SciGuy,

Yeah, about like that, or maybe different. As tradition has given in to innovation, or subversion as some prefer, I decided that fly fishing is anything anyone wants to call it. Because how other people choose to fish is of no matter to me. However, if I see someone with a spinning or baitcasting reel on the NF Stilly in the summer, I'll call on that because WDFW has a legal definition of fly fishing for waters designated as fly fishing only. And since the legal definition has changed over time, it carries less meaning than it once did as the "true" definition of fly fishing.

The true definition has to be philosophical in nature, since the law of the state has shown it can be subverted by the whimsy of political will. A few years back, in a moment of elitist inebriation, I determined that "true" fly fishing consist of, and only of, fishing with fly rods made of split cane, reels made in England, line made of silk (or horsehair for the purists), leaders of gut, and flies dressed only with natural materials, no synthetic fibers or mylar tinsel. And obviously no split shot or dumbell eyes; sorry Clouser fans. Anyone deviating from "true" fly fishing is just another bait chucking subversive using carbon fiber rods, anodized aluminum reels machined initially in the US, but now mostly in Asia, plastic lines, nylon and flourocarbon leader materials, not to mention many forms of metallic adornment to both flies, leaders, and even lines, like those labeled "T" as in T-8, T-11, or T-14, with the T representing tungsten, one of the heavier metals around that isn't radio-active. It's subversion, all of it!

Oh, and it helps if you're wearing a genuine Donegal houndstooth tweed jacket for fishing while you're at it.

Now that we've determined that there isn't a "true" fly fisherman remaining anywhere on the planet, I trust we're all free to carry on and fish as we like, and call it whatever we wish, so long as we keep it legal, since we've clearly forsaken any allegiance to a natural higher law of fly fishing.

AP,

There are several of those xtranormal cartoon about fishing, bait v fly, swing v nymph, and funny, at least for open-minded folks.

Todd,

See you this afternoon.

Sg