If you are familiar with the current names in the fly fishing game then you’ve probably come across George Daniel’s name. George is a former competitive angler on Fly Fishing Team USA (he took part in 4 world championships) and was also a coach for that team and the youth team. His mentor was none other than Joe Humphreys. According to his bio on his website George is a two-time US National Fly Fishing Champion and was ranked as high as 5th in the world. Also, George has recently started teaching the fly fishing class at Penn State. Check out his full bio on his website HERE.
I came to know about George through his books Dynamic Nymphing and Nymph Fishing: New Angles, Tactics, and Techniques (I have not yet read his streamer book Strip-Set). Here’s a link to his books on Amazon. I’m currently working though Nymph Fishing: New Angles, Tactics, and Techniques. Honestly the average Joe like me will take a lifetime to even lightly touch on all the techniques in the book – and I’ll still not really understand all the nuances. I’ve also seen George speak a few times and that’s when I first met him and chatted a bit. It was quickly apparent that in addition to being a great angler he’s a great guy. George is in great demand as a guide and he gets booked a year in advance (I guess that speaks to the quality of the experience). I was very lucky to get a morning on the stream with George recently for some instruction and it was awesome. It’s one thing to read about a fly fishing technique but quite a different thing to have an expert teach it to you on the water. There were things that I thought I understood, but after instruction realized I didn’t quite get – and it’s those little details that can make the difference between an okay day and a really good day on the water – especially when fishing conditions are tough.
After my very humbling (but thoroughly enjoyable and instructive) morning on the stream with George I posed the question...
If you could give one bit of advice to your younger self just starting in fly fishing or to other anglers what would be that “Just One Thing?”
I didn’t have a notebook with me so I’ll have to paraphrase his response.
So I asked George the question and he thought for a second. And then said “Well it’s going to be a little more philosophical.” And I thought that was cool – sometimes those are the best answers to questions.
He started by talking about how we can tend to live in an “echo-chamber”. That is, we end up surrounded by people that fish the same way that we do. And further that what he sees happen to anglers is that they can get stuck in their own feedback loop. An angler starts fishing, he learns a certain style or technique, he has success with it and whenever he goes out he falls back on that same technique. Or that may even be a type of water. For example maybe you get good at fishing pocket water but you ignore glides and pools – and so you find yourself passing over big sections of water because you’re just not sure how to handle them and you fall back on the familiar.
So in short George’s advise is to seek out different ideas. If you’re interested in improving your skills or in expanding your personal angling toolbox then you need to look to people with different ideas and different ways of fishing. George told me that he still does this. You may not think that somebody like George Daniel hires fishing guides – but he told me that he does this five or six times a year as a way to get out of his own echo-chamber and expand his skills.
George’s Website is Livin on the Fly https://www.livinonthefly.com where you can read more about him and find contact information.
Check out his blog and subscribe ( https://www.livinonthefly.com/blog ) for excellent tips and pointers
I can attest to this advice. This year I’ve been on a journey of my own. I have been consciously pursuing new ideas in my angling. Until this year I had never hired a guide. I guess I was a bit stubborn. But finally this year I went out with guides twice. Once with Josh Miller (see the website for his TroutYeah! Guide website HERE) and then with George Daniel. Those two guys fished in some similar ways to me but also in ways that were quite different than I was familiar with. I just cannot express the amount of information that I got from these guys. I can honestly say that I came to understand things in a much more complete way than I had previously. I was introduced to countless ideas – some were big ideas and some were very very nuanced ideas (but the devil is in the details). My angling advanced in leaps and bounds – and I got enough material to continue working on for a long time to come. It was really the best angling money I’d spent in years. I wish I’d done it long ago.
So get out there and push yourself a little and try something new – it will pay off.
See the rest of the Just One Thing posts —>>> Just One Thing
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I couldn’t agree more with George. My friend Steve & I have made it a policy to fish as many different kinds of water as we can to extend our skills & to try to avoid becoming narrow minded & trapped in an inward spiral created by wanting to stay in our ‘comfort zone’.
Me as well. I’m taking baby steps – but gradually expanding my comfort zone to include more types of water.
Could you briefly describe how Josh and George differed in their approach to fly fishing. For example, did Josh emphasize floating the sighter (I know that he like to fish that way)?
Alex, I hate to speak too much for either of those guys and I suspect they’re always evolving too and what I saw a year or two ago could be totally unrepresentative currently. And conditions were so different when I was out with them, summer vs. late fall, etc.
But I will say that when I went out with George it was to specifically focus on a weak part of my game which was fishing the placid, still water sections of streams. And this involved learning about fishing while floating the sighter and fishing “the drop”.
Coincidentally I wanted to focus on fishing this type of water because of my time with Josh and his introduction to me of the concept of floating the sighter.