Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Why do we fly fish?

I recently heard an interesting radio broadcast interview regarding why folks enjoy fly fishing. It was pretty much the standard cliches about the simplicity, the challange, and getting back to nature. It's funny, I've been thinking about this same question a bit for the past previous week or two. What got me thinking about it, was of all things, archery. About the same time I started fly fishing, I used to spend alot of time as a kid shooting a bow and arrow. I would read alot about how hunting with a bow and arrow was much more challenging and required alot more dedication and commitment than using a gun because of the basic simplicity of the equipment being used. That all made sense, just like why folks enjoyed fly fishing. Long story short, I got away from archery a long while back, and thought about getting back into it. As I started to do some research regarding buying some equipment, I found myself scratching my head. Back then, the bow I used looked like this
As I started to search for equipment being used today, the bows I found look like this
As a matter of fact, from what I can tell, more and more folks seem to be opting for a crossbow
So one wonders, if folks are interested in the simplicity and the challenge, why are they looking for equipment that removes both the simplicity and the challenge? To be honest, I sometimes wonder the same thing about fly fishing. I’m fine with however folks want to hunt/fish, as long as it’s legal. I just wonder if they aren’t missing out on some of the potential satisfaction that they seek.