Last night I wrote a long rant about this subject, but becoming slightly wiser with age I stuck it in the draft's folder for review this morning before posting; it's now in the trash, mostly because it drifted way off topic. John's original question concerned what is a fly? If this question arose in the UK it would generate much less interest. Many there (not all) consider a fly to be an imitation of an aquatic or terrestrial insect, everything else is a "lure." If one follows this reasoning things become clear, and the entire debate revolves around the delivery system. Take as an example the very popular Clouser Deep Minnow. It's a lure, and is in no essential way different from a bucktail jig. One can certainly cast a big Clouser with a light spinning outfit (more easily than with most fly-rods). The converse is also true. If I use a casting bubble and a Hexagenia dun pattern on a spinning rod, I could reasonably consider myself to be fly-fishing. So we have the following: Fly-fishing with a fly-rod Fly-fishing with a spinning rod Lure fishing with a fly-rod Lure fishing with a spinning or casting rod
Even the one on which most people would agree, bait fishing, has gotten murky, e.g. how does one treat a plastic spawn imitation impregnated with scent? Nonetheless, I think everyone would agree that a night-crawler, even if fished with a fly-rod, is bait fishing. Can we roll the clock back to sort this out? Not a chance. Only a silly sense of snobbery distinguishes between the angler fishing a weighted nymph with shot on the leader and under a bobber with a fly rod in her hand and another angler fishing exactly the same rig with a spinning rod in his. Both, or neither, are fly-fishing depending on where you want to draw an imaginary line. Cheers, Paul -- Paul Marriner Outdoor Writing & Photography. Member OWAA & OWC. Author of Atlantic Salmon, Ausable River Journal, Miramichi River Journal, and Modern Atlantic Salmon Flies.
