"Mark Tinsky" wrote

This became an entirely different clave. The group decided early
on we were only going to fish for rising fish, imitate the hatch,
and not wade into the water ; taking the classical English
approach. Some of the less radical members of the clave expressed
doubts as to how effective these methods would be while fishing
rather large rivers for steel head that rarely come to the
surface and hardly ate flies. Another limiting factor was that
there is no hatch in the Rockies during the fall making our fishing
all the more challeging ! Fortunately there were some October
caddis fluttering about as the only other hatch were midges about
size 26-28 . Most of us opted to use the October Caddis, tho the
more radical members claimed that there s no better fishing than
midging steelhead on lite tippet.



LOL

one of the greatest things about fly fishing is that it's a game where one
can choose to compete only with oneself AND make up the rules, too, thus
guaranteeing one's own success.

Only when someone makes the mistake of thinking that HIS rules should be
everyone's rules does the inherent beauty of the system get lost and lead to
bickering.

But, then, roff seems home to several people for whom the "bicker" IS the
reason for, not an intrusion into, this "fly fishing forum"

Thus, I fear your closing comment, quoted below, may prove to be too
optimistic g

"But the mood was exultant as the clave broke up on Sunday as we got
much accomplished and settled our political differences, once and for
all."

P.S. I think my rules might have been to swing a 28 midge pupa on a 7x
dropper, using a #6 lead barbell eyed Purple Peril as a top fly ... for
weight only .... any fish landed, photographed and released, on the "weight
fly" wouldn't be "counted" Fishing to match the hatch doesn't always limit
us to surface flies, despite what the damn purist lefties ( or are they the
righties ? ) say :-)