Fly Punk - Issue 3

OLD FLY PUNKS
NEVER DIE
― Glenn Roberts ―
I
’ll begin with an admission. Much like
the old guy at the bar who wants you
to know that he was “there back in the
day”, I’d class myself as a middle aged fly
punk.
Now, I’m aware I’m taking the title literally
but bear with me, there’s a point. I grew
up as both a punk/thrash/hardcore fan
and obsessive fly fisherman. Thanks
to my dad who set me off on the right
foot it’s always been fly. Having spent
my youth being eyed with suspicion in
sniffy tackle shops I know a thing or two
about preconceptions.
The proprietor peering over his glasses
behind the vice in the shop corner
wondering at which point I’ll ask where
the float rods are, or worse still, the
maggots.
It still happens. Perhaps the whiff of
special brew and damp leather hasn’t
entirely left me.
In those days to have tattoos on your
hands meant you’d probably been
in prison. Add a beard and you’d
clearly been released from jail into
homelessness. At the very least you
couldn’t possibly know a Grannom from
a house brick with a feather glued to it.
Hence my admiration for the on-line fly
fishing scene, which has led to sites,
blogs and magazines like this.
Barriers and preconceptions be damned.
The guy with the tattooed knuckles and
beard like a hawthorn bush is now as
good as his angling, not his tweeds.
The water has always been the great
equaliser. A trout won’t oblige an angler
because he prefers an evening with a
copy of the compleat angler to an hour
on a skateboard.
But you, my friends have altered this,
seemingly for good. There’s more than
ever a place for all based on ability and
passion alone and that’s a good thing.
Fly fishing on small streams for wild
trout is as close to a religious experience
as I’ve ever had and anyone should be
able to feel what I feel.
My only advice as a self-appointed old fly
punk is this, don’t do what actual punk
did and allow elitism to slip in. Embrace
the old guy with his trousers tucked into
his socks, or the middle aged angler who
wants to tell you that he was once like
you, but it was more difficult back then….
blah, blah, blah.
you never know you may get a fist full of
flies for your time. Maybe accompanied
by a cd of some dreadful crap which
apparently should have been the next
big thing, but just act interested till he
slopes off to the next pool.
I hope that fly fishing continues on
the arc it’s describing these days. The
innovations, ideas and developments I’m
seeing are seriously mouth-watering.
My heroes are still my dad, Les Claypool
and the old boy who gave me a fly made
from his wife’s travel rug which caught a
bucket full of fish. All great anglers and
punks in their own way.
I take my (insert awful, obscure band
name here) hat off to you.
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www.fly-punk.com