No deduction required Coley. It was spelled out clearly in the article that the intent was to create a fly that would/could fish like a plug and a spoon and get similar results.

It's never been a line between right and wrong. It's the same ol' line that distinguishes fly fishing from conventional spinning and casting gear which I think has been rehashed more than enough. Whenever someone remarks as you did that "((it has). . . more to do with flyfishers wanting to catch fish for a change." it causes me to think that your either haven't fly fished very long or at least not long enough to learn how effective it is, or that your need to catch a fish exceeds any desire to catch one under the self-imposed constraints of traditional fly fishing. If I never caught fish by fly fishing I'm sure I would have moved on to something else long before now. Mind you, knowing what I know now, I probably wouldn't begin fly fishing for steelhead today because it's easier to learn when there are enough fish and conditions are suitable for providing positive and negative feedback while learning technique.

Adding fish catching characteristics to flies is part of the tradition. The tradition becomes gray in steelhead and Atlantic salmon fishing because we're not trying to imitate or simulate a food source like with trout and most other fly fishing. A few friends of mine went through a phase of tying flies with only natural materials - hair, fur, feathers, wool, silk, but no mylar tinsel or any of the commonly used cheniles. The old school doesn't frown on inovation. I think what the old school frown on is taking the easy way out. Modifying materials and methods to attain conventional gear catch results with a fly rod is considered taking the easy way. That's why you won't see old schoolers nymphing for steelhead with a bobber and split shot or trying to make a plug or spoon out of a fly.

I must know a half dozen guys who when they go steelheading in BC in the summer and fall use floating lines only. No sink tips allowed in camp. And no weighted flies. It's not that there's anything "wrong" about using sink tips, but limiting oneself to the floating line is probably the best way to expand one's knowledge of just how effective one can be with it. Of course it's easier to go down this path after having already caught a lot of fish and a few 20# steelhead to the resume don't hurt either. It can get crazier. Three friends of mine were on the Hoh a few seasons ago, and in an alcohol induce epiphany decided to swear off using graphite rods and pitched a stack of perfectly good Sage rods (I saw the photograph, and it's real) into the campfire. They fish only bamboo now. That's farther than I'm willing to go, but it must be right for them.

Whether the distinctions are rediculous is a personal perspective. They aren't rediculous to me. How I catch fish matters to me because the "how" affects the satisfaction I get from the experience. I value a steelhead taken on a floating line more than one I catch using a sink tip line. If I just wanted to catch a fish I should value a steelhead taken in a gillnet or with blasting caps just as much as one taken on a dry fly, but I don't. I think methods matter to most fishermen. Each person simply draws the line where they find their best personal fit.

Sure, at the end of the day we're all trying to catch a fish, and for some catching the fish is all that matters, and for others there is more that matters.

Redhook,

Good find! Unfortunately it's not legal to bring those polar bear rugs into the U.S. I guess that's why polar bear has become so expensive. The only legal supply is pre-1972 (I wrongly stated 1973 above), and it's becoming scarcer.

Sg