Fly Fishing Elitism (from an outsiders perspective)

A question for cznymph and others:

Why do non-fly-fishermen come to a fly-fishing site and then become involved in the name-calling of fly-fishermen?

(Perhaps this is just an elitist question.)
 
Now what about Tenkara, no fly reel there, they use flies, and are probably a little snobby too.
 
Cznymph said:
It literally says spin cast rods are prohibited. Does it get any clearer than that?
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Semantics.

What is a spin cast rod though?

I can take a 7' Shimano graphite rod, mount a fly reel to it, and fly cast effectively enough to lob nymphs. Used as such, is it not a "fly" rod?
 
rrt said:
A question for cznymph and others:

Why do non-fly-fishermen come to a fly-fishing site and then become involved in the name-calling of fly-fishermen?

(Perhaps this is just an elitist question.)
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I’m a fly fisherman. I have also been on the receiving end of some poor behavior by fly fisherman over the years. I don’t like it, I think it gives a sport that I very much enjoy a bad name. Examples of fly fisherman speaking negatively about bait fisherman on this forum are available. I lurked here for a long time before joining, and recall local residents of my area being referred to as “bubba’s” in forum discussion. It’s why I don’t golf. I’ve never been a fan of the pretentious, holier than thou attitudes.

I’ve tried my best to refrain from name calling and personal attacks, although others have not.
 
DomR said:
Semantics.

What is a spin cast rod though?

I can take a 7' Shimano graphite rod, mount a fly reel to it, and fly cast effectively enough to lob nymphs. Used as such, is it not a "fly" rod?
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It could be, would my spinning rod and reel with an indicator and nymphs be considered a fly rod if I just pulled line off the spool, rather than opening the bail?
 
Cznymph said:
It could be, would my spinning rod and reel with an indicator and nymphs be considered a fly rod if I just pulled line off the spool, rather than opening the bail?
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No cause the one limiting factor in that scenario is the reel, its a spinning exclusive reel, it is thee function of that reel. Put a fly exclusive reel on the rest of your rig, pull line from it, lob cast or whatever and by golly you are "fly" fishing rather than casting a spinning reel. Again if it's that important to do so to get into a FFO section than more power to you. Too much of a pita for me to bother with. I'll stick to high handing bait guys in the general regs areas. LOL
 
Yep. Hint at politics. Emphasize the differences in fisherman and people. Challenge people to defend their sport and their motives. Great recipe for hitting 10 pages! Almost there!
 
I've been on the receiving end of bad behavior from other fly anglers in boats, fly anglers on foot and kayak spin fisherman. If I had to label one as inherently more entitled, fly fishermen. I don't throw a blanket statement out there that all are bad but it's judged on an individual basis. I've met many wonderful people while fishing and a couple of real bags but I don't think it was the gear that made them behave the way they did.

Probably the most uncomfortable and egregious offense I've been part of was one early morning on Clarks Creek. I hiked a little over half of a mile to get to a riffle that I began nymphing. I was the only person out there. 15 minutes later two guys come down the opposite side of the creek, cross the top of the riffle and approach where I'm fishing. One gentleman starts to get in the water beside me. When I say beside me, if I held my arm out the stripping guide would have been past his head. Because I'm classy, I say just loud enough for him to hear "are you f#*#*#g kidding me?". Zero reaction and he begins to strip line off his reel. "Would you like to use my rod?" was my next shot across the bow. He throws up his hands and asks me what the problem is. I told him, "There's two miles of water in this section, not another soul in sight and you have to come down and fish directly on top of me. That doesn't make sense to me."
He then went on a rant excusing himself from fishing "my" creek and ask if I was Mr Clark. His buddy then jumps into the conversation with this gem.... "Do you know who he is? He's the Tulp*****n TU Chapter president." I just calmly said, oh I'm sorry, I just thought he was a random azzwipe that walked past a mile of open water to cast poorly within arms length of me." There they fired off a few expletives at me, got back on the path and moved downstream. They continued to hurl insults as they walked out of sight. I was considerably younger than them and expected better behavior out of the old fellas 😁.
 
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salmonoid said:
Sometimes I fish flies from my spinning rod. What does that mean?
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It means both of you guys are "cross -fishers"
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krayfish2 said:
I've been on the receiving end of bad behavior from other fly anglers in boats, fly anglers on foot and kayak spin fisherman. If I had to label one as inherently more entitled, fly fishermen. I don't throw a blanket statement out there that all are bad but it's judged on an individual basis. I've met many wonderful people while fishing and a couple of real bags but I don't think it was the gear that made them behave the way they did.

Probably the most uncomfortable and egregious offense I've been part of was one early morning on Clarks Creek. I hiked a little over half of a mile to get to a riffle that I began nymphing. I was the only person out there. 15 minutes later two guys come down the opposite side of the creek, cross the top of the riffle and approach where I'm fishing. One gentleman starts to get in the water beside me. When I say beside me, if I held my arm out the stripping guide would have been past his head. Because I'm classy, I say just loud enough for him to hear "are you f#*#*#g kidding me?". Zero reaction and he begins to strip line off his reel. "Would you like to use my rod?" was my next shot across the bow. He throws up his hands and asks me what the problem is. I told him, "There's two miles of water in this section, not another soul in sight and you have to come down and fish directly on top of me. That doesn't make sense to me."
He then went on a rant excusing himself from fishing "my" creek and ask if I was Mr Clark. His buddy then jumps into the conversation with this gem.... "Do you know who he is? He's the Tulp*****n TU Chapter president." I just calmly said, oh I'm sorry, I just thought he was a random azzwipe that walked past a mile of open water to cast poorly within arms length of me." There they fired off a few expletives at me, got back on the path and moved downstream. They continued to hurl insults as they walked out of sight. I was considerably younger than them and expected better behavior out of the old fellas 😁.
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It would have been awesome to witness that exchange in person.
 
6xAdams(Jones) said:
It would have been awesome to witness that exchange in person.
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Here's two more....🤣

While fishing the Delaware with a forum member, two older gents get out of their boat and start casting to a few sipping fish. I announced "slipping behind you so we don't disturb your fish". One guy says "I remember when there weren't boats on this river." Yes, he had just gotten out of a boat to wade fish. The other guy ignores our polite effort and continued to cast. His back cast hit me, my boat and the the forum member in the head. The forum member jumps out and says "make another cast into my face and I'll knock you out". 😳. The old guy pulled in his line and stared at the far bank. Little uncomfortable on that exchange.

A couple years back, I was fishing the Delaware main stem with someone from here. We encountered as good of a MB hatch as you'll see. The section we were fishing is a solid 300 ft wide. We were in the bottom right corner of a pool just 20 ft off the shoreline. We had a pod of fish that were working and missed several on an emerger. I suggested a fly change since they were now refusing it so we pulled the line in and were working on the leader. Out of the corner of my eye I see a guide boat squeeze between us and the bank. He had to pull his oars in just to get through. As he drifted down over the pod of fish, he back rowed vigorously for about 30 seconds. I just stared at him with my mouth open in shock. The guy says to me, "how do you like that?" Well, didn't care for it and ripped up anchor after finishing up the leader work I was doing. He had slipped through a riffle and gone tight to the right bank. There were a line of wade fisherman blocking his passage. I anchored towards the middle of the river by the last wade fisherman. We had plenty of fish feeding and stayed busy for a while. When I saw the other guy pull up anchor to leave, I knew that he had to go backwards in order to find passage. I also pulled anchor and rowed back up river blocking him. We both deploy anchors. After 5 or 10 minutes, he pulls his anchor to go forward and slip between me and the last wading angler. Nope, I pulled anchor, pointed at a fictional fish and started rowing forward. He quickly reversed course and went backwards. Guess what I did? We had a standoff for over an hour where I kept him pinned and wouldn't let him pass. I yelled over to him "how do you like that?" He stood up, tipped his hat and said "well played". I told him that he must have been mistaking me for someone else because I have no idea who he is or why he did what he did. He did admit that he thought I was someone else and was getting even..
 
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