Presentation is Everything!

• How important is it to present yourself well at a job interview? Put your best foot forward
• On a first date? Sloppy dirty shirt? Or clean. You get to decide this. You can control the outcome of the first impression. You can. Why you cannot predict is the out come of the date. That is up to you. You can move the needle if you wish.
• How about stalking a trophy Elk? Noisy entry and walking int he woods. Got your iPod rocking some Ratt loudly. Sending a few shots now and again through the woods to alert the game that you are near?
• Meeting your in-laws fo the first time? Use the F-Bomb often? Open the conversation with a political question?
• Teaching a class full fo 5 year olds. Or 45 year olds.
• Applying for a bank/home loan?
• Serving a fantastic creative plate of food?
• Making a business plan?
• Casting a fly at a rising trout?

All important tasks that include thought, planning, decent behavior, and patience. Yes. You want to do well in those situations. I suspect you learn form your precious failures. Those who do not learn die.

Unless you are an American. Success does not have any bearing on your survival.

None of the tasks above require rushing, skipping step one, or the attempt to foul it up in the first 12 seconds.

Nope. So why would you repeatedly do it when fishing to rising trout?

Yessir. A question I ask myself, anglers in the boat and fishermen on the floor at the shop daily.

Why would you do that? And if you make that mistake one time, why would you do it a second, and third, and fourth? Expecting different outcomes? Hoping that this fish will not see through your stupidity? Your total lack of self control? No room for improvement?

99% of male anglers repeat the same bad behavior every time. Every time.

My guess, because I have to guess because speaking with anglers, asking the reasons that they do the same thing over and over and over and over and over without results, asking if that style of guessing every cast ever works, at home or otherwise, asking if they have ever been taught that bad style by a dry fly expert, asking why they did not try a new style on the next fish, or the next, or the next, or the next or the next or the next or the next, without ever trying another way/method/presentation to get them, or taking any advice that the guide suggests, the angler in the back of the boat, or asking if that maddening bad style worked any of the last twenty fish that we cast at…and then the angler always repeats the same thing that did not work the last trout. Again. And again, and agin. So, that is why I am guessing because nobody has given me an answer as to why they would repeat the same thing over and over and over.

So my guess is… is most anglers think they are shit hot. Even without the dry fly catch results to validate their fantasy.

You present differently to different audiences. They manner in which you speak with a 1st grade class of 6 year olds is much different than speaking to adults about the same topic.

Think about the one for a second or two. That is why you as an angler present differently to different fish. Different situations. You present uniquely to most fish, rising trout.

You have to figure out the proper presentation for each situation. And that can be accomplished beside the trout. Near the trout.

NOT ON THE TROUT.

One of the top 5 reasons that most anglers do not capitalize even in the most simple of dry fly equations. The angler loves to show his hand to the fish on the first drift. And the second. And the third, 4th. 5th. 12th.

And then remarkably the angler is ready, and presents perfectly to the fish.

That would not work in any other real life hunting equation.

Ever.

So think about your presentation today. Tomorrow. Forever. Decipher the fly fishing riddle one fish at a time. Do it outside of the fish. Find the proper presentation for each rising fish.

Presentation is everything.

Trust me. I’m a guide.

 

Great joke I heard for the first time the other day…

Q: How do you know if there is a fishing guide in the bar?

A: Don’t worry, he’ll tell you.