0 to - 6 A Story by Moon

Moon has contributed to The Quiet Pool before and his fly fishing musings are always enjoyable.
This is his latest "adventure" with his long suffering(and expert fly tyer)
Monica



Look, I don’t like competition when it comes to fly fishing…. Competition as it pertains to anything to do with our life style (fly-fishing) seems to me to be a violation in nature.
Though it may not be in the rules, competition as to fly-fishing goes against the very spirit of the thang most of us strive to protect. Even you dirty damn good for nothing golfers have mulligan’s….. (just saying is all).

And this is what I tried to explain to my fishing partner the other night on the river…. Oh, she wanted to keep score…. So in the end to protect marital bliss and all that happy home bullshit, I let her…….

Yes, she caught four fish while I was sitting on a log in the shade retying and she thought she was all that, but as Monica soon found out – keeping score isn’t cracked up to be all she thought it was going to be….

First – if you’re going to use a bobber, then just take the penalty stroke and fish with one. Don’t try and skirt the rules by tying a nymph onto a dry fly…. This is an abomination and can get you disqualified. As a matter of fact, I’ve heard that the national headquarters of the FFF may even be looking into taking her membership away…. And I for one want to lend my support to them on this up-most important matter of ethics…. After all – this ain’t golf.

So after I explained the rules to her (again) she wasn’t so damn hot to keep score… yes, you caught three fish on a sub surface fly. But NOT only does that not count as proper fly-fishing. But it counts as a (negative) or penalty fish as to the “spirit” of fly fishing…

So that’s already (Moon – zero, to Monica’s negative three)…

Then you add in that she foul hooked a fourth one and that’s a negative two…. One for foul hooking a trout, plus another penalty fish for foul hooking one sub-surface with the abomination rig…..

So that’s (Moon 0 to Monica’s (neg) “-“5)……

Then I added in one more penalty fish just because she wanted to keep score in the first place. After all – this was a strict violation of the “spirit of the thang” ….

So the score card read (Moon 0 vs, Monica negative 6)….

Oh she threw a fit not to mention my water bottle up in the rough…. And proceeded to protest my score keeping all the while calling me very ugly names…. But in the end I explained that – “yes, your right honey – but” though I will admit might does not make right. It is enough at times….. so if you want to keep score, go play golf sweet-pea – cuz there are no mulligan’s in fly-fishing….

And so even though I never touched a fish, I did fish proper and with that – managed to hold onto my “fishing god” status for yet another year….

Life is Good Enough.


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