There is absolutely no reason to start this post with an image of Taylor Swift.  Well there is the off chance that she will do a google search of herself and discover the “Flyosophy” blog, read it, and fall in love with the mind of its author.  I’m not sure if that is mathematically more or less probable than winning Power Ball…wait I can solve this.

The odds of winning Power Ball are known: 1 in 146,107,962.  Call it 1 in 150 Million.

If we accept the belief that there is someone for everyone on this planet…and the total population of the Earth is: 6,706,993,152.  If we assume that Taylor and the Flyosopher are both straight - then yours truly has a 1 in 3.5 Billion chance of finding happiness with Taylor Swift.

I like those odds.  She is a very talented young lady, but one of my least favorite words in the English language is “talent.”

My brother was an outstanding soccer player in High School.  Every morning he would get up an hour before he had to to run laps at the park dribbling his ball.  He had a ball tethered to the ground in our small backyard that he would kick every chance he got.  He read books about soccer, he attended camps for soccer, he even got a pair of Buddhist meditation orbs colored like soccer balls.

Despite all this work (actually because of it,) whenever he would achieve some accolade in the sport, it would quickly be dismissed with a single comment.

“He has talent.”

As though all the hours of practice, the determination, and the dedication was just secondary to some genetic skill.  My brother for his part was always very modest about his accomplishments.  He would often hold his head down, almost as if he were embarrassed.  If pressed he would pass the praise to a coach, team-mate, anything other than the sheer volume of work he had done to achieve his success.  Compared to modern standards of sportsmanship set by Terrell Owens and his ilk, Brian was a perfect gentleman.

Yet I always thought he was doing himself, and more importantly,  a few of the younger athletes who looked up to him, a bit of a disservice.  Because he was helping to promote the myth of talent.

“Dictionary is the only place that “success” comes before “work.”  Hard work is the price we must pay for success.  I think you can accomplish anything if you are willing to pay the price.”

Vince Lombardi

There is a price to be paid if you want to be truly successful in any endeavor.  This is as true for soccer as it is for fly fishing.  People who are good fishermen are not born with horse-shoes up their asses or snack on Lucky Charms while sawing the feet off of rabbits.  There is no fly casting gene that they are born with, and despite claims to the contrary spotting fish has less to do with superior vision than it does practice.  A good fisherman is skilled, experienced, observant, dedicated, and knowledgeable.  This is the good news.  All of those adjectives are qualities that anyone can hone and develop.

Are fishermen lucky?  Maybe, but skill and knowledge tend to make one lucky.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

Seneca

Maybe it is just a pet peeve of mine, or maybe it is a product of where I fish.  I find that far too many fly fishermen are intellectually lazy.  When a guy wants to fish with you more often than not that means he wants to follow you, use your flies, and then moan and bitch because the spot requires a 40′ cast into a headwind and he can only make a 20′ one.

Then you have the geniuses that believe every single fly you should ever want or need was invented back before the dawn of nylon.

I love going to tying demonstrations.  I have been tying flies for better than 25 years, and I have never gone to a demo that two things didn’t happen.

First, that I learn some new pattern, technique or skill that I didn’t have before.

Second, some smack-tard makes the comment, “But you don’t really need that do you…”

Guess what…you don’t need any of this crap.  It is a recreational activity, the very definition means we don’t need it.  Trogdor of the River people needed to go fishing to stave off starvation;  you don’t.

I find fly fishermen, actually people in general are resistant to change.  Dinosaurs were resistant to change too.

All kidding aside, it just kind of makes me sad.  Fly fishing is a wonderful pass time skirting the line between a sport and an art.  Sport and art have one great detail in common, you can work at both your entire life and never run out of things to learn, innovate, or improve.  To see fly fishermen with their minds closed to this is rather discouraging, it cheapens what a fly fishermen is, what a fly fisherman can be.

This post took a turn I wasn’t expecting.  There are people like this in all aspects of life.  Seriously, it doesn’t bother me.  Fishing is fun.  So are see-saws.  These guys remind me of the loser kids at the playground sitting on the see-saw by themselves crying, “Weeeeee” even though they never leave the ground.

Back to talent…

It is a popular phrase in fly fishing that 90% of the fish are caught 30′ or less from the angler.  I think this is probably statistically true.  What I disagree with is the implied epilogue, there is no reason to cast further than 30′.  I can think of three reasons: there are fish more than 30′ from you, wind can reduce your longest cast by 50% or more, and most important of all, distance casting is fun.

For those of you who have read some of my casting posts on Talkflyfishing.com, you know what I’m going to say next.  The only way to improve your cast is to practice your cast.

“But Mr. Flyosopher, can’t I practice while I’m fishing?”

Hell no.  Or rather, you aren’t really fishing at that point.  Ask another stupid question and I’ll force feed you a Hemlock smoothie.

I practice casting on average a half hour a day.  I generally take half my lunch break at work to practice casting.  As is the case with gaining experience, true practice should be an active endeavor.

If you stand and cast repeatedly you are unlikely to improve.  Your best cast will remain your best cast.  The best you can really hope for is to cut down on the number of mistakes you make that screw it up.  To truly improve, I believe you need to set measurable goals for yourself, work on the casting components separately and then in unison, and finally you have to really want to.

I learned most of my casting by drilling, much the same way my brother learned soccer.  Despite the best attempts of teachers, nearly all learning is trial and error.  Drilling allows you to restrict the variables.  For instance, if I make a cast and something goes wrong unless it is glaringly obvious I really have no idea what it was, if I am only making a backcast then I’m already 50% closer to the right answer, and if I am only practicing my positive stop - well then every trial and error is obvious.  The more obvious it is that action A creates reaction B the quicker you will learn.  That is why I am a fan of drilling, because I can experiment.  Longer versus shorter arm strokes, pulling compared to pushing, even simple concepts like grips, all of these can be fine tuned for you to make the cast you need to make in any given situation.

It works.  I’m a fair caster, and I don’t have any natural talent.