Rich,

I finally realized I've no reason to debate the qualifications of fly fishing. As fly fishing tackle evolved over the last 20 - 30 years, I debated it a lot. Jokingly, I concluded that we are only really fly fishing when we use rods made of split cane, reels made in England, lines of silk, and leaders of gut. And of course, no weighted flies. That ain't gonna' win many fly fishing friends these days. Now days I figure anyone who is fishing within fly fishing only regulations or who thinks they are fly fishing, well, they must be fly fishing. Graphite rods, plastic lines embedded with powdered lead, tungsten, or cobalt. Flourocarbon leaders. Weighted flies are just about mandatory in many popular trout fisheries - nymphing the Madison, etc. Strike indicators, egads, there is no end to the sacrilege.

I still prefer swinging an unweighted fly on a now traditional plastic line (floating or sinking), mainly for the casting pleasure I derive. But I try some weighted flies and ultra-fast pieces of sink tips just to play around some times. And a friend gave me some jig hooks, and I've tried casting the 1/16 oz tied with a little marabou on my light two-handed rod. Not much different than a regular jig and bobber, I think. Heck, if it's fun and presents an interesting challenge, I've got no problem with it. As Sparkey mentioned, some water types, especially on small streams, just don't fish well to the traditional wet fly swing. So experimentation is an essential human attribute.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.