Who Would Win Fly Fishing Olympic Gold?

As much as I’m enjoying watching the Winter Olympics, I must admit that I think “bonus curling coverage” is an oxymoron. That’s not a sport. That’s a game. Anything you can do while you drink beer should not qualify as an Olympic sport. But if the Olympics want curling in the mix, why not fly fishing?

I wonder who would win medals in the various fly fishing disciplines. Not just that dopey Euro-nymph stuff they do at the fly fishing world championships. Also some exciting, made-for-television events:

Long distance casting into a wind machine… Gotta think the team from the Bahamas would dominate. Maybe Argentina would win silver. Belize takes bronze.

Two-handed Spey on targets. Great Britain takes gold. Canada wins the silver (unless the fly fishing Olympics were in Canada, then they’d take bronze). Toss-up between Norway and Sweden for the bronze.

Czech nymphing. Poland wins gold (because they really started it). Slovakia earns the silver, and the Czechs take bronze, then quickly start reunification talks with the Slovaks.

Of course, it wouldn’t be an Olympics unless there were several sports on the schedule that only Americans really do, so we can pad our medal total (e.g. snowboarding). So let’s just say the Yanks sweep the medals in bass plug popping, wet-wading a river obstacle course in Keen sandals, and saying “dude… nice fish… pretty colors” most often in the free-fish long program, which counts for 3/4 of the total score. But watch out, the South Koreans and Chinese will create stringent training programs with respective crops of 17,000 four-year-olds and dominate these events in 16 years.

Sight fishing? New Zealand 1, Slovenia 2, and USA 3, provided our team from Lees Ferry, Arizona, and Key West passes doping control.

And the “all-around” fly fishing decathlon (catching trout on dry flies, carp on streamers, drift boat rowing, nymph tying, roll casting, salmon netting, tarpon jumping, belly boating, wind-aided two-weight distance casting, and grip-n-grinning)… hmmm, that’s a tough call. Which nation can boast the best all-around fly anglers? You’d think the Americans would be heavy favorites. But I wouldn’t discount the Japanese, or the Germans. Chile and Argentina would be in there. I’d say the Brazilian women’s team would get the highest television ratings if they wore the same uniforms their beach volleyball team does. And Oh, Canada… yeah, I know, you think you’d “own the podium.”

I’ll let you award the overall team medals… I’m going to watch some curling.

Deeter