Flats Fishing

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Date: May 31, 2006 at 16:46:19
From: ken, [pool-70-20-10-153.prov.east.verizon.net]
Subject: Re: Declaring victory in defeat.


One size fits all is the problem I am addressing.

I very seldom use intermediate lines because I did not start out using them and I find no need to ever use them but I do use them from time to time but never out of need.
They are fun to cast with and they look slick.
Intermediates are cool looking.
They have pizazz.

I do strip with a floating line.
I strip fast and slow, high and deep and everywhere in between.
It is natural to strip with a floating line.
It works very well at all depths and you can control those depths.

I have caught thousands of fish on the flats with a floating line.
I have never caught a single fish on the flats on an intermediate line or on a Clouser.
I have never had to.
I did not come to the flats with a clerk as my adviser or someone who once had a clerk as his adviser.
It is not a part of my programing.
I do not ask clerks what to use.
I do not ask guides who wer educated by clerks or were clerks.

That is entry level fly fishing and when I entered my dad and his friends were/was my mentor/s.


I see people using intermediates all the time and I watch them and pay attention to how well they are doing.

I compare how well I am doing with what I see them doing and sometimes I get the chance to ask them how well they did.
A great day for most is six or eight fish.
That is seldom achieved consistently.

You can fish a floater badly and you can fish an intermediate smart.
If you do not know how to fish a floater smart you cannot fish an intermediate smart.
The floater is the measure of an anglers skill level not an intermediate. It is basic training for a fly fisherman and cannot be bypassed.

So, I have to pay attention to the skill level of the person I am talking to.
That is the factor.
A good fisherman can catch on both.
He has a choice.
It is his ability that is on the line.

The results are obvious to me.
When I ask a good fisherman.
The floater works better.

I will never use an intermediate line on the flats because of the lack of success that other good fishermen (not the clerk educated ones)
have with them compared to the steady success I have with the floater.
This is my experience and the people I fish with and many other clerk educated fly fishermen who have changed over and tell me about their results.
Intermediates are an option and they are fun to cast with.

People that think that the intermediate is a middle of the road approach that gives them several options are very, very , very, very mistaken.
THey are going hunting with one bullet and it has bird shot in it. It has an inherent limited use.

It does not give you several options at all.
Cast and strip or cast and wait and strip.
No flexibility.

Stripping with a floater is normal and often necessary and can be used in conjunction with other changes in retrieves and sophisticated presentations and works as well, and in most instances, much better than stripping with an intermediate. You have options at any point.
A simplistic approach is fine but it is limiting your options.

IT may feel safe but at the end of the day it may leave you with a nagging feeling in the pitof your stomach that perhaps I could have done something different.
Most folks assuage that feeling by trading excuses about leader shy fish or shadows or lack of bait or the fish were fussy or..
Most of the time all that co-miserating does is keep you from making a decision to change and see what is possible if you let go of what is holding you back.

Intermediate lines and jig flies are big blocks to be gotten rid of as the first approach in fly fishing.
They are blinders to possible solutions and not solutions at all.

Do they work?
Yes, when coasting down hill but so poorly going up hill it is like running a car with water in the gas.

Fits and starts and sputters an backfires.
It is kind of comical to watch others doing it.
once you stop running in that dysfunctional race a whole world of fly fishing based on common sense opens up to you and you can still use anything you want but at least you are no longer blinded by self imposed ignorance of your options.

I am sure you can not catch fish as well on floating lines and flies as you "NOt catch fish on intermediates and jig flies and it gives you a perfectly acceptable excuse back in the parking lot.

The one thing you will not be prepared for however is how poorly your success, if you have some, will be accepted by others.

They will not welcome change they will shun you for showing them that the fish can be caught easily with other ways.




They both work but not equally in each situation..


If I was being out-fished by someone with an intermediates because of the line itself; I would be using one in minutes.
It has never happened and I have welcomed those types of encounters.
I wanted to see what I was missing.
The way that people use intermediates in the salt is pitiful.
No understanding goes into it just a fear based hope for a result.

I am trying to raise consciousness about the limitations using intermediates places on your ability to catch fish consistently with any control.
Using them mindlessly is a handicap to success almost all of the time although convenient because it does not demand anything other than cast and hope from you.

Just cast and strip in a equipment dependant way.
It shuts you out of the fishing intelligently equation. It is the perception that they are a help that blocks growth.
They are a hindrance.

I am amazed at how much influence clerks in shops have had over fly fishing.

"Buy this nine weight intermediate and this nine weight rod and these Clousers and..."
You will look just like every other fly fisherman and feel safe when you walk out on the flats or the beach or the boat.

One size fits all.

They have kept it locked in the same place of 12 years and there has been no growth or expansion of methods. They even give me a hard time when I go to buy a floating line. It is a disease.


12 years of no growth in fly fishing expertise because of a clerk selling a line and a jig.
It is obscenely retrograde fly fishing.

Most fly fisherman would never accept those results in any other part of their lives without changing something.

The problem in catching is not the fish or the fishery or the tide or the wind or the leader or any of the rest of the familiar excuses.

It is the inter-mediocre dog you have been sold that does not hunt.
It is a pet.
It does not like to hunt.
It likes to howl at the moon and wish that it could get lucky.

Give it to your aunt.


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