Symposium Report

Last thing I'M GONNA DO is apply ethanol to MY crank!!


Actually, it can be quite pleasant to apply ethanol to your crank,
provided you apply it to the *inside* of your crank, via the
alimentary canal.

Sigh... I ALWAYS overlook the simple things...

=) Larry

On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 20:10:59 -0500, vincent p. norris wrote:

Last thing I'M GONNA DO is apply ethanol to MY crank!!

Actually, it can be quite pleasant to apply ethanol to your crank,
provided you apply it to the *inside* of your crank, via the
alimentary canal.

vince
That reminds me of that old folk song "16 Beers in the Alimentary Canal".


g.c.

Aren't you sorry you mentioned it now?

"Tom Littleton" wrote in message
...
Wolfgang notes:
Take for example.....oh....say, people
who are incapable of reading a message on usenet and then formulating a
response that is in some way related to what was said in the original.

Yeah!! What the hell was my original point, by the way? Oh yes,
rejecting
daytripper's comment that nothing much had changed in flyfishing in the
past 30
years! The more I think of that one, the more I can see his point....in
the
large view, we are still doing the same essential thing as our
predecessors of
the 19th century, merely tinkering with the details.
Perhaps what I am bothered by is a sort of ennui that has seemed to seep
into
the attitude of many of the pros(Gartside, previously mentioned, is a
notable
exception). One even sees it in the dealers, who showed a very predictable
range of tying materials. Only a few ventured into exotic or even
out-of-the-ordinary stuff.
Tom

I think the problem (such as it is) is that fly fishing.....and,
consequently, various aspects of it, like fly tying.....is a mature
technology. A defining characteristic of mature technologies is that
radical innovations are rare, and become increasingly so. The last great
radical change in fly fishing that I can think of offhand is the advent of
synthetic composites for the construction of rods. Carbon fiber and boron
rods were the latest great refinement of that radical change, but fiberglass
was the real innovation, and that's been around for a long time now.....long
by the standards of modern technological change, anyway. While it's
certainly possible to imagine something coming along that's even better than
carbon fiber, it would be very difficult to articulate any way in which it
could much improve on what's available now.

This is even more true of fly tying. Today's fly dresser has available a
bewildering array of natural and synthetic materials that would exhaust more
than a lifetime to explore adequately. The same is true of styles,
techniques, and individual patterns. Virtually all of these "new"
materials, methods, and flies have been hailed in their time as the great
"miracle" fish catcher and, as anyone who has been at this for a while
knows, all have fallen considerably short of miraculous.....though some are
certainly better than others. But, in the long run, some of the old
standards are as good as they ever were, a lot of the new **** is nowhere
near as good as it is hyped to be, and a lot of the stuff in between comes
and goes, both in popularity and efficacy. Meanwhile, we live in a
world....at least those of us who live in the richer parts of the world or
are rich by the low standards of the rest....in which we are conditioned to
expect "newer and better" as some kind of a birthright. Chart the
innovative improvements in any laundry detergent that's been available for
the last fifty years or so, and it's impossible to escape the conclusion
that a single molecule of any of them will clean the universe from end to
end.

The truth is that there isn't a great deal of significant change on anything
like a regular basis. Things stay pretty much the same. This truth is
reflected, I think, in the endless, and for the most part nonsensical,
debates over the merits of one rod, material, fly, reel, wading shoe or what
have you, over another. As Jesuits and rabbinical students know (though you
will be hard pressed to get any of them to admit it) heated debates over
mind-numbing minutiae are the inevitable result of having nothing of greater
import to wrangle over, and this state of affairs is always the result of
stasis....read "stagnation".....read (for the purposes of technology)
"maturity".

A lot of people....probably the majority, I think...are eager for any sort
of information they can get when they first get into fly fishing.....or,
presumably, any other complex avocation. Most of us will subscribe to a
magazine...or two....or more....and pick up stray copies of others on
newsstands. We will haunt symposia, shows, clinics, and any other venue we
can get to....today, of course, there is also the internet. And, for a
couple of years, more or less, there is a surfeit of information and "new"
ideas that seems entirely too vast to absorb in a single lifetime. But,
after a time, most of us discover that there is very little that's really
new under the sun. That's when you begin to notice that this year's show
smells a lot like last year's.....and the one before that......

There's nothing wrong with all of that. It's merely an indication that
there is a limited supply of novelty and concrete objective information.
What's happened is that you've become an expert. Yes, a REAL
expert......there are tens......maybe hundreds....of thousands of us. It's
no big deal, and it IS demonstrable. After all, life and death debates over
excruciating minutiae that the rest of the world couldn't be paid enough to
care about is THE defining characteristic of an expert in any field.

You're a pro, Tom, deal with it.

Wolfgang

Agree it was pretty much the same old thing. I was also dissapointed with the
vendors. E.g. I was looking for Jungle Cock. There were three vendors with it
and their selection was very small. The new stuff for me was watching Oliver
Edwards tie and Phil Camera with Larva Lace. Geting individular instruction
from Phil on tying his emerger and underlaying the material with flash made
going worth while. Never did get good results with Larva Lace and now I know
why. I understand from the guys I went with that Randy from Larva Lace also
did them some good.

Lou Teletski

"George Cleveland" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 20:10:59 -0500, vincent p. norris
wrote:

Last thing I'M GONNA DO is apply ethanol to MY crank!!

Actually, it can be quite pleasant to apply ethanol to your crank,
provided you apply it to the *inside* of your crank, via the
alimentary canal.

vince
That reminds me of that old folk song "16 Beers in the Alimentary Canal".


g.c.

Aren't you sorry you mentioned it now?

Load sixteen tuns and whattya get?

Wolfgang
twice the butt.

On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 20:56:16 -0600, "Wolfgang" wrote:


"Tom Littleton" wrote in message
...
Wolfgang notes:
Take for example.....oh....say, people
who are incapable of reading a message on usenet and then formulating a
response that is in some way related to what was said in the original.

Yeah!! What the hell was my original point, by the way? Oh yes,
rejecting
daytripper's comment that nothing much had changed in flyfishing in the
past 30
years! The more I think of that one, the more I can see his point....in
the
large view, we are still doing the same essential thing as our
predecessors of
the 19th century, merely tinkering with the details.
Perhaps what I am bothered by is a sort of ennui that has seemed to seep
into
the attitude of many of the pros(Gartside, previously mentioned, is a
notable
exception). One even sees it in the dealers, who showed a very predictable
range of tying materials. Only a few ventured into exotic or even
out-of-the-ordinary stuff.
Tom

I think the problem (such as it is) is that fly fishing.....and,
consequently, various aspects of it, like fly tying.....is a mature
technology. A defining characteristic of mature technologies is that
radical innovations are rare, and become increasingly so. The last great
radical change in fly fishing that I can think of offhand is the advent of
synthetic composites for the construction of rods. Carbon fiber and boron
rods were the latest great refinement of that radical change, but fiberglass
was the real innovation, and that's been around for a long time now.....long
by the standards of modern technological change, anyway. While it's
certainly possible to imagine something coming along that's even better than
carbon fiber, it would be very difficult to articulate any way in which it
could much improve on what's available now.

*snippage*

Wolfgang


A person can deal with fly tying materials and fly fishing equipment getting
predictable. Its when the fly fishing gets humdrum that its time to worry.

g.c.

"Tom Littleton" wrote in message
...

exactly how? Give is a rest until the next election, and work yourself
silly
next year getting someone new elected.
Tom

Contact your elected officials and tell them you don't want to see your
favorite fishing hole become a waste disposal site for some big corporation.

There are those who will act, and those who will sit idly by until the next
election, hoping and praying that the rest of us will do what they should
have done in the first place but were too busy not wanting to hear about it.

hooked implores:
Contact your elected officials and tell them you don't want to see your
favorite fishing hole become a waste disposal site for some big corporation.

they are pretty good, thus far, at doing so.
PA has done, imho, a very good job to date.

There are those who will act, and those who will sit idly by until the next
election, hoping and praying that the rest of us will do what they should
have done in the first place but were too busy not wanting to hear about it.

and then, there are those of us who tell others what to do in the context of an
irrelevant addition to a thread on fly tying.
As others have attempted to point out, take the soapbox elsewhere. Or, better
still, get outside and work to clean up whatever your favorite local stream is.
Sadly, the major polluters of most trout streams are farmers and small private
landowners in many cases. Now, shoo, you have work to do!
Tom

"Hooked" wrote in message
...
....
Contact your elected officials and tell them you don't want to see your
favorite fishing hole become a waste disposal site for some big
corporation.
....

With all due respect for your, and others' political opinions, could we
please try to keep ROFFT from becoming another heap of political posts?

Stan Gula wrote:

With all due respect for your, and others' political opinions, could we
please try to keep ROFFT from becoming another heap of political posts?

Yeah, everybody knows that fly fishermen, (excepting Big Dale, of course)
discuss politics over in roff. ;-)

--
Ken Fortenberry