Crowds

One of the curses added to a season like this one, where the weather takes away many fishing days during the peak of the season, is the crowds which result from anglers’ desperation. Bad behavior abounds.

I usually try to fish those reaches of our rivers that are neglected by the majority of the thousands of fly fishers who flock to the Catskills. These are places with fewer, more difficult fish, the pools where stocking trucks are unknown. Weather is the equalizer though. When wadable water is at a premium, the crowds spread out across the landscape.

I have never really grasped the crowd mentality when it pertains to solitary pursuits like hunting and fishing. All that is required is one car at a pull off, one fisherman in a pool, and the crowd can materialize like magic. Do people think that occupied pool or run is the only one harboring a trout? Do they need the group experience?

I was fishing one of those secondary pools the other day when a pair of eyes began burning a hole in the back of my neck. There were two guys crouched on the bank watching me fish slowly downstream. No trout were rising and there hadn’t been throughout the day, so I was simply fishing cover to pass the time. Unfortunately, I caught a couple of small trout while they were watching, and that did it. Both guys piled in and started wading across right in front of me and closer than the length of my casts, intent upon cutting off my downstream course. The river there is easily better than 200 feet wide, and there was no one else there, but they had to move right in on the only angler in sight. Sportsmen, no doubt about it.

There are miles of rivers and streams here in the Catskills, a lot of good water, so there is no reason to act like that, though every season there are those that behave this way as a matter of course. Fly fishing used to be a game for gentlemen, those who showed courtesy to one another, offered help or a productive fly to a newcomer. Today a lot of that has been replaced by what those of us who remember those days recognize as combat fishing.

Back thirty years ago the sport of flyfishing was experiencing a period of large-scale growth. Thousands came into the sport, many attracted by the beauty and solitude of the natural environment. The mass mindset seemed to say that growth was good, more people to protect our rivers and streams, to advocate for clean water and wild trout. To some extent we got that, but at a cost. Though many were attracted by the beauty and solitude, they made it their mission to destroy it, crowding on top of other anglers wherever they went.

When I started out, there was a learning curve. When you encountered another angler on the stream you kept your distance and left him to his water in peace. If he looked like he was pretty good, it was okay to watch quietly from the bank for a few minutes and then pass on. No shouting a greeting, no sloshing in the water nearby. Speak only if spoken to. Treat others as you would wish to be treated. Remember those ideas?

I tend to get angry when combat fishing intrudes upon my experience, I am human, and angling and my time on the river means a great deal to me. When I think about these events, I also feel some regret for those who fish that way. They are depriving themselves of the best that angling has to offer by their actions, either because they don’t know any better, or simply don’t care.