort to fly fish.
Fly fishing like swimming or swimming like being in water might be the most mental activity you can do. The reason is because the mental energy you use in your physical energy is so intense. Fly fishing is a lot like swimming – if you swim very fast your body is in intense physical energy. If you swim very slowly your body is in intense mental energy. Same with flying. The more mental energy you have the more mental energy youll have to fuel your physical effort.
To fly fish you really have to have the mental energy to focus on your technique. If you are very slow you won’t get the flies to bite. If you are very fast you’ll feel like you’re drowning in the water. And if you can’t remember what you are doing you won’t know how to fish. But the more mental energy you have the better you’ll be at flying.