stream thought

I have never been a great fan of tuition where fly-fishing is concerned, something to do with looking for results with little effort. Getting it wrong, figuring it out, improvising your way through, seem to be crucial mentalities for developing the art. But earlier this year I succumbed.

I have always struggled with the wet fly art. After long barren spells of fishing the dry, with little surface activity to give a sense of hope and encouragement, I have occasionally turned to the wet fly, “chucked across and left to chance.” And at times this has connected me to a trout. But I could never see where the art was.

So I tracked down a guide who advertised the wet fly art, Louis Noble.

The day was difficult. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong and Louis spent quite a bit of time untangling knots. A strong upstream wind and my lack of experience in single-spey casting a team of flies meant much frustration.

The day ended up being very influential. It was not so much the specific techniques; casts, mends, reaches, skates and lifts. Since that day I have practised these many times. No, what I got was something much more important – the culmination of a tradition from the accumulated experience of wet fly masters, made alive through the graceful rhythm of Louis’ prospecting flies, tied clyde-style. The weight of Stewart, Pritt, Edmonds and Lee, and more recently, Nemes, Hidy and Hughes brought to bear in the moment.

So tuition had its place, not so much for anything very specific but more so for providing a glimpse into a new possibilities and a certain posture towards the art. The Japanese have a term for it: “Koryu”, or schooling within a tradition. But I prefer the literal translation of “Old-Flow”.