Links Between Fly Fishing and Golf

We’re home from the back woods of Montana. A week without TV, phone, computers and such is always transformative for my husband if not unnerving for me. Transportation is by horseback or foot. The activities are fly fishing and “viewing the view” as my son says. And what a view and what fishing.

Since joining the Shivas Irons Society I’ve been awakened to the similarities between fly-fishing & golf. As my husband and I were working the pools on the South Fork of the Sun River I thought back to our years on the links.

Equipment was always a big part of our game with waterproof shoes and titanium clubs. While fishing we are in waterproof waders and using graphite rods. The hand tied flies dangling on the 5x tipit are made from feathers. We send them into holes coaxing a fish to strike it. We move our rods in graceful arcs mimicking mini golf swings. 10 and 2, 10 and 2-we waggle with our false casts feeding out line so as to gently lay the fly (aka featherie) in the hole.

Back home we have a bamboo fly rod but it’s too special to risk being damaged on a Rocky Mountain trail. Thinking of it resting safely in its shelf at home I’m reminded of MacDuff’s baffin’ spoon and featheries he had fashioned into balls. Ought not that hand-made, mighty stick be pressed into service as a fishing rod and not a wall ornament? I think of Shivas as he snuck out one night with MacDuff’s baffin’ spoon unable to resist the urge to see what he could do with it. I understand that urge now and want to see what that bamboo rod can do next summer.

My husband will resist at first and I’ll point out that he’s suffering from the ‘RobbyKraft batting helmet syndrome’. When they were children, my husband had a friend who got a new batting helmet. “Hooray” thought the neighborhood ball players however, Robby wouldn’t let anyone, even himself, use the helmet. He was saving it up for “good” and didn’t want it scratched or dented. So the boys recognized the dilemma of having a desirable item which one needs but then never uses so it isn’t marred.

It’s the “good china” mentality that mothers experience. We finally get matching plates or glasses without chips or forks without bent tines but we squirrel away those items and save them for special company or holidays.

What a shame when we deprive ourselves of life’s little luxuries. When tools or devices enter our lives to increase our productivity or simply our pleasure that qualifies as the special occasion and we need to use them. I now look at a set of chipped china and am awed by the congeniality and hospitality it must have presided over. The stories, the laughter, the celebration add to its luster and value.

Use the good china, the batting helmet, the bamboo rod when they’re laid before you. Accept and respect the chips and the mars that will appear because they add patina and record our personal growth and experiences. Super Glue and duct tape can mend so many things.

We need to step up to the opportunities and take our shots in life and enjoy the enhanced experience.