has always seemed to me like a gentleman’s sport, the fishing equivalent of driven pheasant hunting on British Moors, or shooting elephant with large doubles in India.

Hunting require some skill, but durability is more desirable in a hunter than finesse. Flyfishing on the other hand..

Reading John Venlet’s suggestions, and taking them to heart, I’ve purchased a beginner fly rod and reel, and begun practicing a bit.

Since I never had anyone to teach me anything before, its always been an undiscovered country to me, but John has been extremely patient so far in answering my stupid questions. I’ve also watched some Youtube videos, and seen some other instructional stuff, but nothing prepared me for the horror of…. threading the liine through the eyes on the rod.

Apparently the leader is composed primarily of a substance slightly superior to teflon coated with bacon grease, for just handling it is about as possible as canning snake farts. The first time I threaded it through the eyes, the transition where the leader met the line caught on one of the eyes and it shot back out like a rifle, puddling in a pile around my knees. The second time I managed to get the line all the way to the tip top before it snapped back through the eyes.

For the effort it takes to get the damned thing through the eyes in one direction, you’d think it would never move in the opposite direction. Here I will enumerate Ogs First Law of flyfishing:

1:The eyes on a fly rod are placed in the wrong direction; the line moves through of it’s own accord towards the reel, but away from the reel must be cajoled. Flipping the eyes would result in a self-threading rod, but the you’d never be able to reel the fish in.

After rethreading the leader into the eyes on the rod for the forty-fifth time, I managed to get enough line out that it didn’t automagically self-retract, and I tried practicing some simple roll casts, as described by this guy. His british accent makes him seem knowledgeable.

Anyway, I’m gonna try my luck with some poppers on panfish this weekend. I’ll also be setting some trotlines for catfish, which is more the kind of fishing i’m personally familiar with.

I’m the guy, for fishing, by the way. I haven’t fished a good deal in years, because I’m the guy who shows up to fish and everyone says “oh, you should have been here last week, the fish were jumping into the boat, filletiing themselves, and seasoning their own fillets before deep frying spontaneously.” or “Man, after you left, the fish started flopping up onto the bank” It’s a superpower. Not quite as useless as my other superpower(the ability to find the feminine hygeine product in the store with the barcode which will not scan) but certainly useless to ME.

So I fully expect to be skunked in a way unknown to humans since the beginning of time.

Don’t wish me luck, I don’t want to screw up my losing streak.