"Warren" wrote

I also noticed something that I haven't seen
before happen. It seemed like in certain areas flocks of
fishermen would congregate on a nice run and fan out for some
combat fishing. The water would be totally open upstream and
downstream for as far as you could see, but people would still
group together like that. We would just keep on going and find
a nice place to ourselves. I still don't understand why that
was happening since there are fish all over the river.


Not that it matters, but I've noticed this for years, and it IS getting more
and more obvious in fly fishing. I have some theories G

Preface:
I am a loner, and have backpacked, hunted and fished alone for all my life,
starting well before I was old enough to drive myself to the Sierra to hike
alone for a week. I'm not a hermit, and I don't "avoid" others, nor do I
dislike being around them, but I don't seek them out, either. I've been
aware of being "different" in this respect since my teen years and before
.... that is probably why I've thought about the "whys" of why people "gang
fish" or "gang hunt" and the very, very obvious trend the last 15 years
towards "foursomes" in fly fishing

Briefly, the theories

(1) Many people, naturally, have a deep "fear" ( can't think of a better
word ) of being alone. In past cultures, time alone was far more common
and more people became comfortable with that aloneness. But this is far
more pronounced in our modern age where many people have had the damn TV or
a radio or a frickin cell phone on nearly every waking moment that they have
not had other humans in sight. ( why do they "need" the cell phone or
walkie talkie?.. often it ain't information sharing, it's to avoid being
alone ) I think our "technoculture" is increasing the level of "aloneness
fear" in many people by very simply never allowing them to practice
aloneness.

(3) More, percentage wise, people are being raised in crowded conditions,
with little or any time really alone. Yesterday I watched the 10 year old
neighbor kid BB gun hunting the counside around here and thought about how
few youngsters today EVER get that far from a crowd and he was only about
1/2 mile from home, but alone

(3) A LOT of people getting into fly fishing the last decade or so have no,
zero, other real outdoors experience, none. From many, mowing the lawn is
a wilderness experience, and big cities are not too crowded.

If you or I head into the backcountry ... alone .... then step off the trail
with the intention of going miles cross country, alone, we will experience,
if only briefly, the emotional attachment the human being has for the
security of other humans and the "man made" ....regardless of our outdoors
experience level. For all of us, to some degree, manmade = secure, Nature =
scary

I KNOW it "sounds stupid" to anyone with real outdoors experience, but I see
people on the stream that seem so uncomfortable outdoors that I bet they are
afraid to enter the "wilderness" between "gang fishers," alone. Heah, think
of the guys that think they need a damn gun to leave the paved road, before
you poo poo the idea G

(4) common ones that have affected all fishermen and hunters at one time
"he's catching let's move over there"
"I don't know the area but everyone seems to be over there, that must be
good"
and the very human
"monkey see, monkey do"