The People You Meet on the River

 

 

Article Courtesy of Michigan Fly

 

 

1. The Head Nod Guy. This is the dude that simply gives you a nod of the head to acknowledge your existence…most often this simple and typically meaningless gesture is a form of posturing and encouragement to continue moving along. The Head Nod Guy does not want you to stop and talk to him, he does not want to share the water with you, and quite frankly he has a deep down rooted belief that he is better than you. Probably won't ever see a Head Nod Guy sporting any less than $5,000 worth of gear on him at any given time. You can spot The Head Nod Guy on Facebook because they love posting pictures of the thousands of dollars of gear they buy.

2. The Exaggerator. This person sees the world through a different set of lenses than any other normal human being. The Exaggerator is a master of embellishing and skewing information in a manner that appeases his ego. Unsolicited stories of enormous or unimaginable numbers of fish being caught roll off his lips and out of his mouth in a fashion that is so believable you question your own abilities as an angler for not being able to match The Exaggerator’s accomplishments. The Exaggerator tends to fish solo and will probably reel it in and call it a day if you were to jump into the water within a distance that he can be viewed. Exaggerators are easy to spot on social media channels – they have pictures of 12″ fish with a caption that reads: “24″ brown, but I lost 3 that were way bigger” Also, The Exaggerator tends to ‘forget’ his camera every time he fishes, and thus is not always able to provide photographic proof of his catch.

3. The Hero. Has larger than life stories that have you in absolute disbelief. The Hero is crafty though, as they tend to have a posse of followers around them that have bought into the campaigning that goes on, the entourage acts to serve as additional credibility. However, you will rarely see The Hero wet a line -as he does not want to risk tarnishing his reputation, when its far easier to talk about how awesome he is. The Hero is typically easy to spot as they tend to refer to everyone as “brah”. Hero’s, when they do fish, almost always fish flies that are so large or so different – or use techniques that are not effective as a means to give themselves a built in excuse, so that way their self built reputation will stay in tact. The Hero will almost without fail comment on all other Hero’s Facebook posts, usually with terms like “sick”, “right on brah”, “boom”, or “I told you that you would get one there”.

4. Super Dave. Super Dave is a term that was coined after meeting an exceptionally nice gentleman by the name of Dave on the water one day. Now, everyone that fits into this particular category is referred to as “Super Dave”. This person is over the top nice and freely offers up accommodation when encountered – even to the extent of ceding their water to you. While Super Dave is the type of person this world needs more of, he will also spend countless hours on the bank behind you talking away about random events in his life that have no correlation to you if allowed to. Super Dave simply enjoys the company on the water, and probably just wants a pal to spend time with. Super Dave is the guy that is on Facebook to put pictures of his friends and kids up – don’t ever message Super Dave on Facebook, you will be engaged in a flurry of messages being sent your way that you feel obligated to respond to because he’s so nice.

5. The Poser. Probably a guy that has just started in the sport and tries so hard to model himself after a combination of Head Nod Guy, The Exaggerator, and Hero. Typically sporting entry level gear ….that is most likely all wrong for the type of species and/or time of the year he is fishing. Upon first encountering The Poser on the water, you might believe that they are the next coming of Lefty Kreh – but further and more in depth conversation reveals that they are inexperienced and rather impressionable. You could probably talk The Poser into fishing dry flies with a sink tip line. The Poser can be spotted on Facebook very easily, although The Poser talks about numbers of giant fish he catches, he posts 8 different pictures of the 1 fish that he actually catches. His somewhat abnormal amount of elation and excitement over 1 relatively average fish expose his inexperience.

6. The Fish Head. Fly box looks like someone firebombed a box of kittens, waders are more aqua seal than they are Gore-tex, hat is faded and has a film on it so thick that the logo is unrecognizable, and he probably is exhibiting at least 1 of several possible addictions (tobacco, Fireball Whisky, cheap beer, etc.). Fish Heads are dudes that spend more time studying the water and trying to figure it out than actually fishing it. They don’t talk, because they know that talk leads to more people figuring out what they spent years figuring out. The Fish Head has a Facebook page, but probably hasn’t updated it in 4 months.