To tie of not to tie that is the question

When is too many too much? Quick show of hands, all those who have at least six boxes of flies in their vest, raise your hands! Figuring each box hold 300, wow! 1800 flies, how many is too much?
Cover every scenario, every hatch, all times of year, day, month? Now for the rest of you, how many patterns do you realistic use day in day out? Five, six, seven? Awhile back I made a list of typical flies for most circumstances, came up with a dozen patterns. Aside for some untypical hatch or actually being there for that drake, caddis, stonefly blitz. Most of us are fishing off hatch when we can get a free moment. I now use two boxes (okay, 600 flies but way down from my high of 3000), of a typical season of nymphs, wet flies, soft hackles, CDC's and emergers.

Why? Well I just find it easier. Read an article in the NY Times recently regarding the lack of adult insects and the lack of ability for males to fertilize eggs. Seems global warming may play a part in this. We are actually killing insects ability to reproduce, one expert thinks the abundance of pesticides are also in play. That was my original thought when presented by several anglers their observations. Seems that the combination of low sperm counts and insecticide usage may have finally caught up. Not even going to delve into the prescription drugs in the waters issue, that is a whole another problem. So let's recap the issues: low sperm count-check, drugs in rivers-check, pesticide runoff-check, climate change-check, agricultural runoff red or brown tide-check.

Instead of worrying about not having the right fly, let's start working on fixing the problems. The tying can wait.

A whisper and a sigh in the wind

Thinking about the fragility of life, we all feel invincible and that nothing bad is ever going to happen. Looking out my window I see a tree; strong and stout, branches swaying in the breeze, proudly looking upward to the sun. That tree is only has only one cell width that is alive in that  trunk. One cell that if it fails and its companions to the left and right fail, eventually encircling that trunk, the tree is dead. Fragile even for  a massive tree!

Sad news reaches us every day, mother, father, sister, brother, husband, wife  suddenly passes and we are shocked into a reality of the fragility of life. Rather than mourn, we all put on a brave face and try to move on, yet knowing "but for the grace of god goes I".  We meet many people in our lives, but how many do we actually know? Can we feel their pain, or do we hide in our own? Fragile at best.

I kind of put everything in the context of the rhythm of life, the three part count of a cast as we try to put that fly in the perfect spot. Thoreau wrote "Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after". We are all casting for something; peace of mind, solace for our heart, the sounds of the whisper and sigh in the wind.