Bad Angler

Fly fishing has it's mores, lore, etiquette, standards, and a lot of other overhead that I do my best to ignore. I either use barbless hooks or crimp down the barbs because it is more of a challenge. I only keep a fish if I have backbacked to a campsite and intend to eat the fish that day. I wash my waders and boots after each outing, because I don't want to transfer whirling disease from one stream to another, but that's about it.

I try to stay out of conversations about what really is a fly, whether or not using weight is within the bounds of the ethos of the fly fisherman, and whether or not using a strike indicator is acceptable.

Yesterday, however, I broke one of the few other rules that I follow. I failed to return a fish that I caught safely back to the stream. In the course of removing the hook from it's mouth, I managed to drop the fish into the stream. The fish may very well live, but I certainly did not do my part in giving him or her the best odds of making that happen. It kind of killed the rest of the outing for me. The entire notion behind catch and release is that you don't kill the fish, so that it may produce more fish, and that it may again be caught one day by yourself or another angler. Whether you cook it, or handle it negligently leading to its demise is no different in the end.

I'll get over it, and fish again soon, but every so often when you do something that is really not that impressive, even to yourself, it is important to admit it and make an effort not to do it again.

Tight lines,

Dave