Definitely, knowing how to fish bests the possession of high end, high tech gear.
At Fly Life Magazine.com we all took notice of Kirk’s well ‘spoken’ article about it ‘ain’t’ your rod – it’s you. Or, that new $800 rod isn’t going to end that over hinging wrist flaw when you cast. Nor will it improve you’re fishing acumen. Anyway, Kirk says it better.
Fly Fishing Tech Bubble?
From the Editor of Angling Trade, Kirk Deeter
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]just got back from fishing two weeks on the South Island of New Zealand. Changed my world. But sight casting to 10-pound brown trout in crystal clear water will do that to you.
I also came away with some interesting perspectives from the people I fished with. Turns out that Riverview Lodge, Cedar Lodge, and Stonefly Lodge (three of the very best in NZ) have client bases that are 70 percent or more American. And what do the Kiwi guides really think about Yank anglers?
Well, by and large, they say we suck.
“There are two things you can count on with 90 percent of the Americans: They’re going to have the best gear in the world, and they won’t have any idea how to use it,” one guide said to me.
She’s holding an 8-pound Kahurangi National Park brown. The park is located in the northwest corner of New Zealand’s South Island. It is New Zealand’s second largest national park. Image credit Stone Fly Fishing Lodge.
At first I found that amusing. But the more I stewed on that, the more I found that troubling. Is the greatest threat to fly fishing businesses these days a different type of “tech bubble” we’ve created ourselves? Are we too dependent on gear, and not enough dependent on actually knowing how to fish?
I mean, on the one hand, there is a fundamental flaw in a business model where companies sell fly rods as heirlooms—even warrantying them for the lives of their owners—and then every two or three years come out with new models that are supposed to be even faster, stronger and longer. I suppose that’s why a shop that does a million a year in total sales sees less than $40K in high end rod purchases.
And it probably doesn’t help that we’ve dumbed the sport down so much with strike indicators and dredging nymphs through runs that an angler actually has to switch his or her brain back on when they want to try something really cutting edge, like say, dry-fly fishing with a 15-foot leader.
If you want to increase your fly sales, try the approach the Kiwis use. Fish sees a fly, doesn’t eat it… switch patterns, right then, every time. Why do we think we can beat trout into submission with the same San Juan worm? Because we can! But is that good? And is it really good to think a new rod can add 10 feet to a flawed cast?
Trust me, I get it. I buy a new driver for my golf bag every few years thinking that money will cure the slice. It isn’t like I have a swing flaw or anything.
And maybe our little market depends on having minions of overly optimistic, under-performing anglers fishing for stupid, stocked fish. If there weren’t hydro dams, and bobbers, and planted rainbows, the entire industry would collapse tomorrow.
But I would submit to you that a little knowledge can go a long way, and we need to aspire to use different techniques to trick wild, cagey fish. This is the key to the future of the specialty fly shop.
Who’s going to teach people how to really fish and climb the learning curve? Some manufacturers are doing it, but really, they’re in it to sell stuff. AFFTA doesn’t have the bandwidth to actually grow the market, for heaven’s sake. Media? Well, I’d like to think there will always be a market for good information, but the space is so cluttered these days, it’s hard to sort out what’s of value and what isn’t.
No… when all is said and done, there’s really only one person who has the street credibility to pull it off, and protect the fly world from a bursting tech bubble.
You.
