As a fly fisherman and a fly tyer, one question I keep asking myself late-late at night after a number of cold Corona’s is about the ethics of fly tying.
Is it morally acceptable to spend one’s free-time taking a hide of a once living animal, either to turn it shortly into a streamer or as a dry fly to fool a fish into thinking it is dinner? Is fly tying really humane? When taking an animal for food or clothing, I feel I am on solid ethical ground here. To catch and slay a large beautiful mink, take it home and then fry up the liver with olive oil, salt and a bit of pepper, is a delicious dinner indeed. Even when the meat is gone, I still take steps in carefully stripping of its hide as humane as possible. I never use a dull knife to rip the hide from its flesh, I use a Ginsu knife (eBay $3.99) the ability to cut through the toughest of hides, the raw meat and bone without ever needing to sharpen it, whether it is still warm or fresh from the ice filled cooler I bring on every fly tying material trip to the local fly shop or roadside location.
While I sometimes fish with a special fly most often I practice catch and release fishing if someone is watching. Otherwise I would take out my Ginsu and cut the head off and put it into my pocket and retrieve the hook later when I got home. Saves time attempting to dig it out of its throat at the stream. If more fly tyers would practice this technique, the carcasses dropped back into the rivers and streams and lakes would soon be feeding all the other fish. Catch and chop hook retrieval fly fishing is necessary to preserve those beautiful and special flies and add to the growth rate of those fish being feed all those hormones. The Barry Bonds of fish feeding so to speak.
We can all take steps to make the fly tying process humane and ethical with or without a twelve pack of Corona. When I hook a trout, I don't mind play it to exhaustion, since the fish may not survive even if the fly is recovered then and there, so the old English phrase of “Off with e-Ed” is a more practical and time saving technique of fly retrieval. I always dip the head in the stream before putting it in my pocket, since some of the blood and guts will stain my pants. Which some out there may claim not to be ethical, I look at it more in line with practical (see, they both end in "ical" which means in EnglishLatin the same).
Even when I practice catch and chop, I suspect that the fish that took my fly may not be having the greatest of time, but it sure beats what is going to happen next. So I reel it in to me in such a great haste for that fly will survive to see another day. To practice catch and chop is to acknowledge that flies are precious. With our expensive vises and exquisite bobbins of floss, we may have the ability to tie hundreds if not thousands of flies. We also have the responsibility to those flies to treat them with respect and dignity, for a fly was once an old smelly living creature whose sole existence was ultimately be tied to one of my hooks.
All this leads us to nature and road kill, it could also be agility challenging to many of us dodging all those cars.
As always, taking a look through the binoculars through the other end.
AK Skim
Is it morally acceptable to spend one’s free-time taking a hide of a once living animal, either to turn it shortly into a streamer or as a dry fly to fool a fish into thinking it is dinner? Is fly tying really humane? When taking an animal for food or clothing, I feel I am on solid ethical ground here. To catch and slay a large beautiful mink, take it home and then fry up the liver with olive oil, salt and a bit of pepper, is a delicious dinner indeed. Even when the meat is gone, I still take steps in carefully stripping of its hide as humane as possible. I never use a dull knife to rip the hide from its flesh, I use a Ginsu knife (eBay $3.99) the ability to cut through the toughest of hides, the raw meat and bone without ever needing to sharpen it, whether it is still warm or fresh from the ice filled cooler I bring on every fly tying material trip to the local fly shop or roadside location.
While I sometimes fish with a special fly most often I practice catch and release fishing if someone is watching. Otherwise I would take out my Ginsu and cut the head off and put it into my pocket and retrieve the hook later when I got home. Saves time attempting to dig it out of its throat at the stream. If more fly tyers would practice this technique, the carcasses dropped back into the rivers and streams and lakes would soon be feeding all the other fish. Catch and chop hook retrieval fly fishing is necessary to preserve those beautiful and special flies and add to the growth rate of those fish being feed all those hormones. The Barry Bonds of fish feeding so to speak.
We can all take steps to make the fly tying process humane and ethical with or without a twelve pack of Corona. When I hook a trout, I don't mind play it to exhaustion, since the fish may not survive even if the fly is recovered then and there, so the old English phrase of “Off with e-Ed” is a more practical and time saving technique of fly retrieval. I always dip the head in the stream before putting it in my pocket, since some of the blood and guts will stain my pants. Which some out there may claim not to be ethical, I look at it more in line with practical (see, they both end in "ical" which means in EnglishLatin the same).
Even when I practice catch and chop, I suspect that the fish that took my fly may not be having the greatest of time, but it sure beats what is going to happen next. So I reel it in to me in such a great haste for that fly will survive to see another day. To practice catch and chop is to acknowledge that flies are precious. With our expensive vises and exquisite bobbins of floss, we may have the ability to tie hundreds if not thousands of flies. We also have the responsibility to those flies to treat them with respect and dignity, for a fly was once an old smelly living creature whose sole existence was ultimately be tied to one of my hooks.
All this leads us to nature and road kill, it could also be agility challenging to many of us dodging all those cars.
As always, taking a look through the binoculars through the other end.
AK Skim
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