Doing something that’s “different” can be a huge mistake or even something we never wish had even happened. Think about some of those epic fails we’ve witnessed — Crystal Pepsi, New Coke, Crispy M&M’s, just to name a few that immediately come to my feeble mind. However, “different” can also bring transformative changes that are better than we could have imagined — Tesla, salmon sushi (look it up, it’s a real story), and the iPod. Change can be difficult, painful, and even scary depending on the situation in which it’s experienced.
Fly fishing has, in fact, changed an enormous amount over the last several decades. The “catch and release” movement enhances fisheries globally and is nearly synonymous with fly angling, our community has mobilized to influence legislation impacting clean water and fisheries, and the technical advances in the equipment we use is lightyears beyond what anglers before us used.
Smartphone apps predict weather and display radar, social media communities show us fish and anglers from every corner of the globe, and the availability of high-quality filmmaking equipment is more available and accessible than ever before.
Anglers everywhere document adventures with video, and that is pretty amazing. I’m as guilty as many of you of getting sucked into a deep, dark, mind-numbing vortex of Vimeo and YouTube fishing videos. Most of the time, once I escape that blackhole, I feel like I have no idea what I’ve watched. I know I saw some cool places that I know I’ll never be able to afford to fish, I watched some people catch fish larger than anything I’ll ever catch, and I know I can’t really tell you a single other damn thing about those videos.