Stirring the pot but there is much truth to this.

[BilletHead]

2 hours ago, tjm said:

But most important for popularity is that we can catch them. Rather easily, 50-100 per day I hear tell. 

I don't think they count as "game" unless we eat them.  "Sport" is a better description of catch and release. And of course if we admit that our quarry is overrated, then we admit to being poorer hunters. 

what fly and presentation will consistently take redhorse? are they as easy as trout? 

          I have messed with them if I see them while targeting something else. Never connected as of yet so I can't tell you. Many of my strange catches have been a byproduct of chasing something else. Never said they were as easy as trout. I find wild trout easy if they are not taking something specific size and pattern I don't have. Not saying they are smart just conditioned to one thing. Trout Park can be easy but have seen the same thing on something specific. 

   I know you don't make a habit of fishing Bennitt springs. People clean the fish in the spring creek. When that happens there is a gut hatch. Fish are feeding on the offal and remaining flesh. People constantly try to match the gut fly and it works but the fish can and do recognize that and will seek out the real thing avoiding the gut fly. 

[Ryan Miloshewski]

It really is just a poorly written article by a Bozeman transplant trying to be relevant, which is a standard of the MeatEater brand. Can't stand 99% of their content. You do not start a story with a contraction of "I am." My word..

I think walleye and crappie are overrated as table fare, but still enjoy catching and eating them. 

[tjm]

My point is that we do catch trout (and sunfish) wherever we catch them because they are willing to eat  artificial flies/lures or in other words they are easy. I don't find trout consistently easy either in the parks or stream bred or Idaho stocked as fingerlings and grew up in alpine environs, but they are easy enough that we go back. Of the places I've fished for trout, the parks rank as difficult as anywhere on some days  and as easy as anywhere on other days, but as average I think they run a bit more on the difficult side considering the sheer numbers of fish there and how few I catch. Catfish on fly a bit more difficult (at least for me) carp on fly- never have, never a buffalo either, sucker on fly twice in 47 years. And many of the foods they eat are the same things, trout and sunfish are just easy and as a tribe we the hunters started pursuing them for that reason, over eons of bragging about our prowess, we built myths of their gameness and inteligence.

As to complaints about  the article it's just an article, we can't expect such to be well researched or well written. As the thread title says though it does contain much truth, though poorly presented. 

[tjm]

17 hours ago, BilletHead said:

We go places and hunt for trout. read the BilletHead adventures.

So would you go back again and again to those same places if each trip had netted just one fish?

[BilletHead]

36 minutes ago, tjm said:

 

As to complaints about  the article it's just an article, we can't expect such to be well researched or well written. As the thread title says though it does contain much truth, though poorly presented. 

              Well said. Another thing the fish mentioned really are not great fighters. Why do we fish for them? We do because we enjoy it. We no longer fish to survive we might reap the benefits of eating our catch, but we don't have to. I don't know how many times I have been asked why I don't bring fish home. I enjoy the process of fishing and I do not always have to catch a bunch. I just like to go and enjoy myself. With the fly-fishing process, I am always busy. You are in contact with that fly. Mending the drift. I literally cannot watch a pole waiting for a bite on bait. I enjoy that less and less. Not saying I won't do it again but prefer other options. 

32 minutes ago, tjm said:

So would you go back again and again to those same places if each trip had netted just one fish?

            Heck yes! I can tell you right off the bat two places we would go back. New Mexico for Gila trout. I caught three and Pat one. Plans are another trip for that after Pat retires. Same trip will be Arizona again for Apachie trout. There we hiked and fished a stream three quarters of a day. Finally got far enough up that we both caught one each. I want to challenge myself. If I just wanted to catch fish, I would go to a pond just down the road and catch bluegill and bass with a kicker bullhead every so often.  There is so much more to fishing than catching. It's tying that fly, finding the quarry, making that perfect cast, setting the hook and playing that fish to the net. The places that we have seen and caught native fish are amazing. One of the reasons some of these western states have fish challenges is to visit the specific habitats where the fish live. From Alpine to high desert. Chasing natives is not for everyone I get that. Until you try it don't ask why. Once you do it the answer it there. 

   Ask @Phil Lilley, @Johnsfolly, @Ham and many, many more here on this forum and other forums this same question. 

[BilletHead]

25 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

              Well said. Another thing the fish mentioned really are not great fighters. Why do we fish for them? We do because we enjoy it. We no longer fish to survive we might reap the benefits of eating our catch, but we don't have to. I don't know how many times I have been asked why I don't bring fish home. I enjoy the process of fishing and I do not always have to catch a bunch. I just like to go and enjoy myself. With the fly-fishing process, I am always busy. You are in contact with that fly. Mending the drift. I literally cannot watch a pole waiting for a bite on bait. I enjoy that less and less. Not saying I won't do it again but prefer other options. 

            Heck yes! I can tell you right off the bat two places we would go back. New Mexico for Gila trout. I caught three and Pat one. Plans are another trip for that after Pat retires. Same trip will be Arizona again for Apachie trout. There we hiked and fished a stream three quarters of a day. Finally got far enough up that we both caught one each. I want to challenge myself. If I just wanted to catch fish, I would go to a pond just down the road and catch bluegill and bass with a kicker bullhead every so often.  There is so much more to fishing than catching. It's tying that fly, finding the quarry, making that perfect cast, setting the hook and playing that fish to the net. The places that we have seen and caught native fish are amazing. One of the reasons some of these western states have fish challenges is to visit the specific habitats where the fish live. From Alpine to high desert. Chasing natives is not for everyone I get that. Until you try it don't ask why. Once you do it the answer it there. 

   Ask @Phil Lilley, @Johnsfolly, @Ham and many, many more here on this forum and other forums this same question. 

    Yes, forgot one sorry ask @ness same question. 😁Am I leaving anyone else out how about @grizwilson ?

[tjm]

39 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

With the fly-fishing process, I am always busy. You are in contact with that fly.

That is why I quit other fishing back in the '70s. I still have  a couple spinning rods and until my older brother passed I'd take him fishing a few times each year, but it's been 8-10 years since I last changed the line. Except for  those outings and a trotline or two, I've been flyrod only about 47 years. With the fly rod, I stay busy and I never have to reel in between casts. At the end of the drift a flick of the rod starts the drift over again or a couple steps and a flick starts a new drift. I have no patience to do all that reeling just to cast back into that 5' area that has a fish nor can I wait for the fish to find a bait. The only way to bait fish is with limb or trot lines.

 It may be growing up mostly in the high deserts, but those places don't impress me the same way they do many others. I recall 7 hours of horse backing over the hill in a place wheels had never been to the base of a glacier to find rainbows, only to learn that they were aerial stocked, and car trips into the edge of a wilderness area to hunt similar rainbows. Places that now are probably listed as having native trout. A stream near one place we lived in Oregon that none of the locals fished in the '50s & '60s is now kinda a native trout destination.

3000+ miles and a week or three of eating camp food for one small trout is beyond my desires, and I'm impressed that y'all do it.

[ness]

1 hour ago, BilletHead said:

There is so much more to fishing than catching. It's tying that fly, finding the quarry, making that perfect cast, setting the hook and playing that fish to the net. The places that we have seen and caught native fish are amazing.

^^^ That right there. And I'd add a lot of the fun is doing it in beautiful or unique places.

We were over in Ireland in June and I had a guide trip set up here. That was a bucket list trip for me. A couple days before they let me know the river was low and the water too warm, so they closed the river to everyone, even us paying customers. Bummer. 

[Seth]

The only thing overrated about fish/fishing is chasing the same fish all the time IMO. I like variety.

[trythisonemv]

2 hours ago, Ryan Miloshewski said:

It really is just a poorly written article by a Bozeman transplant trying to be relevant, which is a standard of the MeatEater brand. Can't stand 99% of their content. You do not start a story with a contraction of "I am." My word..

I think walleye and crappie are overrated as table fare, but still enjoy catching and eating them. 

I think som of rinellas stuff on hunting is great and fishing on the b side with cermele  is good but their fishing articles are pedantic at times as well as too trendy.