Originally Posted By: ColeyG
Originally Posted By: summerrun

I guess my real question is what defines flyfishing?


You do. And I do. We all do. Those many that have come before, and all of those that will come after.

In any given pursuit, it seems like there are those that gravitate to and/or strive for a certain level of purity. What defines "pure" is often the subject of great debate and many unwinnable arguments stemming from opinions driven by great passion for the game, or, in some cases, a general proclivity for conflict smile On the flip side, there are others, perhaps the majority, that tend to dabble in and dwell more towards the surface level of knowledge and ability, while either not caring for, or not knowing much about things like style or the purists definition of this or that. Of course many lie somewhere in between.

To me, pure fly fishing is fishing with a fly rod, fly line, and hand made fly constructed out of synthetic or natural materials. I realize that there are many levels beyond that, most with merit, but that is just about as far as I have time or care to take the issue both in personal value and in conversation.

Most anything that you can fish with a gear rod you can fish with a fly rod and vice versa. Beyond enjoyment of the process and purity of the pursuit, I tent to focus on effectiveness. I can fish a bead or glo bug rig far more effectively with my center pin rod than I can the fly rod. In most instances, I can fish that same water far more effectively with a long float rod and bait casting rig and the same terminal tackle. Why choose one over the others. Only you can answer that. For me, depends on the day.

I hate fishing the bead for the same reasons I dislike many forms of fishing. It's tedious, redundant and robot like, at times boring, it feels like a compromise, removes me from the best part of the strike, and, as KK likes to say, is the "fly fishing" equivalent of kissing your sister. That having been said, catching fish is fun, and so I do it.

I just got a handful of rhea feathers in the mail a few days back. Been playing around with some ostrich, marabou, rabbit and rhea combinations and have been having fun so far.

Good stuff guys.


My philosophy on these matters is very similar to yours in that I tend to factor effectiveness into my decisions on how and with what to fish. Granted, I have my own long, complicated list of preferences, but in the end, it would be dishonest for me to say I am so married to those preferences that I will accept a low probability of catching fish in favor of being able to use my favorite methods exclusively.

As for purity, there are far too many definitions around "pure" fly fishing to allow any of them to be absolute. At one extreme, there is a contingent that believes fishing only needs to be done with a fly rod and fly line to be legitimately considered fly fishing. Personally, I feel this definition falls a bit short in that something called "Fly fishing" should involve something called a "fly," but my opinion doesn't make theirs any less valid.

At the other extreme, there are those who will argue that the only true fly fishing is done with a floating line and a dry fly that "matches the hatch," fished on a dead drift. This basically describes the early British method, which most agree was not the original method. One school of thought (see Wikipedia) states that the origins of fly fishing lie in Macedonia, where an elite group of fishermen are said to have cast chunks of red wool and a couple of non-descript cock feathers tied to a hook into small streams, using a 6-foot rod and a 6-foot length of line. This "fly," by modern definitions, would be classified as an attractor pattern, and the concept of this being the original method of fly fishing seems to suggest that the most pure (if that is defined by originality) forms of fly fishing bear more similarity to fishing yarn flies and beads on a dead drift for steelhead, which is a relatively young practice, than the traditional British methods.

Ultimately, I think being overly concerned with purity, however you define it, can severely limit one's ability to catch fish, especially when targeting fish like freshwater salmon and steelhead, who are much more concerned with staking their claim to a redd and a mate than a meal. I am convinced that steelhead (particularly summer runs, who spend a good deal more time in freshwater than winter runs or salmon) will eat, but a lot more of them probably bite as a response to a stimulus in a presentation that triggers an instinctive strike than in the name of eating.

My favorite methods of fishing for steelhead involve swinging flies (wet or dry) through a fish's holding area, but I don't limit myself to those methods, for these reasons:

  • That type of fishing requires a very specific type of holding water that is more abundant in some streams than in others, but regardless does not represent the only water that will hold fish.
  • Being primarily a bank angler, there is a definite limit to the amount of the aforementioned holding water that I can get to from a given public access point.
  • I occasionally enjoy switching up methods to break the monotony of a slow day.

As for fishing with beads, yarn, jigs, etc., I am not above doing it, and in fact, I sometimes enjoy it. As much as I wish I could say that I catch most of my fish on elegant spey flies that I spent hours to tie, to do so would be to lie. I have caught more fish on a puff of yarn (with or without a bead), if I'm being honest, and I find it very challenging to consistently achieve the kind of dead drifts required to effectively fish such lures, so I don't think it makes me any less of a fly rod fisher guy in terms of skills than someone who swings exclusively.

My bottom line is a common one in this thread - do what makes you happy, with no regard to what others think (as long as you aren't intentionally flossing/snagging fish). And if you're out there nymphing a piece of pocket water one day and a guy with a spey rod* walks by you with his nose in the air on his way to the one productive tailout within the accessible mile of the river, take comfort in these facts:

  • He is walking past a lot of good holding water that you will be able to fish.
  • You are probably more of a "purist" than he is, if history is any indication.

* Note that I do not intend to classify spey fishermen as elitists. To do so would be far from the truth, and furthermore it would be to condemn myself, who also takes pleasure in the fine art of spey casting. I just needed someone to pick on to make my point.