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Post 13 Oct 2017, 20:00 • #1 
Guide
Joined: 10/01/17
Posts: 230
Location: Vermont
I started noticing something weird a couple years ago. People started pulling over on the side of the road and watching me and my kids fly fish. Some took pictures, some shot video, some just sat there and watched. At first I though it was just the sight of 2 or 3 young kids with fly rods was something cool to watch. But on the few occasion's I can get out by my self it still happens. When did fly fishing become a spectator sport? For me at least it only seems to be happening in and around the towns of Richford and Berkshire, Vermont. No where else I fish does it happen. Weird isn't it.

Does this ever happen to you?


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Post 13 Oct 2017, 20:25 • #2 
Master Guide
Joined: 10/25/10
Posts: 397
Location: Genoa City Italy
I sometimes, reach the city park where flat meadows allow me to get a training casting session.
People doesn't just watch, any of them approach me asking what am I doing !
An ancient lady, asked me if I was hunting for squirrels, an old russian man wanted to know all about this technique. . .

Recently a group of teen agers where looking at me while I was casting furiously my leader under a rose tree.

One of them came to me.

Do you really notice, there is not water here around ? He said to me. . .
. . . I was ready to answer him : Ahhh, . .Really interesting, in fact I didn't
catch a fish in the last two hours, . . !

Yes !
I definitely think fly fishing is an amazing sport for spectators ! :lol


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Post 13 Oct 2017, 20:27 • #3 
Master Guide
Joined: 10/22/13
Posts: 451
Location: AB, Canada
From time to time when fishing in town. I think people just find it interesting. Certainly not as many fly anglers in the world so some people like to watch when they come across it. Others approach and ask questions.


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Post 13 Oct 2017, 20:28 • #4 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/06/15
Posts: 1249
Location: Central Oregon
For me, only in Vermont. The first time I saw a fly line cast was at the demonstration pond at the Orvis store. I just watched, mesmerized.


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Post 13 Oct 2017, 20:29 • #5 
Master Guide
Joined: 07/04/15
Posts: 388
Location: Coppell, TX
Sometimes passers-by will stop and watch and a few have photographed me.


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Post 13 Oct 2017, 20:45 • #6 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 12/05/06
Posts: 2086
Location: US-PA
They stop and watch to see if you are using $110 nippers...;)


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Post 13 Oct 2017, 20:56 • #7 
Sport
Joined: 07/22/16
Posts: 46
Location: US-TX
People love to watch fly casting. I like to as well, especially if they are better than me and I can learn something by watching their technique.


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Post 13 Oct 2017, 21:16 • #8 
Guide
Joined: 08/31/13
Posts: 132
Location: US-MO
A couple of years ago I saw an older, left handed, gentleman on a stream and I was very taken with the aesthetics of his casting. I'm sure now that he was using a fiberglass rod, because his his casting stroke was nice and slow. The line flowed in graceful but not tight loops. The cadence was nice and relaxed and everything was pleasant and relaxing to watch. I reeled up my line, sat on the bank and watched him fish for the better part of an hour. I love fly fishing for the aesthetics of it as much as the catching fish - almost.


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Post 13 Oct 2017, 21:30 • #9 
Master Guide
Joined: 08/15/10
Posts: 589
Location: Elizabethtown & Germania, PA
Nobody has ever watched me, but once I watched a gentleman with one arm rig up and hit the stream with a fly rod. It was quite inspiring.


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Post 13 Oct 2017, 21:59 • #10 
Guide
Joined: 04/27/08
Posts: 331
Location: US-PA
i have it happen pretty often. i will also watch other anglers,if they are using a technique that is working.


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Post 14 Oct 2017, 01:42 • #11 
Inactive
Joined: 04/15/09
Posts: 365
Location: US-OH
Once you watch me flyfish, the mystique will disappear like every fish in a 50 mile radius. Flyfishing is something I prefer to do in private for the sake of public decency.


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Post 14 Oct 2017, 04:50 • #12 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/20/07
Posts: 8920
Location: US-ME
I more than earn my pay at work, which I still enjoy, but I don't have a rigid schedule and I often do work at home before daylight so I can fish in the morning. Nevertheless, when fishing popular spots that are also attractive to gawking travelers and thus the subject of picturesque photos that wind up in the newspaper recreation section, I do sometimes stand behind a tree when the cameras come out. I know some of the pro photographers and go chat with them until they capture a good scene without me in it. That way when some miserable desk jockey sees the newspaper the next day, he doesn't feel more deprived and resentful than usual, and I don't reinforce or share the burden of his suffering birthright.

So yes, a lot of popular spots are watched frequently by both anglers and interested observers. I enjoy doing it myself sometimes rather than fish and crowd other anglers. I love to watch people having a good time, and if they handle a fly rod well and catch some nice fish, all the better.

I was so intent on fishing one time that I did not spy one of the local newspaper photogs. My kids got the original photo from the paper and had it reproduced and framed as a gift. I was pretty much unrecognizable due to the background, but only the heron I was competing with was smart enough to try to hide. He was in the background just sneaking around a tree.


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Post 14 Oct 2017, 06:52 • #13 
Piscator
Joined: 08/10/05
Posts: 19078
Location: downtown Bulverde, Texas
I was wearing my Milano brim fishing above 4th Xing on the Guadalupe, and some people stopped on the bridge to take my photo.
(same hat, but Russian River in Alaska)
Image

More fun was fishing lower Rio out from the well-lubricated patio of Guadalupe Ice House. I had an audience that cheered my every move.
Tipped my at to them after releasing this fish.
Image

Years ago I was standing right by the bank on a chute and hole right above 1st Xing - roll cast, high stick, hook-up, over and over.
Some kids on the bank were arguing - yes, he is, no he isn't.
Are you fly fishing?
Yes I am.
How come you're not doing this? making whipping motions.
If I was doing that, I wouldn't be fishing, would I?


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Post 14 Oct 2017, 07:43 • #14 
Guide
Joined: 02/06/16
Posts: 328
Location: US
Years ago I was in Maine fishing at GLS. A Photographer stopped by the pool and took a couple pictures of me fishing. Next year I noticed that the little general store in the area had a postcard that had my ugly mug fishing with a flyrod in the same pool. Still waiting for my royalty check, but then again due to my ugly mug I don’t think he sold to many save for the two I bought.


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Post 14 Oct 2017, 10:37 • #15 
Sport
Joined: 03/28/17
Posts: 28
Location: US-GA
I get a few watchers at the neighborhood ponds once in a while. I've also had the unfortunate experience of finding that someone had crept right up behind me to watch. I'm happy to put on a show for you, but please stand off to the side so I don't hook you.


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Post 14 Oct 2017, 11:08 • #16 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/06/15
Posts: 1249
Location: Central Oregon
the abandoned brane wrote:
Once you watch me flyfish, the mystique will disappear like every fish in a 50 mile radius. Flyfishing is something I prefer to do in private for the sake of public decency.


Don't sell yourself short. I once had a spectator come tell me I was an artist with my rod. That is the last description I expected. The level of ignorance among the spectators can be remarkable!


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Post 14 Oct 2017, 11:20 • #17 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 10/18/12
Posts: 1712
Location: Bozeman, MT
The Firehole in YNP is notorious for this type of harassment. I can't tell you how often this annoying activity has occurred there over the years. Mostly from foreigners on vacation from far away lands that don't understand that we do this to get away from other humans. :) So........I typically just sit down and wait until they leave. :) My wife on the other hand sees it as a form of admiration and starts casting like Lefty K. to no rises at all. Each to their own I guess.
On the other hand isn't viewing photos of others right here on the forum a kind of spectator event or activity. I know I am guilty of posting photos over the years that many folks like to see. Some don't of course and I respect that but isn't that the same?
Mark


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Post 14 Oct 2017, 13:42 • #18 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/20/07
Posts: 8920
Location: US-ME
LLS (landlocked salmon) at GLS (Grand Lake Stream). A typical gawking grounds since the best spots are perfectly well known, easy to access, and picturesque to occasional visitors--if you can see through the clouds of black flies when the fishing is best. The postcard photog should have asked you for a modeling release or at least offered to bring you a coffee so you didn't have to give up your spot to go get one yourself.


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Post 14 Oct 2017, 17:42 • #19 
Guide
Joined: 10/01/17
Posts: 230
Location: Vermont
For me at least, because I work with the public every day, I try to get as far away from people as I can on my days off. This seems to be the reason I never had an audience. Once my wife and I adopted our kids, I started looking for easier to access fishing closer to home. And for me, that would be the Missisquoi River, it's an incredible fishery, and home to 90 species of fish. Everything from brook trout to musky depending on where you are. But for some reason it doesn't get much attention from the fly fishing community. I suspect the "oddity" of someone standing mid stream, all decked out like they stepped out a fly fishing catalog would be noticed. Over the last couple years I've even had a couple people walk up to me and ask "are you a guide?" and "are you guys filming something for the outdoor channel?" The answer to both was a no, but it does seem to show just how odd fly fishing is to some people.

For what it's worth, when I fish in other parts of the state where fly fishing is more common, Like the Clyde and Winooski Rivers, I pretty much go unnoticed......which works for me.


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Post 15 Oct 2017, 12:45 • #20 
Sport
Joined: 12/18/15
Posts: 95
Location: Annapolis, MD
I was out with my dog on the paddle board a while back casting to breaking stripers and a guy in a skiff stopped and started taking video, said his wife would never believe him without video. Years ago fly fishing was a rarity, now it's a curiosity. If you show up with a Tenkara rod even fly fishermen stop and ask questions.


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Post 15 Oct 2017, 19:47 • #21 
Guide
Joined: 10/23/08
Posts: 244
Location: Quincy, MA
Caught my first striper from shore in front of a crowd at castle island in Boston. They ooohed and aaahhed as the fish broke the surface, then applauded when I landed it.
After that I learned how to cast in the dark.


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Post 15 Oct 2017, 22:51 • #22 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 07/11/14
Posts: 1784
Location: urban Colorado
Uncle Ben wrote:
Recently a group of teen agers where looking at me while I was casting furiously my leader under a rose tree.

One of them came to me.

Do you really notice, there is not water here around ? He said to me. . .
. . . I was ready to answer him : Ahhh, . .Really interesting, in fact I didn't
catch a fish in the last two hours, . . !

Yes !
I definitely think fly fishing is an amazing sport for spectators ! :lol


ha. my brother and I used to go practice casting on a rugby field, we got lots of humorous spectators.. ha, ha, never heard that joke before, at least for ten minutes..


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Post 16 Oct 2017, 05:57 • #23 
New Member
Joined: 07/17/17
Posts: 12
Location: US-GA
I don't mind it; I just tell people, if they want to watch, to stand to my left (usually). But here's the move that will elicit the worst glare I can muster.

I'm casting along a seawall, and some tool walks in front of me up to where I'm casting and sticks his giant head over the wall. He, of course, doesn't see anything, and looks at me and asks "Catching anything?" To which I will always reply in my loudest, angriest voice possible, "Well, I was, but not anymore!" There might be some profanity mumbled loud enough to hear as I storm away.


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Post 16 Oct 2017, 11:33 • #24 
Guide
Joined: 10/01/17
Posts: 230
Location: Vermont
I've only had one bad experience with a spectator. In the summer of 2001 on the Winooski River in west central VT. I was having a bad day.....a REALLY bad day...I was going through a particularly ugly divorce at the time, it had been raining, the water was high, and there was a steady 20-30 mph wind blowing that kept changing directions every 30 seconds. Now keep in mind, at that time I was a certified casting instructor, with and Orvis endorsement....So yah, I know how to use a fly rod. Anyway, on that particular day, my mind just wasn't on what I was doing and I just wanted to be left alone and be with my thoughts. Anyway, a passer by pulls up in his black Mercedes, walks down to the waters edge and starts coaching me on casting form. Not wanting to seem like a total jerk, I just pulled out my casting instructor card, showed it to him and walked away with ever saying a word.


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Post 16 Oct 2017, 11:48 • #25 
Sport
Joined: 12/07/11
Posts: 78
Location: US-GA
I get kinda miffed when the genius crowd walking the beach sees what you're doing from 50 yards away, walk up behind you … and just stand there so they can see better


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