I’ve always been comfortable with the Bull in the China shop approach, it’s a mixture of distaste for societal norms, tolerance for physical pain, and diminished IQ.
Ardor is useful for the young, but is often confused as evangelical when you’re older. “Religion” tends to breed cliques and the us-versus-them mentality, useful when you’re the underdog, but has little place in fly fishing.
We’ve got enough fractious behavior, backbiting, and cliques to rival any public middle school.
The recent article on “Brownlining” appearing in the Wall Street Journal, bred commentary that reminded me of the issue. While I cannot speak for all devotees, I’ll suggest this is largely perception, and will expand on the topic below.
…but I do think the author missed an opportunity to expand on the gentleman’s comment that brownlining is a “sanctioning” of nature’s destruction. At first I thought that these men were doing something novel in making the best of their environment, but then I realized, yes, they’re giving up in the fight to preserve nature spots.
Not so. Take an ardent fisherman whose got to work for a living, who – like you – has half a weekend afternoon to get in some “decompress” time, draw a circle around his house of an hour or less – and that’s what he’ll fish.
The fact that he represents a small voting minority comprised of like minded individuals means he’ll be fishing soiled water. Most of us live in urban areas whose voters deemed water quality and riparian habitat less important than green lawns and cheap rutabagas.
… which lie lonesome and congealing on children’s plates.
We’re still the only fellow keeping an eye on the drainage, the only guy packing out discarded water bottles, or alerting the authorities to the car or corpse in the streambed. We haven’t given up on the environment, we’re merely fishing the Now rather than gash our bosom over “how it ought to be.” At each opportunity we vote our belief, donate time or money to organizations that avow the same principles, but our lobby is weak, our collective voice a murmur, and our numbers diminish with every passing year.
Pristine blue water can turn into brown water by adding industry and people – and once brown, stays that way. As new watershed can’t be created and what’s left is either fenced or in slow decline, our children won’t understand this color distinction as they’ll be drinking it.
I enjoyed this article, but I think it gives the false impression that fishing in these marginal waters is relatively new. Other than the name “brown lining”, it is certainly not new.
So true. The earliest civilizations are synonymous with great waterways; the Thames, Nile, Tigris, Ganges, Yalu, Yangtze, etc., all spawned civilizations whose waterways boosted the flow of goods with other countries and municipalities. Untreated sewage and wastewater were intermingled with fishing nets and bathers, and the only new wrinkle is leisure time, a modern invention, and the concept of fishing as sport rather than subsistence.
Interesting story, but I’d still rather catch a 10-15 inch trout in clear water than a 10-15 pound bottom feeder in a toxic cesspool. Call it elitism if you like, but these guys will be happy I’m not into it.
I’m not so sure. Firstly, “toxicity” is a shifting target largely dependent on the government for “recommended daily dosages.” When we discover that (2R)-2-[(4-Ethyl-2,3-dioxopiperazinyl)carbonylamino]-2-phenylacetic acid makes your children unable to reproduce, some fellow in Washington exclaims, “oOpsie” – and then a decade later – adds it to the long list of things to monitor in your drinking water.
… and secondly, a 10-15 pound bottom feeder has physics on his side. Whether lethargic or acrobatic it’s still twice the size of your tippet and glued to the bottom. It’s something to do while waiting for your daughter at band practice, and it’s something that keeps your reflexes sharp and your form true, so the first day of your vacation isn’t wasted as you relearn how to cast …
Clear water is toxic too – brown only gives you an extra visual cue.
…These are quite possibly the hardest fish to catch in fresh water on fly rods…they have some of the most advanced senses of smell of any animal and are easily spooked by even the most gentle casts.
Precisely what we’ve discovered, a one pound trout on a four pound tippet is a test of the trout, a fourteen pound fish on six pound tippet is a test of the angler. Isn’t that what we’re really looking for?
I bet these men would still jump at the chance to go fishing in pristine nature settings.
Also true, but nature is many hours distant and requires a weekend to be truly efficient. A two income household in a declining job market with an onerous mortgage, a 201K, and a kid needing orthodontia … Nature might have to take a backseat to food on the table.
To me the brown water is something close by that I can fish daily without endangering the family unit. No different from the practice range for golfers, who despite the decline in the economy, still have 51 weekends of desire, and a 16 weekend budget.
Beats crap out of painting the living room or remaining cloistered on the couch.
It’s certain some will prefer a secret society and claim to rival Theodore Gordon, but I want no part in it. I just want to make fish suffer.
Given the circumstances, Brown water with it’s miles of river and the solitude of Nature, with working fish and no human competition, contrasted with tales of overcrowding and traffic, rising costs and the diminishing returns of blue water, might make it the last frontier.
It doesn’t make its practitioners anything special unless the wind shifts.
I read a few other comments about the article, and the factionalization of the fly fishing blogosphere has never been more apparent.
The mainstream tried to look away in distaste (but couldn’t quite make it), but I did find the guy’s comment about “giving up in the fight to preserve nature spots” interesting, even if largely wrong.
In truth, we could see an affect like that if brownlining acquires an anti-bluelining patina – which makes about as much sense as deer hunters hating on elk hunters because they’re snobs.
In truth – outside of the well-known fact that all brownliners are descended directly from the Neanderthals – there isn’t much difference (one needs a giardia cure, the other a home heavy metals chelating kit).
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“Sanctioning” nature’s destruction? Maybe that person should look closer at the natural resources that are impacted every day by their lifestyle, assuming they live in a house, eat food, and drive a car.
Just because they are not driving over to a local creek and dumping their household trash and used couch does not mean they are without guilt in contributing to our declining environment.
Some of us, brownliners included, are actually doing something locally to clean up the creeks, pressure the politicians, and contribute to slowing the sullying of our streams.
(You still have a 201K??? All I have left is my 101K.)
Great post. Excellent arguments and commentary.
Thanks for posting this KB, as I lacked the energy to yield such a vehicle. I don’t believe reading anywhere on a brownliner blog about the condoning of environmental apathy and destruction. Most of the brownliners I’ve come across are some of the most environmentally concerned fellows out there.
I also found fallacy with many of the posters comments regarding carp living in dirty ugly places. Opportunists like John Montana, Wendy Berrell, and my self will quickly tell you that carp thrive in clean beautiful water too. It just that the other blueliners we are sharing the same water with are too busy drooling over their stunted 6″ brookie to see us landing a 20# behemoth.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I look at neither the landscape or anthropogenic influence when fly fishing; I focus on the fish. It is the pursuit and chase I seek; the brown water just happens to be there sometimes.
I think we all agree that the article missed the mark, but perhaps I’m missing something. The Brownlining thing seems to be a little bit over sensationalized. I’ve seen some blogs the sport Brownlining logos etc. and it seems to be getting even a little bit “clicky”.
I fish in my own backyard too. We can’t all get away to a world class spot and we all love to fish so we fish wherever we can,whenever we can.
Fish blue, fish brown… the point is go and fish. So do we need to categorize ourselves further?
I donno, seems like somebody needs something to feel special about. Instead of being proud of dropping a fly next to a floating diaper, why not spend a weekend picking up a few. Isn’t that what we should all be focused on?
JB,
Your points are well taken. I suppose in this age of specialization, folks are comfortable being identified as a subset of the whole.
My take on all of this is identical to your own, if through misfortune or poor genetics we’re afflicted with fishing lust – then the act of fishing is all that’s important, the how and the what is immaterial.
In defense of those that have the banners – you only need look at the tepid reactions of some of the other blogs to understand their righteous fervor.
Mainstream media wants desperately to overlook this “seamy underbelly” of fly fishing, and they’re aided and abetted by some of the traditional bias we’ve all seen before and endured.
For some, that’s a call to arms, for others it’s shrugged off as the Ghost of Angling Past.
I was thrilled at mainstream coverage, it’s one more avenue where we get to raise the public awareness to some of these longterm environmental issues.
You would think that with the small number of votes we (fly fishermen) can muster, we could look beyond the fractious silliness for seven minutes – in order to do some good.
Instead, most took umbrage at the “invented” word – when the correct term should have been “popularized.”
“Invented” is a four letter word, as everyone knows somebody, that knew this dude, whose brother did it first.
I think that’s the root of the evil and partisanship.
I would also rather catch a trout (what ever size) in a clear running river.
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