fflutterffly wrote:By no means am I defending Angie. I think the way she handles fish is not very responsible. But, if this were a male guide bragging, much like the DRAKE crowd you might not think much of it. As a matter of fact, you might embrace DRAKE and read if with gusto.
It was not her bragging that bothered me, one finds that in all of sports, including fishing. It was first of all her patronizing email to Craig:
SmugGoddess wrote: ...I looked at your web site... I got a good chuckle and felt embarrassment for you and your writers... Dude, NEVER EVER take a picture of a fish you caught on a fly that is smaller than your hand. I know most fly fishers that write about it aren't very experienced, otherwise they wouldn't romanticize so much about it. But pictures of what I consider bait when I go tuna fishing 100 miles out in the ocean, makes a mockery of your web site. Get some fly fishers that can fish and have some NORMAL size trout, you know instead of being four inches more like 24...
Let's see - laughing at Craig and everyone who posts here because their fish aren't large, telling him what size of fish should be allowed to be posted, saying that most fly fishers aren't experienced and it is because of that that they "romanticize" so much about it, the size of the fish on this site makes a mockery of it, and he should "get" some people who can catch normal-sized trout which she considers to be 24"+
First of all, she seems unaware of the difference between an open forum and a blog where one might be gathering articles for publication. Talk about inexperienced, this kind of public forum has been around for at least 15-20 years. I used to participate in one called alt.rec.backcountry in the early 90's back when they were all on something called the Usenet. However, putting that aside, no matter what she thought this place was, it is still the height of arrogance to belittle someone for what they choose to have on their site as she did with Craig and say that they should be more like her.
Wasn't it Gierach who came up with the levels of maturity one passes through while becoming a fly fisher? I can't remember, but I think it went something like, first you just want to catch a fish, then you want to catch a lot of fish, then you want to catch really big fish and then, finally, you realize that it's really about the journey and the sport and the fun and the experience and that catching fish is just a bonus. Clearly she is not as experienced as she thinks she is, or maybe she is just incapable of the pure enjoyment of fly fishing unless she is catching a big fish, in which case I feel sorry for her.
However, and this is the part of your message I would disagree with Ariel, I don't think she would get a pass anywhere for her attitude if she were male, not even on the Drake. They are very quick to puncture the ego of pompous braggarts there, male or female, and clearly this woman is all about ego. However, what makes me doubly sure that she would get excoriated even on the Drake and even if she were a male are the pictures she posts on her website. Craig put it well in his reply to her,
"Your site has many photos of people (including yourself) gill-raping large fish that are dwindling in number." There's no way that she would get a pass just for being male on a site that was pure fly fishers including the Drake where I believe they would be even more merciless in pouncing on her for her blatant disregard for the fish and then the conceited image she (or a he) has created for themselves.
Anyway, she's really not worth the bandwidth but with all the coffee I have had this morning without eating and then reading my dear Ariel's assertion that if she were male she would be treated differently, I ended up here,
Sorry Ariel, you are a good friend and I respect you very much, but I can't agree with you on this one. I took another quick peek at her website where one can see numerous pictures of very poorly handled fish and read things like this,
WARNING: This website is not for the weak and the sensitive fisherman. This is for all of you secure in your fishing manhood. You happy go lucky folks that want to discuss fishing, see some pictures, bash some idiots and have some good WHOLESOME fun. Hee Hee...Btw, when she says "bash some idiots" she means the kind of C&R practicing fly fishers who post here no matter what the size of the fish they catch. Sorry, male or female, I would have the same opinion of this person as a person. But, we all know what opinions are worth, right? The same as hers about us.
? Not sure what her target client group is, but it sure doesn't include me.
