The Big Why, final words.

Just a few posts ago I mentioned some resemblances between fly fishing and religion and concluded that somehow us fly fishermen want to do things the hard way. And indeed, I think in the end that's the best way to distinguish fly fishermen from other sportsfishermen and answer the initial question of this series of posts.

Fly fishing is a hobby, it's all about fun, about feeling good. And for many people, there's a direct relationship between the amount of effort they put into something and the amount of fun they get out of it. Reward and satisfaction are the key-words here. I find this typical for flyfishermen: we like to limit ourselves to a more difficult and often less effective way of fishing in order to get more fun out of it. We simply put more emphasis on the way we do things than on the result (or, as philosophers would say: it's about the road itself, not the destination).

And although other types of fly fishing may have some other rather significant 'fun parts' to them (e.g. dry fly fishing and nymph fishing on sight), I think when it comes to pike fly fishing we're pretty much stuck to the hard-way-explanation: the reward of the effort put in and the statement to others. I can live with that....