Listening in on fly shop conversations can provide one great insight into the human condition.
Roughly half of those conversations are about mundane elements of fly fishing and gear and the other half are about mundane elements of life that have distracted (male-centric) fishers for centuries – booze, boobs, weather and other baseless forms of diversion.
Some fly shop conversations are priceless.
I happened to recently overhear a fly shop conversation that went more or less like this; the setting was a small shop, Seattle metro, a high-end market in sight of Puget Sound.
Three hipster couples in full regalia walked into the shop, made a beeline for the Patagucchi and proceeded to cackle and crow, flit and flutter and eventually purchased two hats apparently made acceptable by wearing inside-out so as not to flash the logo. The group then exited, followed by this exchange:
Shop Guy One: God, I f’n hate hipsters.
Shop Guy Two: Imagine them on the Bogachiel or the Ho – it would be a giant clusterf**k. They wouldn’t last 10 minutes out of the city.
Hipster #6, walking into front of shop from the back corner: You talking about us? Hey, I’m talking to you! You talking about us?
Shop Guy One: Sorry man.
Hipster #6: I grew up in Denver, dude, and have been fishing since I was ten. I’ve fished with some of the best guides in Colorado and Wyoming and can do every f’n thing in fishing you can do. You think I can’t? Huh? You think I can’t?
[At this point I peeked around the corner so I could eyeball the action. Hipster #6, resplendent in his skinny jean and Buddy-Holly-eyewear glory, did indeed look animated and somewhat like The Big Bang Theory’s Howard. Shop Guys One and Two looked amused.]
Hipster #6, now leaning over counter, eyewear sliding down a bit on his nose: Couldn’t last 10 minutes out of the city? There’s not a single f’n thing you morons can do, fishing or whatever, that I can’t do better. Gimme one thing you think I can’t do. C’mon! Name it! I’m more of a man that the two of you put together.
Shop Guy One: Raised eyebrow, no reply.
Shop Guy Two: No reply, step backwards.
Hipster #6, after sweeping boxes of nippers, hemostats and hooks off the counter: F’n morons.
And as quickly as that he was gone.
On the way home I was thinking about Hipster #6’s request for a list; here’s what would pass for a reasonable list of fly fisher skills back home in the northern Rockies:
- Full dress equipment and complete rod rig, pitch darkness, 10 minutes or less.
- Clean presentations and drift-free floats: life cycle midges, mayflies, caddis and stones.
- Tie every knot clean and tight every time; night or day, when the boat’s rolling and fingers are numb.
- Swing steelhead flies all day in the rain / snow; your last swing as optimistic as the first.
- Double-haul your 8 wt. all day on the hot, windy flats.
- Understand the dynamics of swinging big streamers for fall browns.
- Tie half (or better) of the flies you fish.
- Row a drifter (or raft), in the wind, full day, positioning fore and aft fishers to have a shot.
- Catch fish in your neighborhood in every month of the year; triple score if in every week of the year.
- Remove a #14 Humpy from your own eyebrow; may not miss more than 10 minutes fishing time.
- Back an unloaded boat trailer down-slope on the ramp in one shot, 4 trucks waiting, it’s raining.
- Multi-day fishing / camping trip at least once per year; enclosed campers don’t count. Bonus points for nights below freezing, snow on the ground, snoring tent mates and beans for dinner.
And for the bonus round, a list of simple life skills every able bodied man or woman should possess. This one’s for your ‘whatever’ list, Hipster #6:
- Paint a room.
- Hang a ceiling fan.
- Change your own oil.
- Replace a busted sink disposal.
- Pull carpet and lay tile.
- Grow a garden.
- Drive a tractor.
- Brine and smoke/ cook a turkey.
- Brew a great pot of coffee.
- Butcher a deer, elk, pig, bison or side of beef.
- Sweat copper.
- Repair a leaking water line (counts singly if a sprinkler line, triple if your house main).
Long live the renaissance man woman fly fisher.
