On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 05:40:46 -0500, George Cleveland
wrote:

Over at the message board at the Wisconsin Fly Fishing Page
(wisflyfishing.com) there has been a somewhat acrimonious debate
concerning the planned fly fishing (as opposed to fly casting) contest
that is going to be held on one of the spring creek near Madison in
conjunction with ESPN's Great Outdoor Games.

Yeah, what's with that kinda stuff, anyway? Has the US, as nation and a
people, become SO lazy that "we" need even non-contact, participatory
sports like, apparently, (fly-)fishing to be done and broadcast rather
than just going out and doing it one's ownself? Frankly, the idea of
watching ANY fishing tournament seems right up there with spending a
couple of hours watching "The Paint-Drying Show," but that's just me.

The board is divided into several camps.

Whoda thunk such a thing would be possible?

One says that this is a great thing. That it will increase awareness of
fly fishing, add to the local tourism coffers and expose Wisconsin's
great fishing to the world.

Fly-fishing doesn't need more awareness of its existence...besides,
wouldn't do any good anyway...heck, a fair portion of those with the
gear need more awareness of fly-fishing... As to the "add to the local
tourist coffers," if they mean during the event, that's probably a
given, and how much should be easy to (roughly) calculate. Of course,
there may be many folks out there who were completely unaware that
Wisconsin had fish...

Another camp says
this is a terrible thing. They say that this will reduce fly fishing
to the status of bass tounaments,

Yeah, no silly-assed e-LEET pretentious yuppie wants to be confused with
what they see as silly-assed redneck crackers...

Flyfishing has no "status" beyond what individuals wish to hang on it
for themselves...and they are almost always wrong...

that little or none of the money
generated will actually benefit the cold water fishery

Again, that should be a fact-of-the-numbers thing.

and that it
will expose Wisconsin's great fishery to the world. My own take on it
is that it will probably be considered a minor event by most viewers,
who will be watching

what appears to be from the published schedule
hours and hours of log rolling.

So, what, they'll be 26 people with the TV tuned to this, and 5 of those
only because they can't find the remote and are too lazy to get up...
"hours and hours of log rolling"?! Sweet Sadie's panties, if I only had
"hours and hours" to live, I now know how to make them seems like "years
and years"...

My question to this group, seeing that
the level of acrimony has been sinking to dangerous levels, is what do
you think of fly fishing contests, ESPN's in particular and the whole
genre in general?

What do _I_ think of the above 3 items, speaking for me? Silly, sounds
boring, and silly. What do I think _others_ should think? Well,
obviously, I hope, as do we all, that they would think the same as me,
but if they don't, hey, watch away and enjoy, if that's your thing...get
little "Lefty Kreh" action figures for the kids, and fish with whatever
your hero-o-th-moment uses...just make sure their endorsement contracts
and your pocketbook can comfortably sync up, and hope that Rolls and
Porsche don't decide to fight it out for the FFing crowd in a "damned
the expenses" kind of way...

Frankly, I suspect the whole thing is non-issue, but...

SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, at a stream near you, it's FISH ACTION at its
BEST... IT'S SPILLS! IT'S CHILLS! IT'S A THRILL-O-MINUTE!!! BRING THE
KIDS...SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY...

Reid, it's your time, boy...you know folks only watch these things for
the wrecks...you'll be bigger than Richard Petty or whatever
right-turner is hot at the moment...

HTH,
TC,
R