Author and University of Toronto Professor Mark Kingwell with a thoughtful response to the NY Times story on the “new trend” of fly fishing.
If the new breed of hip, millennial anglers does indeed exist outside of trend pieces, then that’s great. All they need to succeed is the love of fishing, a commitment to conservation and a rod.
LINK (via: The Globe and Mail)
Hmm. Smells not so much like Teen Spirit to me, but more Desperate Manhattan Madmen Brand Detoxification by the very visiting, I want not just some but all of that gear, non-Angler Aliens who, in their blind ambition and greed, did the terrible toxifying nearly thirty years back. Effortlessly magical, not to be analysed and “known” genies back in their original, artisanal in their essence and very nature, not by monetizing, worked-up Design, beautiful bottles (a.k.a. eye-catching baubles for the now much-needed new initiate consumers)…?
Tough call, fellas. Synthesizing a Trend might work for mere Product, but it doesn’t for something like Flyfishing. You can’t manufacture magic, you see, however much a bunch of bought-in soon-to-fall-off-a-cliff-mid-Selfie Influencers try.
Back to basics first, I reckon. The gear is secondary and can be inflicted on a New Breed of True Believers only much much later.
Speaking now from a British perspective now, from a country that has lost most of its flyfishers – old, middle and “Never seen one / I told the last one I saw … must be fifteen years ago, now … to keep well clear and not to interfere with MY fishing…” young – over the past decade or so and is only now (with a lot of grizzled and thinning- or bald-head-scratching) plaintively asking itself “What went wrong…?”
Er, I’m very much afraid that you “We’ll scale the castle walls then kick away the ladders….” sorts did, chaps.
The times were a-changin’ and you were the guys tried to not only stop but also turn back the clock.