Fly Fisher Fitness Book
Fly fisher fitness book explores the clear relationship between the two that is somehow lost, obscured or overlooked.
When I retired at sixty-four, I began fly-fishing in earnest and joined several clubs to accelerate my learning. The fly fisher fitness book/ initiative grew out of what I observed.
Inside fly-fishing clubs and the broader community, I saw affluent, well-equipped fishers constrained by physical limitations. Age creep had pulled some of the wisest, most skilled anglers downward—sometimes out of the game altogether. Vigor waned. Strength eroded. Balance and coordination faltered. Foundational capacities quietly slipped away. Poor thermoregulation—the simple ability to stay warm—made outings unbearable.
I discovered that fly fishers—the ultimate outdoors people—are only “ultimate” up to a point.
I know what aging feels like. I’m aging too. It is hard to feel strong, adventurous, resolute, and action-oriented when pain and fatigue begin to narrow your world.
Contemplation
I thought, communing with the wild is fly fisher sustenance—deep repose and renewal. But the cost of admission is strength and endurance, an uncommon level of fitness. Too few people recognize that physical training is a pathway to this kind of fulfillment. Fitness is often dismissed as boring toil or athletic vanity rather than functional preparation.
Tennis players train. Football players train. Every sport requires physical preparation. Simply playing the game is not enough to perform with speed, strength, stealth, and durability. The same is true for fly fishing. If you want to perform well for the long term, training is nonnegotiable.
Fly fishing is bliss. It is finesse, restraint, and serenity far more than bravado. Sunrise over a meadow stream. A trout sipping your fly, then its sudden dash, stripping line from the reel. Time stops. Hearts pound. Hands shake. Later, the memory feels dreamlike. Every outing is different.
Every outing is a gift.
You want to return again and again—until you are one hundred years old.
To do that, you must train.
That’s why I wrote The Ageless Angler: A Guide to Fly-fish More as You Age
Categorized in: Fly Fisher Fitness