My heart just isn’t in it anymore...

Many guys after a few decades of fly fishing have similar feelings to yours.

After you have visited many waters, caught a preponderance of fish, taken in an abundance of nature in peaceful and beautiful surroundings- things can ebb into the doldrums. First world problems for sure but if your a FF nut it has that deeper reach.

More of my obsession focuses on exploration of waters and different trout species rather than gear and tactics. Love planning , looking a maps, reports, reading books, and dreaming about what the water looks like , what the sky looks like , what the air smells like, what the stars look like, as I study the lines on the map.

I have 3 (and possibly 1 more Pecos strain) Cutthroat strains to catch them all. So this keeps me very interested in fly fishing. Not a day goes by I don’t think about these fish. These fish fall for big attractor dry flies if that helps.

Back on point- yes , nymphing can be mind numbing and laborious but at times highly effective. Maybe guys that nymph just haven’t caught enough fish yet but I guess some guys can never catch enough. Usually not many guys over 50 that nymph all the time.

Dont understand the guy that can watch rises and not want to switch to drys , I mean yes occasionally you don’t want to switch your rig but not most of the time.

Well, at least “primetime” is upon us.

May all your dry flies ride dry and high.
 
acristickid wrote:
May all your dry flies ride dry and high.
Click to expand...

Except when they're taking mayfly emergers and you want them to ride low or half sunk. :p
 
Dave,

You've fished with me long enough to know that my preferred method of catching is on top. If nothing else is happening, I don't hesitate to sink some junk. If I didn't have such success with it, I'd find a different way to occupy time while waiting for the hatch to start.

Over the last couple of years, I've also found myself content to sit, watch the deer, the fish and just enjoy the surroundings.

I don't want to lose you brother.
 
The evolution of a fisherman be played out in front of us.

"So many times, it happens too fast
You trade your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive"

Once we struggled to learn all we can- in order to catch more and bigger fish in certain ways. Once achieved, we ask is there anything else? Is that all?

Try new stream, new method, set a new goal. A friend of mine was going through the same funk. His medicine was to fish size 20 flies only and to land a 20 inch fish on size 20. Changed the game for him and it reignited the spark.
 
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe some of you go fishing to often?

Everything in moderation.
 
Get a crappie pole.
 
FD: Ohio toys are not sold in PA....so sorry......

I must have misread your msg....I thought you said crappy!
 
PennypackFlyer wrote:
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe some of you go fishing to often?
Click to expand...

I work too often.
 
I absolutely love fly fishing but with all things in life sometimes interest subsides more than others. It all just depends on what else is going on in life. And just because you go and sit beside the water and relax because the dry fly fishing isn't good doesn't imply that your heart isn't in it anymore. There are days when I go smallie fishing for a bit and then fish don't want to come to the surface and my interest dissipates too. I wanted them on top and they don't want to cooperate so I might swim or just walk back home after a short time. It doesn't make me love smallie fishing and I know at points in the future I'll be tickled pink with the action and my enthusiasm with fly fishing.

Lately I haven't had much desire to fish at all but I know I will again and I know that I will go through periods of obsession with it like I always do.
 
Try fishing with a nymph that is only modestly weighted, with no split shot, with no indicator.

Start by fishing the water close to you with a short line. But gradually keep pulling more line out to fish further across the stream.

Fishing nymphs with no indicator and no split shot with 30 feet of line and leader out is probably different than what you are doing now.

It's an interesting way of fishing. There is a whole lot going on with reading the currents, and trying to get a good drift without drag, then detecting the strike without an indicator.

It has similarities to wet fly fishing.


 
Middle life crisis (sometimes nymphers got it too)
:lol:
 
I say take up golf so you can get super frustrated and have it help you find a new appreciation for how awesome fly fishing is?
 
PP wrote:
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe some of you go fishing to often?
Click to expand...

15-20 days of fishing per year is fishing too much? Who'd of thunk it?



Dave, I have offered that option of golf to you before. that'll be a good way to appreciate other things in life. LOL
 
I'm with acristic... in that what drives me more than anything at this point is exploring - new water, new species. Sure, I want to catch fish, but I'd much rather get skunked on new water than fish the same stream over and over trying to catch every damn fish. As the great Mike Cooley once sang, I ain't good with numbers / I just count on knowing when I'm high enough. or Neil Young - numbers add up to nothing. The worth of my days is impossible to calculate with something as elementary as addition and subtraction.

This winter I fished almost exclusively with a black woolly bugger on a lot of new water - not sure why other than the notion that that's what I wanted to do and I felt it was a great way to search through new water. Sure, I could have caught more fish in certain instances, but I learned a lot about different techniques of fishing just with that one fly, and I ended up catching some really nice fish that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. Exploration. Sometimes that means driving a couple hours or all the way up to Maine. Other times it's just putting on a fly and seeing where it takes you or picking up a spey rod and swinging it like a fool for hours on end.
 
I agree with the exploration. That's what fly fishing is about for me. Lately I've been exploring saltwater and really liking it.
 
PennypackFlyer wrote:
FD: Ohio toys are not sold in PA....so sorry......
Click to expand...

You say Sashimi, I say bait.
 
As a certified geezer (over 60), here's my take on nymphing over the years...

YOUNGER DAYS:
I wanted to catch a lot of fish, so I nymphed 80% of the time, without indicators. Switch to dries when I saw enough rises. I was good. Consistently caught many, many fish.

NOW:
Fish dries 80% of the time, whether I see rise forms or not. Switch to nymphs/wets/streamers only when water is higher. Often use a "bobber" indicator. Consistently happier with my time spent fishing, whether I catch fish or not.
 
I like using a small woolly bugger early season, much less monotonous than nymphing, although you can fish it like a nymph, you can also swing it, strip it, ect. as all of you know.

Only time I get super disgusted is after waiting weeks upon end for a nice pool of rising trout the wind appears. I've literally thrown the rod on the bank out of frustration when the wind does its thing.

I agree with the others that exploring new sections of streams to find untouched pockets and pools is at least as equally gratifying as hooking a trout in the usual spots.
 
henrydavid wrote:

Only time I get super disgusted is after waiting weeks upon end for a nice pool of rising trout the wind appears. I've literally thrown the rod on the bank out of frustration when the wind does its thing.
Click to expand...

The wind is a bit of a two-edged sword. Yeah,it makes casting difficult, but it also covers up sloppy casts exceedingly well.
 
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