Women Own Fly Fishing

Coincidently, a weekly podcast that I catch up to discussed women being better fly tiers, than men. I recently blogged that through personal experience, women are better fly fisher...persons. The coincidence is that this is National Women's Something Month. This last statement may reveal...I don't get warm and fuzzies over any national month or day anything. But I'll jump on the coat tails of this month's warm and fuzzy emotion since the subject at hand, has come to a head with the podcast.

So, why are women better fly tiers? Well, I can name a number of women with weekly or monthly podcasts instructing fly tying, that I don't watch after viewing just a few of each. Because they're so good and precise I determined there's not enough of my life remaining to ever reach their level. Kelly made made the observation in his podcast that women will 'oh by the way' lay feathers on a hook a certain way and he wonders why he never thought of that. Small details that may not be perfect? The man will make a mental note to go back to that. The woman will pause the entire tying session until that "small detail", is perfect.

Why are women better fly fisher...persons? I'll relate an on the water story of a couple summers ago. The mother of a 8 or 9 year old daughter recognized me on the water, one fishing day. Both parents were there, but mom's the one ate up with bass fishing. I'd encountered her several times that year but only spoke briefly, with her. That day, she asked if "Fiona" could hang with me. Fiona already intrigued me with her outdoor skills-she was hand lining for fish the way the Asians do in the tropics. "Geez...I can't do that."

That day, I had the spinning rod as well as the fly rod in tow. Something I personally don't like to do, normally. Switching back and forth is too much a mental whiplash. I really only intended on working with Fiona and a spinning rod. But after a while she asked about the fly rod, asserting she'd never used one. I tried to pacify yet throw her off her fly rod interest with what I thought were answers that would do just that. But she persisted. The fly rod I had was a nine footer. This kid was so skinny that if she placed the fly rod in front of her, I wouldn't be able to see her behind it. A nine footer would do nothing but discourage her, I thought.

I went to work teaching her "fly fishing". Truth, carefully walking through the verbal class part I found had to broken down into smaller pieces, many parts having to be repeated many times. All the while my wondering why she didn't just try "that part" instead of getting a perfect picture in her brain, first. "Oh, she's a girl-it's going to be perfection in her head before she executes." My opinion. After close to an hour of "talking fly fishing", it was time to execute and I was prepared for total disaster, if she had to ask for simple phrases of instruction to be repeated so many times. I held the nine foot fly rod out to this four feet tall kid, and backed up uttering verbal instruction each of which started with, "Remember...". Fiona paused, took a deep breath making an uneasy side glance at me, and began her cast with a perfect "forward to 10:00" move of the fly rod. She executed the "cheap haul"-like I use often-simply holding the line with her other hand as the rod moved backward to 2:00. Much to my surprise, her head followed the extended line from 10 to 2-I don't even like to do that so I often don't! The line rolled into a perfectly straight and tight loop and just when I thought she'd move forward again before the tippet straightened, she waited until she saw it straighten behind her and felt the gentle tug of a fully loaded fly rod before moving forward. Perfect loop still intact, the line rolled out so straight on the water, the San Juan worm landing so softly, I was a bit miffed and jealous. The entire cast looked like a well polished ballet dance. And she continued to "ballet" the rest of the afternoon. Of course making some missteps along the way but I was afraid to count them because I was fairly sure her missteps were less than mine during a typical afternoon of fly fishing.

Now, a girl a little older than Fiona is dancing around the question, "Will I take her...and her two sisters...fly fishing?" The age difference is so great she's afraid to ask this grumpy old dude, but she's working overtime trying to manipulate me into inviting her and her two sisters to fly fish. With stories about them fly fishing four days a week when they lived in Colorado, and the like. She'll probably see this blog one day and so when you do 'you know who you are', this is tongue in cheek humor. I'm already a bit of a lone ranger, when I fish. Now, I'm faced with the prospect of fishing with three. Girls. Who are sisters thus they can communicate with just brain waves and in complete silence. And very possibly better at fly fishing techniques X 3, than me!