"I'm continually confused Dave, you continually indicate how little the fish matter to you, or how you could care less about showing photos of you with fish. Yet almost all posts are with at least one obligatory grip and grin, and a mention of how many fish and how many lbs they were... Who are you lying to other than yourself, if it wasn't about the fish, your blog would have 1/10th of the photos. Perhaps you should re-evaluate your motives or at least be honest about them."
I thought about simply replying in the comments section, but got to thinking that maybe it was time to share a piece of us - for clarification:
Thanks for the reply to our blog post. I’m a fly fisher who loves trout and almost only trout on the fly. All I really do in life is fly fish or immerse myself in fly fishing. All I really want to do is fly fish, and share that aspect of life with others. So many people in my life have commented that we're 'living the dream'; our 'priorities are right'; 'how can I sign up for your life'. I spend about 10 months a year doing it. 95% of our time in NZ was spent fly fishing 8 to 15 hrs a day. I’m relatively good at it - and in a coming blog post you'll understand just how Amelia's progressed. And, what would a fly fishing blog be without at least a photo of a fish?
Here's the rub though. You’re going to have results that some are going to be envious of when you set up your life dedicated to one thing. We don’t have kids, no dog, little mortgage on our house now. We are free to do it as often as we choose - and that's often. Few have that freedom until they are 60 years old.
Honestly, the sizes of trout are the sizes of the fish that swim the waters we fish. What I mean when I type mentioning size is an amazement that such fish exist, that we’re catching them as part of the package that we are engulfed in when fly fishing. We're often taken aback of where the huge fish come out of - how can such a big fish come from that small a water? The creek we fished this year that had double digit fish was honestly shockingly small and tight.
I think what happens when someone who hasn’t had the experience of New Zealand or the Red Deer R / Central Alberta browns, Fortress Lake, or the Ram R cutts that we have, some folks see the big fish that we tend to catch as bragging or trying to one up the next person. I’ve intentionally not posted the biggest fish of this year’s New Zealand trip on this blog or our Facebook page, like the 10 – 12 pound rainbows, the 5 straight weeks of catching at least one 8 lb brown daily, the LOOK AT ME stuff that would stand out, the kind you see from people who show off their biggest catches in New Zealand. I intentionally did not mention the 3 weeks straight AJ caught every single fish she lined up on. By and large, I try to balance the sharing of a few nice fish - certainly not the biggest of particular trips - with other facets of the fishing. In looking back at the blog, the order of priority in the photos has been the scenery, then a few fish. And, again, by New Zealand standards, the fish shown in the blog are by no means big by New Zealand standard. In fact, 4 - 6 pound fish barely meet average criteria. Hence, most grip & grins of me or AJ with such a fish is just sharing the enjoyment of the moment. What I truly believe is that because others see the big fish (relative to their experience) they project onto me/AJ that we’re all about the big fish. As AJ said on this year’s trip to NZ, "you can’t not catch an 8 lb brown every day". As I said to her "so", and then we came upon a cool weka colony. And, when it comes to counting, I haven't counted fish since I last bothered to count to 100+ cutts on the Ram in 1999. I can tell you we caught a ton or a few, generally, or AJ could tell you how many rainbows we caught one special day in New Zealand, but that's honestly about it.
What people reading our blog or Facebook page miss is the 2 hrs spent on one fish to get the perfect photo or video of it holding or feeding, that the time spent trying to get video of a fantail hopping from limb to limb surpasses the time spent fishing to a trout; the 2 days we spent within a week of getting home from NZ this winter - we skied in the Ram canyon to get what will likely be less than 2 minutes on a Ram R video we’re working on; that the time to access a water is greater than the time spent fishing it; that the setting of a place where we’re good enough to find is more gorgeous and valuable than the 8lb rainbow that we might catch there.
We realize in life that how people perceive what is shared here is usually a projection onto us rather than what we are sharing. And when you’re good at something and spend some time doing it in places that sometimes have bigger fish, some folks are going to get envious and project negatively. We can’t control that. Did you catch last summer’s post on the wee cutts? Did you ever notice we used to spend a lot of time doing golden trout trips - all 4 to 11" of them? And, scanning back through the blog I can't help but notice that about 70% of the photos aren't fish pics. In fact, since mid January, there are less than a dozen photos of me personally with a fish. That too is intentional because I know there are some folks out there with the misconception I have an "ego the size of Manhattan". Ever since I began the old Fly Fish Alberta forum, which garnered 11M hits a month by the time we closed shop, my intention was to share and evoke discussion. Those two things had some folks project that I was an ego maniac that thrived on conflict. The plot was so often missed, but I do take ownership that I did not realize that people were projecting me to be that. I could have changed the presentation.
An important consideration is that this blog is simply to share. The photos on this blog and on our Facebook page – in case anyone has ever wondered – are to act as a winter encouragement and break for those that come here. We try to share our best photos – ‘best’ being either our favorite moments or composition, little of which has to do with fish size. If we only wished to share our biggest fish, you would have certainly seen pictures of the fish I mentioned above. I haven't shared many photos of trout above 8lbs deliberately, as, having hosted the old Fly Fish Alberta Forum, I know that many folks wind up getting envious and express that in negativity rather than enjoying a respite through our photos and videography.
We take a ton of photos – to the tune of about 250 a day on average. When in New Zealand we fish / photo / video daily. What you don’t see is the 2.5 hrs at the end of the day, after supper, lying in the back of our van - exhausted - we take those 2.5 hrs to sort, delete, catalog the photos and videos, so that when we get home we can produce things like the Sight Fishing Trout Rivers dvd that we’re about to release – things like that in order to enhance people’s experiences and encourage others. Like the freely shared photos and tales on this blog and our Facebook page. Behind the scenes there are so many things at play, so much work. We enjoy it. We see our life as a gift. We simply want to share that with others, because so many people can’t fish as often as they would like, especially in winter when we are so fortunate to be able to travel to New Zealand. And as we fish often, we simply want to share that gift of our life - which derived from our decision to live our life this way 15 years ago - with people like yourself. And our choice in life is a huge benefit to us now, there are many blessings. But, the downside of it will impact us later in life when we don't have the pensions others have, nor the grand kids. Who might be the envious person then? Hopefully we have many friends and connections later in life that will include us, but you never know how life will unfold.
It was interesting to discuss New Zealand with Barry Mitchell of the Alberta Fishing Guide this week. He's been a personal friend for a long time. He's someone who takes the time to not only observe but to clarify his observations and then takes time to understand you, your intentions, your motives, your heart. As we drove around Alberta, he said something to the effect that his perception was that AJ & I started to go to New Zealand because of the big fish and it has been interesting to see us evolve past simply sharing the big fish on our blog. He's seen some of this year's bigger fish that we haven't shared publicly. I pondered about his statement. In honesty, our first trip to New Zealand was 50% trout size and 50% the setting you catch them in, all inspired by the old Red Fisher TV Show that went to NZ back in about 1982. I was as fascinated by that show then as I am to fish NZ today. Fast forward 5 years of travel to NZ and I would say that it's setting & scenery 70%; sight fishing 20% ; our friends in NZ 10%. Size is irrelevant because we're sight fishing in such gorgeous country that allows for such stunning photos and video. But, of course, Barry owning a magazine and understanding the fly fishing world, we had further discussions of many facets of the industry we share and the spin offs of his original perception.
We're quite sensitive about how what we share is perceived and hopefully this clarifies some of that. Of course, now someone will take what is written here as "Jensen thinks he's a better fly fisher than everyone else", but obviously that's not what I'm saying. But you can't control these things in life. All we can do is share who we are honestly, and address a projection someone has of us when it arises. So, thank you for your comments. I hope that you understand what this is all about. Thank you for your feedback that has allowed for some clarification. :)
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