Alien styles killing ‘proper’ fly fishing - it’s gotta be stopped
Over the last 12 months two well-known fly fishermen of my acquaintance have been bigging-up french nymphing, also known as the leader-to-hand technique, in print. Similarly some bloke I’ve never met has done the same thing in the latest Fly Fishing & Fly Tying Magazine. As many of you will know, this style of fishing involves no fly line extending much beyond the fly reel. Along with its predecessor czech nymphing (a few feet of flyline being used), and japanese Tenkara fishing, with a fixed length of line attached to the rod tip this truly is thin-end-of-the–the-wedge stuff. God knows where it will end. Before too long some foreigner’s going to come along and reveal that you can catch trout on flies fished close to the edge on stillwaters!
All this alien no-flyline stuff will make redundant all those lovingly – and often expensively - acquired casting skills. AAPAGAI, APGAI, REFFIS, whatever, qualifications will count for nothing and angling instructors will be queuing at job centres the length and breadth of the land. And things will be as bad for the tackle tarts as they will be for the trade. With those gorgeous expensively-engineered reels becoming pointless, there will be much less to drool over, covet or break the bank for. Tears and breakdowns all round, I’d say.
When I was nobbut a lad, like almost every other coarse angler of my generation, I fished with rod and running line. But again, the foreign way came to stay and we got the dreaded pole. Fishing without proper casting is not british, it’s not right, and it’s got to be stopped.
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