What do you enjoy?

Amelia & I were out on a small lake near Rocky Mountain House. We'd been there a couple of times and kept going back for the early season dry fly fishing. Sure, there were easier ways of catching fish, but none more exciting to us than to wait for a cruiser to come by just under the surface and try our luck at leading cruisers and hoping they swerved our way, to take our flies. We would be spending a deal of time at Fortress Lake in the season, so we opted to not fish under an indicator, nor with streamers. Instead, we were doing what we enjoy far more than anything else - sighting fish and casting dries. The day prior, we'd enjoyed great success as the hatch came off in droves. This day, we tried to time our arrival to the hatch, but arrived mid swing in a lighter, more sporadic hatch which didn't thrill us but we anticipated a few moments. There were two pontoon boats on the lake smack dab where we, and a couple other pontoon boats had enjoyed dry fly fishing a few days earlier. They sat there with their bobbers on the water and were catching fish, but the cruising and rising fish that used that spot stayed fairly deep by comparison to days previous. So, we simply dropped anchor elsewhere and waited for cruising trout. We only had 5 or 6 takes, and landed 3 between us in 2 hours. But the fun of sight fishing made the wait for those takes worth every second. "There's one", Amelia would say. She'd turn and cast to the trout. Her line laid out nicely but the fish went 2 feet to the left and took another natural and carried on. "Here comes one," I'd say. This trout might come to look but refuse the fly. So it went. A few would come and refuse, but most were so random, it became a game of trying to guess which way they would cruise. Ultimately, we would end up guessing right a few times and we got takes. The hatch waned after 90 minutes, we stuck it out another 30, and decided to pack it in because, frankly, we didn't have any interest in watching a bobber that day.

The odds weren't in our favor that day for sight fishing. It was a light hatch, there wasn't a breath of wind, and there weren't a lot of fish near the surface compared to previous days. But... that was the point. Anyone can sit off a shoal with a bobber and long leader with a leech-chironomid combo to catch fish. But, what is the ultimate goal, to catch fish or to fully enjoy your day by pursuing what you love doing even if the end result is of lower numbers of fish caught? If you don't like doing something, why do it just to prove that you can catch fish? Is the method or the fish the most important thing? Or, is the lower end result the point, based on the knowledge that your method is going to preclude you from higher numbers? Is there a comparable number, a ratio of success that proves you an ok fishermen, though you are catching fewer with a more difficult method?

Does it matter at all, when you are simply there to enjoy your time, using a method you really enjoy, knowing the odds are against you?

I raise this point because we continue to see, on internet forums, folks posting photos of the big Bow River rainbows and browns caught under an indicator. Other folks post of the fish caught at some gravel bar during salmon or steelhead runs, where a dozen other anglers are lined up and conflict has been endured over "turf" in order to catch that fish. Further, someone post photos of a far off international destination, where the method of catching lunkers is either at a river mouth of a lake at spawning time, or in the tributary itself, chucking streamers at aggressive fish during spawn or pre-spawn.

Then there is the aspect of dredging up a big fish to brag about in some ungodly destination. You will always see a couple of cars parked near the Calf Robe bridge, under the 6 lane Deerfoot Freeway in Calgary. Under the freeway is the water treatment plant which churns out warm water into the Bow River. Did I mention this is also the major landing route for Calgary International Airport? Yes, the location is a major winter hot spot for Calgary fly fishers as trout are drawn to winter in the warm, bio-mass filled water. But the ambiance of 6 lanes of traffic, overhead airliners, and competition for part of the 150m of water with 3 or 4 other fishermen makes this a little less than desirable. But, alas, it is open water in our harsh winter.

International destinations can offer some incredible fish, no question. But is the method of fishing worth the travel time and expense if it isn't the style of fishing you love? Will you find fulfillment, as a dry fly fisher, if you arrive in Argentina or Chile to constant, cold, howling winds to find that you must chuck streamers to intercept migratory brown trout? Is that really what you want to do? If you love chucking streamers and you have longed to travel to New Zealand, only to find that you spook every trout seen with the plop of your streamer landing on the water, is that fulfillment? If you arrive at some hotspot lake and have to chuck streamers into a massive headwind, to intercept large, spawning or pre-spawn rainbows, with the knowledge that you are targeting trout at that time in their life cycle and enduring brutal conditions to do so - is it worth it?

Obviously, these are all simple observations. Amelia & I enjoy certain facets of fly fishing far more than some, a little more than others. There are times of the year where all we want to do is cast streamers for aggressive spring browns, dry flies, pursue sight fishing, or watch a bobber during the chironomid hatch. Sight nymphing can be exceptional on many of our waters. Sight fishing the 6" shallows of alpine lakes can be wonderful. There are times and conditions that we have disdain for certain methods, enduring certain conditions, or given locations.

To bring the opening narrative of our day sight fishing a lake near Rocky Mountain House to its conclusion, we knew who one of the people in the pontoon boat was. Recently, a friend of ours was speaking to him on the phone and this person rambled on about how he had out fished us 12 to 2 that day. My friend tried to get him to understand the difference in our approach to fishing, but the bottom line to this person was the end result, the number of fish caught. How sad, yet this furthers my point - do you derive more true enjoyment from the end result or from comparing yourself to others and their (+/-) success by comparison, or do you find greater enjoyment in how you are fishing, what you are doing, and why you are doing it the way you enjoy?
The reason that Amelia & I love New Zealand is quite simple: large, spooky, solitary brown trout in as remote locations as you want to find them in. We walk 15 to 25km a day to try to get as far away from people as possible - hiking up chutes, massive boulders, rock gardens, etc - all in a beautiful rain forest. In the end, we're footloose and fancy free to fish for exceptional browns. It isn't for everyone and I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. But those who love it should give it a go.

When you find yourself having a great deal of success as a fly fisher, you look for other ways to enjoy your time. If it is a step backwards in numbers caught, so be it, but you are enjoying your time for yourself. Isn't that the point of going fishing - to enjoy what you enjoy based on you? I simply encourage all fishermen to not worry about what success others may or may not be having. Yes, some may catch more fish than you one day, but ask yourself if you would enjoy fishing how they are fishing. If you are a new fly fisher, give it a try. If you find success and enjoy doing the particular method, go for it! If you find success and catch all sorts of fish but find it boring, mundane, repetitive, or simply don't like it - find a different way to catch fish in given conditions. If you are an experienced fly fisher who has caught plenty of trout and don't fish certain methods as you dislike them, good for you - the point is to enjoy our time on the water.

The point to this article is simple, I encourage everyone, regardless of skill level or years of experience, to discover what you enjoy or don't. Try the given methods, locations, destinations, styles, and fish in a variety of weather conditions. There are pros and cons to each (a snowy, spring day on the Bow will leave you with the river to yourself and some good fishing but be brutally cold and windy). Discover what you like and don't like for yourself and apply it to your fishing. Remain open to what you don't like and try to find ways around it. If you don't like watching a bobber on a lake but have friends that love to fish lakes, find new ways of fishing with success so that you can enjoy time with friends even though you don't like sitting, doing nothing on a lake. If you love lakes and hate streams, discover new ways to enjoy streams if your friends want to fish a day with you on a stream. Remain open to the ideas of fishing in locations or conditions you don't like while spending the bulk of your time doing what you love most. When someone posts photos or brags about a large fish caught in some far off destination, using methods or enduring conditions you don't like, enjoy the story of excitement for that person. You might have lingering feelings about whether that person truly enjoyed the entirety of the experience but that's best left to that individual to determine. Listen to the tales and learn something from it. Sure, there might be big rainbows and browns, but if you know you wouldn't enjoy the scenario to catch them, what is the point? Go, try new things, learn whether or not you enjoy them based on your parameters. If you don't - so be it - you don't have to do it again. Be flexible, be adventurous, and leave the comparisons at the door because they don't mean a thing to anybody but you.