Maybe grandpa told you not to talk or you’ll scare away the fish. Perhaps you watched a super artsy video on YouTube where the anglers moved in slow motion. Whatever the reason, you’re convinced that trout are the smartest creatures on this planet. And not just smart: paranoid. They do nothing but wait and watch for goofballs dressed to the nines in Simms shirts and Patagonia waders, saving their tail-flick-and-swim routine for the moment you lay eyes upon them.
Some of that is reality, but most of it is not.
Do you have to be quiet around fish? Yes; relatively. You have to be relatively quiet on the subway or else you’ll get beaten up, too. Do you have to move slowly? Yes; within reason. We’re not hunting deer with bowie knives, we’re fly fishing.
Folklore and “grandpa always said” make up a great deal of how fly fishers approach the water. And to be honest, that stuff is harder to deprogram than the yahoos that trudge into the creek hollering to their buddy about who knows what. While those troglodytes need education, the former need reeducation. And fly fishing, like the rest of life, often means an old dog / new trick scenario.
So now that I’ve offended everyone equally (extensive snark = one pejoratively used “troglodyte,” no?), I have a brief look at some things one might want to consider when approaching the water. This isn’t a list so much as it is a hierarchy. Everything matters, but some things matter more. It is like a dry fly: Yes, it is nice to have Spanish muskrat hindquarter hairs for a tail on that one special Catskill pattern. But Super Valu Brand rabbit will do just fine.
So here are, listed from least to most important, the things one needs to consider when walking into position to try and catch a fish on a fly.
