Invasion of the Body Counters.
A Trout Underground Rant: ©2006 by Tom Chandler
What was once a
trout cold, hard, spotted, and
beautiful becomes 'Number
Seven.'
-- Thomas McGuane
It's not as if fly fishing hasn't always had its share of fish hogs, but those graying, faded pictures of men grinning over rows of dead trout suggest a long-dead past.
Unfortunately, we've traded stringers of dead trout for a different kind of body count, aided by fly fishing's equivalent of the washes-away-all-your-sins confessional catch and release.
Sport is a reflection of society, and there's little doubt that society today is largely a numbers game. We measure ourselves not by the quality of our lives or the experiences we take from each day, but by the digits on our pay stubs, the model number of our automobiles, the square footage of our homes - even the modulus of our fly rods. Higher is almost always better, and even those who might not otherwise play get sucked in by its brutal simplicity.
After all, everyone knows how to count.
Fly fishing's body count mentality really came into its own when catch and release became religious dogma; like shrink-wrapped chicken in the supermarket, C&R offers a comfortable distance and even the moral high ground on what is still a blood sport (if you don't believe me, ask the next trout you catch). Perversely, there's even a perception that catching and releasing a lot of fish delivers one to a higher moral plane than those who C&R only a few.
This has given rise to legions of fly fishers with a grimness in their faces and diaper-sized indicators permanently affixed to their leaders. They can stand for hours in a single small run, repeatedly flipping a string of split shot and a pair of flies upstream.
Unfortunately, they're not fly fishing as much as they are invoking statistical probability.
And the final outcome isn't a good day on the water as much as "X number of fish in X hours." Odds are they aren't having much fun. And they certainly aren't waiting for that transcendent moment when a trout tilts up to sip a fly off the surface, but for the question to be put to a tuft of yarn: is that a rock or a fish?
It's too easy to shrug off the body count brigade as a bunch of yuppies with Adventure Checklists and spreadsheets with which to measure their experience -- and too much to hope that they're all turning to poker and golf.
It's also too easy to lay blame at the feet of the mainstream glossy magazines, who unimaginatively run the same cover pictures ad nauseam: the angler holding a huge fish, the sky emblazoned with nitro-fueled headlines promising higher body counts to those willing to fish tungsten beadheads or book a trip to the hottest destinations. They don't lead the market as much as play to its lowest common denominator, reflecting a readership that largely defines their outdoor experience in terms of X fish per hour.
Everyone knows a poster child for the body counters. Fishing with them is like riding along with a windmilling siege machine of graphite, shot and indicators. No fish no matter how deep is safe, and no run goes unpounded for long. They place little value in the concept of the single fish stalked and well caught, and would bleed the sport of those moments when a little bank-sitting is appropriate, if only to see what if that fish will start rising again ten minutes from now.
A subset of the body counters are the headhunters the people for whom only big, ego-boosting fish will do. Rather than the 13-inch fish teased from a river where 8-inch trout are the norm a real achievement they'd rather travel to the latest hog hole or pay-to-fish private ponds where the trout are stocked big and stupid.
My guide friend Ian Rutter recently alluded to their existence in an e-mail about local pay-to-play fish ponds (where the trout are both stocked big and fed) when he asked Is it just me, or was a 20-inch fish something that you used to aspire to?
Nowadays, the problem isn't so much finding and catching 20-inch fish as it is coming up with the cash to get on the right water, and any thoughts about the similarities to hunting caged animals are shunted aside in the search for the glossy magazine-esque "fin and grin" pictures which seem to dominate the sport.
The sport, of course, isn't necessarily headed for the crapper because of an influx of number-driven headhunters. Fishing has always had its share of ego-driven chest thumpers, and the good news is that many of the new breed of body counters aren't in it to plump their egos. In truth, they're looking for adventure in lives which typically offer it only during the morning commute, and many having never experienced much in the way of the outdoors when young - seem to simply lack a framework for appreciating wild places and things.
Into that vacuum, a quiet sport like fly fishing falsely relieved of its status as a blood sport is an easy fit, especially for those who would define their experience in ways that don't really involve the experience at all.
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