James Pogue on how he learned to feed his fly fishing obsession in the urban wild.
I may not be seeing otters or elk, but I get to hear stories from the guys who have made a home in the riverside cane beds, and who often have useful tips on where to find fish. I’m still deep into an obsession, but the pleasure of urban fly-fishing is that you don’t have to be obsessed at all to pursue it.
LINK (via: The NY Times)
To my possibly warped mind, there is Urban Fishing for what might be called personal kudos (“Hey, guys, here I am slumming it. Cool, or what?”, then there is Urban Fishing out of necessity (no other choice than fishing this semi-stormdrain, because rivers with trees and grass are financially and travel-wise just not an option for me).
Here in Britain over the past, perhaps ten or so years, we have seen a new breed of high-profile Urban Fisher.
Their articles extolling U.F. and how and why they do it have appeared in top London and national British newspapers like the New York Times’ sister paper, the The Times (of London, owned by the same News International – or whatever it’s calling itself these days – corporation) and in glossy sporting magazines that normally only feature glitzy, highly exclusive or big money, domestic and foreign destination fishing.
The writers of such articles, if you know their kind, their social backgrounds and “modus operandi”, are guys ever at pains to keep from a less clued-up public just where they REALLY FISH when they are not, as they claim, fishing down, dirty and dangerous with the boys in the ‘hood – the best of the best waters with guys just like themselves (and myself, originally, background-wise) from good neighbourhoods and very very good schools (mine being Roderick Haig-Brown’s old pile in Surrey, England).
There is a fakery about Urban Fishing’s high profile, all-media promoters (and self-promoters), in my opinion. To use a more downscale Brit’s verbal vernacular, “This AIN’T about fishin’, mate. It’s more about tsome posh blokes’ evangelizing and missionary politics.”
Which delivers a very nice and easy , great waters fishing invitations, plenty of great free gear as a all-media “influencer’, elegant sort of lifestyle for its socially lofty promoters, too.
Best stick to REAL people, REAL fishing in the REAL world, I reckon; it’s the only way we Brits and probably you guys ‘over there’ and the world over are going save Angling (and fish and the waters in which they swim, whereever they might be) in the long term, now. Making them appear briefly social-media cool simply “ain’t” going to work, as there will some other far-cooler new must-do distraction along in a minute.
These new Urban Hymns … they just won’t work.
Bit of old music for you.
https://youtu.be/ToQ0n3itoII