You can contact Dennis at: DSmith7136@msn.com

 

    

    I’ve been fly fishing for a little over fifty years now, and in all that time the only fishing-related injuries I’ve ever received have been from sticking myself with a hook or falling down the bank in a hurry to get on the water - unless of course, you want to include the near-fatal fit of hysteria I suffered while reading an AP story about a doctor in Montana whose clinic (The Fly Caster’s Institute) charges anglers three thousand dollars a pop to analyze their casting style and prescribe corrective action to prevent future injuries associated with casting a fly. Patients are hooked up to a miniature gyroscope and hand-held computer that measures the angular speed of their fly rods (whatever that is), and tells the doctor which muscles are firing so he can isolate specific technical or physical maladies in their casting stroke. A team of top-notch fly casters is then called in to tell the angler, “Hey, Idiot. Don’t do that anymore, OK?”

     Hoo boy! That’s something, isn’t it? Science never fails to amaze me.

     This all started, apparently, when the good doctor gave himself an annoying case of tendonitis while fly casting for steelhead a few years back, and quickly reasoned he could probably make a fortune convincing other fly fishermen that, they too, risked serious injury if they weren’t careful how they went about waving their three-ounce graphite sticks in the air. And then there’s the fly itself, which can weigh as much as a handful of high-quality cigar smoke. I’m not kidding, this is serious stuff.

     I mean, just imagine the physical dynamics involved here. To quote the doctor, who also happens to be the head athletic team physician at the University of Montana: “Casting technique and mechanics are as important to a fly caster as endurance and weight training are to a professional athlete.” Wow! Who’da thunk? Thank God we have these gifted people to help us, eh?

     To further prove just how dangerous fly casting can be, the doctor related the story of a Wyoming fly fisherman he met in Belize who blew out the rotator cuff in - now get this, not one, but both - of his shoulders in two days while fly casting for permit. Remarkably, the guy’s wife somehow spent the next two days happily catching permit on her fly rod without so much as breaking a nail while hubby sat in the boat nursing his fly-casting boo-boos.

     I think we can draw some conclusions from the doctor’s observations:

1. Any fly fisherman stupid enough to pay another fly fisherman (doctor, or not) $3000 to analyze his casting arm, should have another part of his anatomy examined.

2. Women fly casters are probably smarter than their male counterparts.

- Dennis

Dennis Smith is an Outdoor Writer and Photographer. His articles and photos have appeared in numerous outdoor publications, catalogs and newspapers. Dennis can be reached at (970) 669-6074. Want to know more about Dennis?

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