I have a way of unintentionally saying offensive things to people. Maybe I offended Fightmaster, too. Anyway, he didn’t reply to my text in which I told him he’d ruined me.
That’s Rob Fightmaster I’m writing about. He might be the most respected fishing guide operating along the Eastern seaboard. For all I know, he’s the most respected guide in the whole United States.
I was merely trying to convey to him the extent to which he influenced my trout fishing. It’s kind of a long story, so settle in for a minute. Some 40 years or more ago, I bought a fly rod.
I already was crazy about angling for trout. I always used live bait, though. But I had this silly idea that I would learn to fly fish and would start catching more trout that I ever had before.
I was wrong, but that’s how naïve I was. What actually happened was my catch rated dropped precipitously. I stuck with the fly fishing, though.
And I even caught a fish occasionally. About the time I bought my first fly rod, Sylvester Nemes and Dave Hughes began writing glowing paeans to old-fashioned wet flies. And the first assortment of flies I bought — a handful of cheap flies that came from the big box store in little bubbles of plastic — included a red-winged wet fly.
I knew how to use it. Anglers just toss them out and let the current play with them according to the current’s wont. It’s fly fishing for the masses — an angling method scorned, ridiculed and looked on indignantly.
One chilly and rainy Se.
