Enough with the “Extreme” Fishing Already!
Let’s get something straight. Rodeo is an “extreme” sport. Perhaps the original extreme sport. Doing back flips on motorcycles (on...
SaddleBronc
Let’s get something straight. Rodeo is an “extreme” sport. Perhaps the original extreme sport. Doing back flips on motorcycles (on purpose) over jumps is pretty extreme. BASE jumping is extreme. Fly fishing is not an extreme sport. Never has been. Never will be.
I keep getting press releases and pitch letters telling be about the next totally awesome, “extreme” fly fishing adventure. The word “oxymoron” comes to mind when “extreme” and “fly fishing” are bundled together. Please, people who send me these things, omit extreme fly fishing from your vocabulary.
So you dodge some heavy rapids. Not extreme. Jumping tarpon in the Everglades. Not extreme. You catch fish that might bite you. Not extreme. Well, okay, Conway Bowman and Dave Trimble, who catch big mako sharks on flies from 20-foot boats 16 miles offshore… that’s a little nutty. But even they don’t say “extreme.”
Mind you, I’ve been in the bush planes in Alaska, landed on jungle airstrips in Bolivia (then went upriver in dugout canoes to fish for dorado… please do check out the July issue of Field & Stream magazine to see that feature story), and been bit, scratched and all that. I call that iffy. Dicey sometimes. But not extreme.
Am I missing something? Do you have a real “extreme” fishing story that might change my mind?
Deeter