All In The Details

When I was first learning how to fly-fish in college, my immediate love of the sport had absolutely nothing to do with the fish I was catching (in fact, it wasn’t until my 6th or 7th time being on the water that I landed my first trout), but was instead based on the focus to detail that is required in every aspect of the sport.  While the spin-fishing for bass and bluegill that I had grown up with usually consisted of the same “cast, retrieve, cast, retrieve, cast…” sequence over and over again, fly-fishing on the other hand presented a new situation on almost every cast.  It was this constant monitoring, changing, or adjusting that drew me in from the start, and that still fascinates me to this day.

When photography entered into the equation with fly-fishing, my interest quickly went to the small, intricate details of the sport.  While grand landscapes that show the beauty of the places trout call home are very appealing, just as appealing are the incredible spotting patterns and hues of colors on fish, the delicacy of the natural insects, and the textures present in the artificial flies used to catch fish.  In some ways, these small details guarantee that no two fish, much less two days on the water, are ever the same—and therefore guarantees that I’ll continue to go back searching for more.