BELIEVE IN THE BIRD
By GEORGE LISETGeorge Liset
I have always had a love for fly fishing. A lone man in the wilderness with a map and compass and a fly rod battles the elements in search of the elusive trout. There are times when I fly fly fish in a remote area where I can imagine I’m in western or northern Maine, but it’s twenty minutes from the nearest fast food restaurant. Progress and technology happened to me. It started slowly, it seems, and smacked you in the face like a lefty gone wrong.
I will add that I have a stake in this matter. There are advances in equipment technology. I enjoy fishing my rods made of fly rods that are lighter and stronger than bamboo. I have started fishing with my own bamboo rods and I can appreciate the beauty and history of them and their style, but after a day of use your hand gets a little heavy and your casts they are lazy.
The same is true of fly reels. The new reels are lighter and seem to perform better than the old ones. A new reel on a light stick is like a hot knife in butter. It is very easy to cast and can be more forgiving to the average caster.
Then there is Gore Tex. Lightweight and breathable waders and jackets. An Angler doesn’t have to sweat in neoprene in the summer. I just bought a pair of zippered waders. This is a technology that took time to perfect, but for older, more mature fly fishers it’s a real chore. This is a technology that happened gradually. I also appreciate the new lightweight shoes that are easy on the old knees and keep the little ones.
New technology is introduced every day. I just received my new “Trout” magazine produced by Trout Unlimited. I will say Editor Kirk Deeter did a great job. The last few issues have featured stories by John Gireach and many other talented writers as well as a wealth of fly fishing information. The latest issue featured two devices that caught my attention.
The first tool was TroutRoutes. This app is timeless but it keeps expanding its content. TroutRoutes is a map tool that shows the fish stocks of every river, every river and creek that has trout fishing. The app shows water access points and can save the angler time on the fly mapping and driving.
The following tool is new to me. TroutSpotter is a scientific project. The project is a collaboration between the United States Geological Survey, Trout Unlimited and Wild Me, a non-profit organization. This app allows you to take a picture of a trout, download it and keep track of your catch. The idea is that the pattern of spots on a fish is similar to human fingerprints, so a person can identify individual fish.
So if someone catches that same fish the app will let you know where it was found and when it was found.
This sounds like a fun tool, especially for a middle/high school science project. Then I started to think. If your catch is caught four or five times after you catch it, does it mean that there are a lot of big fish out there, or a fish that is close to the eyes or not so bright . What happens when I say a trout is six inches and the next angler says it was eight? Can I have two more inches? Technology in its early stages can be confusing.
While I was trying to do this, I recently received a notification from Google about my whereabouts in the past months. As I examine it closely I realize that it shows all my secret fishing spots. Now it’s been a few years since I picked up a cell phone. This is for several reasons. The first is that I take pictures of the fish I catch to prove that I don’t smell when I fish. The second is that if I lose time on the river and it starts to get dark, my wife knows where to send the Silver Alert crew.
While all this technology can be fun and helpful, I can’t help but think of James Fenimore Cooper’s character from the Leatherstocking series, Natty Bumpo, aka Hawkeye. Hawkeye tries to escape from civilization, in order to keep his American ways, by slowly moving from New York to the west. Hawkeye finally realizes that it is futile as the civilization from the west slowly meets him. It’s true that technology has made my life easier, but as long as I can, I’ll embrace the old ways.
George Liset of Dover is an award-winning outdoor writer and avid angler who shares details of his time on the water exploring New Hampshire’s streams and rivers as well as nearby New England. George graduated from Wheaton College, Illinois, and the University of New Hampshire. His Writing on the Fly column has been honored by the New England Press Association and the New Hampshire Press Association.
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