Altogether now, All you need is Fun (everybody).

A good chunk of the people that talk about fishing are full of a substance akin to the post-Irene slurry currently flowing from the Connecticut river (clue: it is the color of bright shit). This isn't a surprise, as an awful lot of people go fishing. Data shows that the chunk who provide fishing wisdom typically have an angle to their angling, and usually the motivation is money; be they pedaling the best gear, the best way to employ it, or new-found "innovation", all wrapped in a warm, status-conferring hug. Selling shit is what it usually boils down to, whether they realize it, much less admit it, or not. (You can have fun with your own data collection by testing a simple hypothesis: the ones on the make are slow to reveal themselves as playful amateurs by comparison to the real masters, who are established beyond doubt, at least within +/- fairly narrow tolerance intervals to correct for taste.)

So I'm pleased by the fact that the guy who sells more shit than anyone else isn't like that. You don't have to like what he writes - though maybe you should appreciate what is surely good writing - but it's of some reassurance that his humility and down-right good quality continues to win the day (it may also signify that I'm not the one on my way to the loony bin, though rather like a day's fishing, one can't be terribly sure). I don't know him, but I'm thinking he shares a similar outlook to me and a handful of other goons I have the fortune to fish with. Watch the video, read Tom Chandler's splendid interview, then go ahead and ask yourself:

If I'm not doing this for the fun, why am I doing it?





-- Jonny