Experienced angler Duncan Potts has a new answer to the old question

Why do you like fishing?

Why go fishing

For 56 years I’ve been trying to find a better answer to the question, “Why do you like fishing?”

Throughout most of my 56 years since my fishing father gave me a small greenheart rod for my 8th birthday, I have been asked by those who have never been tempted or been attracted to it – ‘why do you like fishing?’. For most of these years my answer has been simple and sometimes patronisingly obvious – ‘because I enjoy it’. If pressed I have gone on to describe the connection to our ancient hunter-gatherer DNA and instincts, the challenge of outwitting one’s prey, the peace and solitude it can bring, and the inevitable enjoyment of being in nature and having some time to myself. All that is true, but I increasingly recognise there is much more.

Its more than mental wellbeing

In the last couple of years, and accelerated by the Covid pandemic, many people seem to respond to this question by talking about the benefits of fishing for wellbeing and mental welfare. This in many ways seems axiomatic to me; if you enjoy something and are reasonably competent at it, then it generally cheers you up and regenerates mood and enthusiasm. Getting away from day-to-day issues for a few hours and focusing on something you enjoy has always been a tonic. I suppose today a few hours of digital detox can be added to that list of benefits. But this answer has also got me thinking. As well as a general lift, what is it about fly fishing in particular that gives you some genuine life skills that have materially helped me in the daily ups, downs, challenges and competitions of everyday life and a career? My short answer is… a lot. Let me explain.

It teaches you skills that training alone can’t

Looking back on my career, like many, I was trained to a certain high standard; there were competencies to be mastered and knowledge to be gained. But with hindsight these are only the building block tools for success in life and a career. What marks people out is usually the nature of their character and their ability to apply skills with a good dose of judgment shaped by the environment one is in at the time. In short, it is experience that truly shapes us, not just the hard skills we learn. So, how has being a fly fisherman helped me to develop these softer skills?

Problem solving

No two days on the riverbank are ever the same. I still remember one afternoon over 30 years ago. I was fishing a chalk stream beat with a very low road bridge at the bottom. Nothing else was rising except for what was clearly a very nice trout sipping flies underneath the bridge. A conventional analysis of it would lead you to think it was unfishable, but I set out experimenting how to get a fly to float naturally past his lie. It took me a long time working out a new type of cast, how to use the current, how to avoid drag at the critical moment, determining what he was actually taking, and 2 hours later I manged to put all this together and I knew before he even rose that this was THE cast, or nothing would work.  He rose and the rest is history. No amount of reading Hugh Falkus or Peter Lapsley helped in this case nor will equip you for every eventuality. As with everything else in life we have to rely on our wits and adapt.

Patience

This example also highlights the importance of another quality you learn fishing – patience. Success with the fly is often the patience to wait for the conditions to change in your favour, or to adapt and change and then adapt and change again. In a world that increasingly favours instant gratification, this is a skill that will serve you well.  Linked to patience is the quality of Stoicism. Fly fishing is a pastime of highs and lows, treating them both as they deserve is something those of us who cast the fly learn early on or suffer! In a society where people are encouraged to believe everything is possible all of the time, the sense of perspective fishing imparts serves fisherman well through the ups and importantly downs that life throws at us in the real world. As Kipling said ‘if you meet success and failure and treat them both as imposters, then you are a balanced man my son’. All good fly fisherman I know recognise this wisdom.

Concentration

Finally, I would cite the development of concentration. My late mother always maintained that fishing was a pastime beloved by men as it favoured the lazy. I loved my mother dearly but she certainly didn’t understand fly fishing – to my mind how wrong she was. Research has shown that on average adults can maintain peak concentration for around 25 to 45 minutes, whereas maintaining for long periods of 3-5 hours requires intense concentration and practice. Fly fishing is an active sport requiring focus and thought for every cast and every change in the environment, stretch of the river and what the fish and fly life is doing. During a day on the river the opportunity to catch a fish may only occur once, certainly when fishing for salmon these days. Concentration and getting every cast right, recognising subtle changes and changing tactics and flies is key to success. Ironically, concentration means you can get lost in the day, lose track of time and adds to the enjoyment and sense of getting way from the world beyond the riverbank.

Why do you like fishing?

So, the next time I’m asked the ‘why do you like fishing’ question by a non-fishing friend, passing walker on the bank or curious child, I’m not going to trot our my usual answers. I’m going to tell them it’s because it helped make me the person that I am.

Duncan Potts spent 39 years in the Royal Navy, retiring as Vice Admiral in 2018. He has been a lifelong fly fisherman, having got his first fly rod for his 8th birthday. He has been a member of the Portsmouth Services Fly Fishing Association since the mid 1980s and its Chairman since 2009. Throughout this time he has fished the Itchen and Meon.

Duncan Potts Test & Itchen Association