Peter Charles wrote:

A fishing life offers all sorts of opportunities for mini-epiphanies
and I've recently tripped over one that's worth mentioning.

"Why do we fish?" For all of us, it's more than just catching fish,
but the "catching" is always required somewhere in the mix. The
social aspects plus the opportunity to innovate has always been much
higher than "catching", on my priority list. As is obvious with such
priorities, my "catching" suffers. Frankly, I don't put nearly as
much effort into it as I should. But when I ask this hard question
again, am I ordering my priorities this way because they suit me or in
part because I don't want to make the effort to move beyond an average
level of "catching"? In other words, am I hiding behind my priorities
to save myself the bother of doing the "catching" right?

Enter the minimalist angler as a highly effective angler. I've always
loaded myself up with bulging vest, stuffed pockets, spare spools,
spare rods in the car, all precautions against not having the right
thing to satisfy picky trout. But this load of gear is really a
recognition that I haven't taken the time, haven't made the effort to
know what I'm doing. I have burdened myself physically with armloads
of gear to avoid having to take on the mental burden of selecting just
what is necessary and no more –- to avoid having to know what I'm
doing.

So here I am on Whitemans, wet wading, one small fly box, one spool of
tippet, one rod, one reel, and thinking about what I am actually doing
instead of just chucking the contents of multiple flyboxes at
unimpressed fish. Before I left the house, I had decided where I
would fish using the right bug for that water, time of day, and at
that point in the season. Bingo, epiphany time. By forcing a
minimalist approach, I have to really know what I'm doing as there's
no margin for error. I've stripped away the excuses, the multiple
flybox crutches, and faced the fish armed with a handful of flies and
my wits. Stripped of the superfluous gear, I'm reading water,
examining bugs, search bankside bushes, catching fish, and in the
process, discover that there's an amazing mental clarity to the
minimalist approach.

Is it more fun? You betchya.

When you can sit down to the vise, tie up two identical dry flies,
put one on the brim of your hat and the other on the end of your
tippet, then walk down to the stream at precisely the right time
KNOWING that you'll catch as many fish as you care to, that's a
minmalist approach. Of course, if you live right on the stream you
know the flies of the season and have naturals to copy just by
picking them off the screen door. It's quite a bit harder for the
"weekend warrior" who has to travel to the stream.

Damn, I miss Montana.

--
Ken Fortenberry