Master: Treesnapper, so you have learn't the ways of trees, what wisdoms can you give me.
Treesnapper: If you have run out of flys master, check the trees, they are full of wonderful flies.
I think it was old Polonius in Hamlet who said " Never a borrower or Lender be"
I have made many discoveries over the years that ran contrary to the way I was conditioned to fish from reading various books, and enough magazines to fill a library . It took a long time for the penny to really drop to realise that much of what we read and learn from others are mere snippets, tiny little pieces in a rather large jigsaw. Without the adjacent pieces to present the bigger picture we often end up barking up the wrong "Treesnappers" tree. Its quite amusing really looking back on much of what I read of how dogmatic many writers are , convincing in their rheotoric and their methods to the point of being bullies. The great difficulty is , and Mike has often alluded to it is that the preacher makes an almighty assumption that the audience has received and digested all previous sermons and that they have sufficient knowledge to understand the knowledge being imparted, this is often quite not the case, and its equally often the case that the preacher views are often very narrow and ill concieved.
Most anglers in their formative years are conditioned to believe that the key to success is having THE right fly, when failure happens they embark on a cycle of trying every fly in their box until one works, that becomes THE fly until it too fails and the cycle starts all over. Most manage to escape this cycle and realise that their approach , their techniques , their reading of the water etc... combined with a rightish fly will bring more success.
An example of conditioning was really brought home to me last summer. I slowly fished my way up a smooth diffcult run at dusk, many trout were rising, some bulging at sedge and BWO emergers, some taking BWO Duns some sipping small stuff - allthough I caught a few trout I was well and truly humbled, but happy enough as this stage of dusk can be tricky even on less flat water. The lull came so I quickened my pace up the next 30 yards to the start of a long riffle and replaced the BWO with a CDC Bubble Sedge. I was disappointed to see another angler coming downstream at the top of the riffle some 70 yards away. I presumed he was fishing wets. The rise started and nearly every cast seen a take to the bubble sedge. I would say I had caught or hooked 30 trout without moving 20 yards. Time for ciggie break, I watched the other angler that was about 30 yards ahead, I could see that he was lifting occasionally but not a single trout came to his net.
I shouted up, "do you wan't one of these flies, they are working well". He nodded and shouted thanks, I fully expected him to get out of the river and come down, No he waded straight down to me. I gave him 2 flies , and told him to fish one upstream. He looked at me funny and said "I always fish Sedge flies downstream, all the angling authors recommend it that way". I simply replied that I wasn't an author and not an expert but that the trout seemed to like them fished upstream and they were easier to hook that way. Off he went back up through the riffle. I lit another ciggie and waited for the trout to recover from the disturbance, and watched the other angler. He took about four casts upstream and then reverted back to downstream, and that pattern was not suited at all to downstream compared to the hackled deer hair he had been using. A few minutes later , his torch lit up as he switched back to his original fly and sure enough he caught a trout. I recommenced fishing and landed another fifteen trout or so.
When I got back to the car park he was dismantling his rod. "Not great to-night, they were coming short where I was, he announced loudly. I'll try where you were to-morrow night. The one I landed was about 10", the trout are small this year."
Have you fished this river long I asked ?.
"Over thirty years he replied."
Thats a long time, you would know a bad season from a good one , I replied. Ah, well they might not be coming short to-morrow night, goodbye.
A nice fella, but had not a clue - conditioned and set in his ways, he took the good with the bad and the trout, the water, and the weather were always to blame - but guess what , he enjoyed his fishing as much as I did, and in some ways I envied him
. However, when I would move it I'd get some action 