Recently I released a podcast episode entitled “3 Lies that Keep People from Fly Fishing.” (You can listen to it here, or wherever you listen to podcasts.) The first lie that I addressed was one of the most inaccurate assumptions people hold about fly fishing. It is an unnecessary perspective that unfortunately keeps people from giving the sport a try. More than that, it breeds resentment and bitterness. This lie feeds and is fed into by a greater cultural impulse that doesn’t help anyone. What is it?

Fly fishing is too expensive.

You might be quick to say “I agree! Have you seen the price of the new Brand X Fly Rod 2.0? A thousand bucks? Who can afford that?” Or, perhaps, the retort is “I can’t spend ten thousand dollars for a week in Alaska. I can’t even spend six hundred for a day on a river with a local guide.”

First, I’m not denying some of the outlandish price tags on items and experiences within fly fishing. But this is ultimately a fallacious argument. It is an appeal to extremes. By that same logic, cars are too expensive because  there are some Rolls-Royce models that come in at over twenty million. Or, eating with utensils is cost prohibitive because Tiffany and Co.   silverware sets are priced in the tens of thousands.

A quick internet search yielded a half dozen outfits for under $50 American. That means you’ve got a rod, reel, line, backing, leader and sometimes flies for the price of a tank of gas in your minivan.

Fly fishing is not too expensive.

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I am not anti-AI.

I also grew up with the Terminator series and, therefore, have a healthy fear of giving robots too much autonomy.

One of my favorite ways to interact with large language models is to ask them what other people are asking them. Or, I see what kinds of questions are on people’s minds.

Recently I engaged a chatbot on popular fly fishing inquiries. I wasn’t surprised at the overall responses.

• What is fly fishing and how is it different from spin fishing?
• What basic gear do I need to start fly fishing?
• What rod, reel, and line should a beginner buy?
• Is fly fishing hard to learn?
• How much does it cost to get into fly fishing?

But then I probed a little deeper. What was trending as follow-up questions. Or, outside of those basic beginner questions, what were fly fishers asking? Here are the three of the top questions anglers have been asking AI… along with my non-robotic responses.

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