jtukk wrote:
I feel compelled to weigh in...
I see nothing wrong with casting tournaments. I watch fly casting tournaments nearly every weekend and am continualy amazed by the skills tournament casters posess. I have no doubt that these skills translate to the river - distance, accuracy - all of it.
If tournaments and competitions bring people into the sport, then lets have more tournaments and competitions. Bringing people into the sport is a good thing. I don't want more people on my stream either; however, we need more people willing to voice their opinion about conservation, land use, habitat restoration, public access, polution and all the other hot topics we are faced with. Alameda Creek in Fremont used to have a huge salmon and steelhead run, and could again if it was important to enough people. If there were as many fly fishermen as golfers, there would be healthy fish populations in every waterway in the State, healthy steelhead runs in every coastal river.
If casting tournaments aren't your proverbial cup of tea, then don't participate.
I'm curious what GRevel had in mind when he said he was thinking about Xtreem fishing competitions. I'll go wet wade the Trinity with you in February and we can call it a competiton. You in, GR?
Who's to say that if competitions bring new, and more people to the sport, that that will increase the conservation voices. Didn't we see a dramatic rise in fly fishermen, after "the movie" came out. Did we see the same spike in conservation participation/voices. Maybe we did, but I wonder if it offset the additional impact to the watersheds. Are competitive fly fisherfolks going to be more conservation minded than the average fly fisher.
I don't have the answer, but if I have more fishermen competeing for the same space, i'll have plenty of time to ponder it while I wait for my turn on the rock.
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