The Big Why, part 4

Fly fishing is a religion without a god, I concluded a couple of posts ago. O.k., that might have been a bit too bold, but there's nevertheless a lot of resemblance between the two. Of course, it's a piece of cake to sum up a sheer endless amount of things that are more or less familiar, but I do find two particular resemblances much more than just a coïncidence:

- People are looking for structure.
- People want to belong to a certain group.

Let's start with structure. Religion is in fact one of the best proofs available that people need structure and prefab answers in life. I mean, while there's no proof of any god of any kind and of any form, it's rather striking how many people actually believe the same thing in exactly the same way. Having (just to name two) the Koran and the Bible in mind, I think it's fair to say many people somehow just want to believe 'by the book' rather than really make up their own mind.

This applies to us fly fishermen too: we also choose to fish 'by the book', in this case a book that tells us to use a fly rod, a fly line and a fly reel (in part 3 I already concluded that the fly itself is of little, if any, significance). Sure, we do experiment and explore, but only from within our comfort zone, our base camp. In the pursuit of our luxurious needs the options are endless. Without some sort of structure we would feel lost from the beginning until the end. So sooner or later we just settle for something: "hey, I kinda like this way of fishing, let's stick to it, sit back and enjoy the ride."

The second interesting resemblance between religion and fly fishing is the group: people somehow want to be a member of a certain group (and with religion sometimes it's not even a choice). Belonging to a group gives you friends and an identity. "I believe in Jesus, Allah, Buddah, Shiva and I'm proud of it." This easily translates to fly fishing. We (at least, I do) feel proud to be a fly fisherman. Whilst among fly fishing mates, I occasionally find myself talking derogatory about carp fishermen or coarse fishermen who just throw in their baits and lay back lazily to see what happens, or lure fishermen trawling on posh boats with 5 rods per person using 3 trebles per lure.

And when I see them catching all those big fish and having tons of fun along the way, I somehow still have to think: "Yeah, but I catch them on the fly." In Holland we've got a saying that flyfishing is the most fun way to catch less. But when I see the coarse- and lurefishermen sometimes watch me struggle with my fly rod and fly line, I can almost hear them thinking: "It's hard work, less efficient and it catches less fish. How could that be fun at all?" And then I can only resort to the typical Calvinistic Dutch saying "Rest Rusts" and think: "O.k., but we catch less the hard way.......