As a regular or new visitor to this blog, you may have noticed the subheading reads “Performance Fly Fishing”? You would I hope, agree, after reading a few posts, the overall objective here is to help raise your fly fishing performance.
For some reason that I find astonishing, it’s taken until now for me to write a post specifically on performance. So as it’s taken this long, let’s get on with it!
I often extoll the benefits of practice. It has a very strong role to play in improving performance. You can find some great pointers on this here!
However I am going to return to the areas of mindset and perception now. They have a huge influence on the outcome of any fishing trip. For example, it is often said how beneficial a day’s fishing is. Relaxing, restorative, healing, are all words regularly used to describe a day on the water. They are also words associated with feeling tired, run down, sick. Not situations in which we are likely to perform at our best.
So in the above scenario we feel good post fishing trip (which is important and a good thing), yet we likely did not fish as well as we could have. People tell me everyday, “It does not matter if I don’t catch fish” or “just being here is enough, catching is a bonus”. Sometimes they do mean what they say, most of the time they don’t. If they did there would be no one moaning about not catching on internet forums and social media groups! I would also be redundant.
This post on the other hand comes at fly fishing performance from a proactive perspective. I even say “If this sounds like a business/career planning exercise,…”. It’s been 2 years since I wrote that post as I write now. In that time I have immersed myself further in using common traits of “elite performance” taken from many fields, within fly fishing.
This has taken my own fly fishing to new levels of what I personally want to achieve. I’ve also used it to make me a better guide, coach, instructor, mentor, and hence provide a better service to my clients too.
Understandably, not everyone wants to take their fly fishing this far. That’s fine. However, applying principles used everyday in many sports and business to your fly fishing, will bring you so much more than just catching fish. Trust me, thousands of people have!
Have Fun
SJY