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So, you know how you see something from far away and it looks really great? It’s almost perfect. But if you look a little closer, even from a long distance, you might start to find a few things that aren’t quite right. But it’s good . . . it’s still pretty good.
When you get even closer, you notice more problems. And when you’ve been around it for a long time, you can’t help but see many, many things that could be better.
Well . . . that’s the fly fishing industry.
And I don’t just mean the companies and the big names either. I mean the whole thing: the full scale, from Instagram hashtags and big internet groups to the few anglers that hang out at your local bar. The industry trends, these habits, these practices — some of them just seem wrong. And the gear, the ads, videos and articles, — a lot of it kind of steers people in the wrong direction.
So we thought we’d have a little fun with this and call out as many issues as we can fit into one podcast.
Yes, we’re here to criticize and complain a bit. But it’s all in good fun. And quite honestly, I think most of the things we’ll bring up could certainly benefit from a fair dose of constructive criticism. Think of this as a cleansing. It’s a chance to bring everything out into the open — from the dark corners and into the sunlight.
I’m joined by my friends Josh Darling, Austin Dando, Trevor Smith, Matt Grobe and Bill Dell.
We Cover the Following
- Purists. Elitism
- The warm water police
- Spot burning
- Weather complainers
- Marketing to lifestyle anglers
- Mean people
- Euro anything
- Cheap gear
- Telling anglers to be specialized
- Leaky Waders
- The squeezing fish hold
- The knuckles hold
- People who comment without reading article, watching full video, or listening to whole podcast
- Club Fishing
- The assumption that “experts” knows more than you about fishing
- Anyone pretending that catching fish doesn’t matter
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Resources
READ: Troutbitten | What to Trust
READ: Troutbitten | Use a Versatile Fly Rod
READ: Troutbitten | Holding a Trout — Their Heart In Your Hands
READ: Troutbitten | Angler Types in Profile — Goldilocks
READ: Troutbitten | Why Wild Trout Matter
READ: Troutbitten | Posted — Club Fish — 2065
You can find the dedicated Troutbitten Podcast page at . . .
Season three of the Troutbitten podcast continues with Episode 14 — An Introduction to Night Fishing for Trout. So look for that one in your Troutbitten podcast feed.
Fish hard, friends.
** Donate ** If you enjoy this podcast, please consider a donation. Your support is what keeps this Troutbitten project funded. Scroll below to find the Donate Button. And thank you.
Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com
Can we somehow end these utterly ridiculous photo ops?
Grip n Grins with flyrod held in teeth.
Grip n Grins with flyrod balanced on shoulder
Are you really that desperate to prove you used a flyrod to catch a trout?
BTW:
TB fish pics have improved significantly and are some of the best on the web.
The in-water photos are just so much better on every level.
Other beefs:
Warrior mentality used to market the sport.
Rooftop rod vaults that cost as much (or more) as a top end fly rod.
The endless parade of drift boats pounding the same spots (and fish)
day after day after day after day after . . .
Guys geared-up to the nines – on Stockie Day.
Loved this topic. Give us more, please.
What gets me is people saying the fishing is better in cloudy, overcast, rainy or inclement weather. The best fishing is on super sunny clear sky days it just makes for better Instagram pictures.
I loved the podcast on grievances. I enjoy the interaction between. Love your podcast. I look forward to them every Monday morning
I hope the “Feats of Strength” will be posted on YouTube…
The hoards of people on the streams that I have easy access to have destroyed the fly fishing experience.The gear manufacturers,shops,guides and lodges are obviously promoting fly fishing to increase their customer bases.I am tough enough that I can troop into the backcountry of GSMNP in November through March to get some degree of solitude.The “panic-demic” sparked the sale of gear but the “experts” shut down the National Park and most of the state parks so I am not sure what they did with all that gear they bought.I suspect a lot of it wound up on eBay.My point is the fly fishing advocacy groups should be enhancing the fly fishing experience for the people already enjoying it and putting less emphasis on
kissing butts to increase cash flow for certain entities.
Great podcast. If airing of grievances doesn’t levitate the stress just look skyward and yell “Serenity Now” !
Appreciate the comments about Spot Burning. Not sure we’re going to be able to stop it because there is a super high demand for it and social media makes it too easy for all the narcissists to say “look at me” with no regard for the consequences. It’s gotten even worse during the pandemic with people just looking for something to do outside without first educating themselves. One would think not littering and basic etiquette would be common sense, but nope. And different generations clearly don’t value the same things. Many of us love trout fishing because we love where they live and the solitude that comes with it. When that’s taken away, well… Sorry, I sound like my old man right now, but the change is noticeable and it saddens me.
Hope you post this on YouTube because there are a lot of folks on there who need to listen to this podcast. I almost want to reference it when I see someone spot burning. Mad respect for you and your crew speaking out against it. “Weak” and “pimping”were good words to describe it.
Great podcast. Enjoyed it. You are a classy dude, Dom. Even your grievances come across with class.
Please return to informative skill set oriented topics. Don’t get lost in entertaining your listeners. One of my grievances. Your program is great.
Oh, trust me. We weren’t trying to entertain anyone.
Thanks for your support.
Dom
When I was much, much younger, my then girlfriend once said, late one evening, “I don’t know if I want to go to sleep or complain some more.” Complaining is an art. This podcast shouldn’t be a singleton; it should be part of an ongoing series.
My chief complaint is against myself, specifically, when I fish with a friend and he’s trouncing me and I feel compelled to pretend to be happy for his success whereas, in reality, I’m seething with petty resentment and envy.
My biggest grievance: the fishbrain app
I continue to enjoy every podcast episode.
One thing maybe to take into consideration is the comments about anglers that only fish once a month. I think I know where the comments were coming from. It was about people that care more about image than the actual activity of fishing. I get that. But I wonder if there are people who can only get out once a month that do actually care more about the activity of fishing than image.
I might only get out a few times a month. As it is a few hours to the stream and I am the sole provider in my family, and a father of three. But I do go out, even in those months when it is below freezing and the water is 34 degrees.
I don’t care about image and don’t even have a social media account. And when I can’t get out, I’m tying flies or reading books about trout. So maybe I’m not a “lifestyle” angler. I guess I just want to point out that not everybody who can get out as often as they’d like are in it for the image.
Thanks for the great content you guys provide!
Thanks for listening. I think you are mischaracterizing what we said. You’ve conflated two things.
“I guess I just want to point out that not everybody who can get out as often as they’d like are in it for the image.”
Great. And none of us said that. Our grievance was, as you recognized, those who are.
The lifestyle angler thing: In the podcast, we defined the lilfestyle angler (Austin did) as someone who does fly fishing just for the “Look at me” aspect. They aren’t in it to get better or really care much except for what they think it can do for their image or thier ego. Every sport has those people. They are always annoying.
Cheers, and thanks for listening.
Dom
Cheers. Thanks for the clarification.
Really enjoying the podcast. A great combination of tactics and philosophy – the essence of fly fishing literature. My grievance: Fly fishing companies that think producing a nice rod or waders gives them the credibility to lecture its “customers”on social issues. If I need an outdoors merchandise company to act as my moral compass then I have bigger issues than not being able to catch fish.
Yeah, but these days it seems that all the power to actually get anything changed in the world lies in the hands of big companies. Politicians won’t do it.
Cheers.
Dom
Guys, I have an in-house grievance. It’s about anglers constantly complaining about spot burning. If you got something special, by all means, keep it to yourself.
But PA fish and boat already “burnt” all the water in the state:
And if you think a youtube video with a river name is going to bring hundreds of new anglers . . . well there’s thousands of youtube videos with thousands of different river names. These youtube anglers can’t visit them all.
I think you missed a more important point, chasing rivers show on youtube isn’t the key to getting big fish, spending time on whatever water you can developing your skills is.
Hi Tim. Thanks for your thoughts. Respectfully, you and I will not agree here. I think you have this wrong.
First, PA Fish Commission practices of on stream care is not something I would aspire to. But that map is quite useful. We all use it to help locate wild trout waters. And listing 100’s of streams is not equivalent to a spot burn.
Second, you’re wrong about YouTube videos. The logic that there are lots of these videos with stream names in the title, so they won’t draw attention to one but spread them out is . . . well, illogical. Each of them is spot burning. It sucks. It WILL and it DOES draw unnecessary attention to these rivers.
Third, you wrote this:
“I think you missed a more important point, chasing rivers show on youtube isn’t the key to getting big fish, spending time on whatever water you can developing your skills is.”
We haven’t missed anything. Through the 900+ articles and 50 podcasts of Troutbitten, this is the message — work on great tactics and presentations, because that is most important. That’s always been the consistent message.
I won’t try to flesh out my thoughts on spot burning any further here, because I’ve already done it a few times, giving it the attention it deserves. If you want to be open minded about another opinion, here are two of those resources:
https://troutbitten.com/2022/03/27/podcast-secrets-and-spot-burning-s3-ep1/
https://troutbitten.com/2017/09/26/respect-spots-man-fishermans-thoughts-friendship-spot-burning/
I always summarize spot burning this way: It’s not about preserving what YOU think should be kept special or off the radar. It’s about doing that for OTHERS. Because every spot, every place, is someone else’s home water, their favorite access or special spot.
Thanks for considering.
Cheers
Dom