Fly-fishing Epistemology: How Do We Know What We Know?

To grow as an angler, you must test your beliefs...

I like to joke (fair warning, not everyone is ready to hear this joke) that, contrary to popular belief, success in fly fishing is actually completely random. You catch a fish on average about every one in a hundred casts, and that’s all there is to it.

Everything we talk about for hours, days, even generations on end–from flies to casting technique to rods–actually has no bearing on success. We’ve only convinced ourselves that any of it matters because we’re human, and humans are remarkably adept at finding patterns, even when there are not actually any patterns to be found. We’re essentially too smart for our own good.

Fish, on the other hand, are dumb. They eat gravel, cigarette butts, bare hooks. They’ll eat anything. Have you ever actually looked at a fly? It looks nothing like a real insect. Fish don’t eat flies because we’re smart, they eat flies because they’re dumb. Sometimes you catch ‘em, sometimes you don’t. It doesn’t matter what you do, it only seems like it matters because even in randomness patterns can emerge.

But this is just a joke, right?

Like all jokes, it reveals a kernel of truth. I do think that there are lurking in the world of fly fishing many superfluous beliefs, and that while certain things absolutely do matter, others that many people place great importance upon in fact do not matter at all.