Fishing is nice. It is fun and depending on the person can be meditative and contemplative. The repetitive motion of casting lulls me into a trance.
It doesn’t matter to me how you fish–lots of anglers judge the way other people fish–I prefer to judge an angler’s conservation ethic. Depending on the season or the river levels, you might find me casting dry flies, nymphing, chucking bait or fishing lures. If a person isn’t into conserving wild fish and improving habitat they aren’t someone I want to fish with. The other stuff, I don’t give a flip about.
I think more of a baitchucker who will get his hands dirty improving habitat then I do a flyfishing purist whose conservation work consists of catch and release fishing. Here are some guys who gave back to the river this past weekend:
TU 678 members and Metro Planning employees cleared 200 feet of Willamette river bank of blackberries over the past year and over the weekend planted the bank with native species.
A couple of these guys fish only flies, one fishes only gear and one of them doesn’t fish. I couldn’t be there because of the eldest’s birthday but there is plenty left to do and I’ll be down there once a week this summer pulling about 200 more linear feet of remaining blackberries and improving habitat conditions. What we share in common is that we care enough to “give up” our time to improve habitat. That is more important than what gear we fish or don’t fish.
Nice work guys.
*raises glass*