Google Earth.
The entire world except the bathrooms of
the controlling, incumbent governments seems to be available on Google
Earth or some other form of the internet mapping. Heck, even the bathrooms
might be. Solid walls? How about Flir thermal images? Only Bigfoot
seems to be able to elude that!
Secrets. Are there any? Certainly not when it comes to the Kardashians; crap I can't open a web 'news' page without having to see something about them particularly Kim. If you don't know who they are consider yourself lucky.
So are there any secret places and secret knowledge? We can neither confirm nor deny the existence thereof. But this isn't politics. Or is it?
OK, let me be the first to admit I splatter images and video of my favorite places and tend to be either oblique and concise or (more frequently) loquacious in my commentary. I do believe in sharing knowledge. It makes the world smaller and more open and hopefully more friendly - until I unfortunately catch the latest headlines. In the fishing community I understand though that a lot of people don't get or take as much time to fish and go to places they dream of. We all have too little time in life to see and do it all. If people could quit waring there might even be more places and more people enjoying it. So here, the fish porn and scenery fills a void if not a need. But, even I get dismayed of looking at fish pictures after a while. Life today though does include vicarious living. There are in fact , places and things that I would never want to personally experience but am willing to watch from the comfort of a chair at my computer or the TV and couch. I'm know I'm not alone and GoPro stock is off like a rocket! Sharing generally has it's positives unless you share and like everything on facebook.
For the record, I am not really
in favor of labeling things 'good' or 'bad' because I don't know where
the end of the road lies and I am not a creator of all things. I only
know that some things that appeared 'bad' sometimes turn out apparently
'good' somewhere down the line - you know the whole "there is a reason
for everything that happens" line of thinking. But there is ample death and destruction in the world which doesn't seem positive to me so I fish to take a breath from the real world.
Anyway, so I think
it's cool to share some knowledge, especially how, who, what,
where and when. On the other hand as we all become better at fishing
and technology gives us advantages over a creature with a brain the size
of a pea there is one thing that is critical and that is the
'resource'. I hesitate to call it a resource because I revere fish and their
life strategies and survival abilities. You try to see your own vitality
and wildness and beauty in the creatures you admire. Soon enough though I will be that crusty old salmon decaying in the stream and I only hope I did my part to replenish the ecosystem of my offspring. Wait a minute, I don't have kids which might explain a few things. The fish, the resource,
however are not doing that well. Fisheries further are under constant threats from things
like industry, gas and oil lines etc. crossing some pristine places.
Ah, progress. How do we keep a balance? Participate in conservation projects.
As I view pictures of grand places and
magnificent fish specimens on Fly dreamers and wonder exactly where
these places are and how do you catch those fish I look for the tags or
words that reveal what river and region. After all I shake every time I travel past a stream and I can't stop to fish it. Then as I 'approve' pictures for
the Fly dreamers library and have to enter a geo-tag I wonder 'should I
mark precisely' (I generally don't) or not? Do we deprive others of an
opportunity of discovery if we do? YES! Do we deprive others of an opportunity if we don't? YES! Either way we are possibly depriving others one
way or the other; discovery for yourself or laboring just to find a
decent spot to toss a line. So is it moot?
In the 'old days' before the www you went to the tackle shop, asked around, read guide brochures, magazines and had family and friends to rely on. We still do. And those things provide jobs for entrepreneurs. Now we do an internet search and google stuff unless we are in a less 'developed' part of the world. In fact you can get coordinates to exact locations in some cases. Good or bad? Honestly I don't know. It's a different kind of mystery.
Thankfully there are still places that are remote, hard to get to or hard to deal with for any number of reasons. Personally I think it shouldn't be any other way until we can A. have a transporter device like that on Star Trek in every home. and/or B. find some other planets to explore.
If you have seen any pictures by the Macalaldy brothers
you will see some consistently large fish in beautiful photo realism.
It begs the questions where and what. Someone did in fact post the
question "What did you use?" to which the answer was something like, "a
map, a fly rod, a fly and a truck" which was both really true, humorous,
profound and almost slighting. It was a witty way to tell someone not all things will be shared and they
needed to do more research ie. enjoying fishing and learning fishing
because there are no simple answers even if it was a streamer, madam X,
or #14 Adams at 6:30 pm at the bend, river right on Lunker hole. By the
way who's that kid, Tom Hrdecky that seems to be every cool
place on the planet catching the biggest, baddest thing possible
whenever he throws a fly? The brother is blessed! Yes I'm envious but
in a good way, same said for Nicolás' Schwint and that artful Marcelo
Morales dude (he builds some beautiful bamboo rods and has cool stuff) and they go all over and fish
everywhere. Well, nothing money, time and motive might not fix.
You, know though, you are all cool in your respective ways and I wouldn't have known the specifics of it before Fly dreamers. I dabbled on a forum once that had issues, people issues with volatile opinions and nearly pointless internet fights and trolling. Here at least we seem a bit more civil, perhaps it is the cosmopolitan flavor. As for me, I'm just another fly fisherman who has a bit of free time and a camera. Most of the stuff I learn standing in a river and it's surprisingly about life as much as fishing.
To conclude I pose a couple of questions for some possible consensus:
1. In your opinion, how much super, top secret, fishing stuff should be shared on the inter-webs amongst the fishing community and what should be shared on a person to person basis?2. How do you like to handle requests for more detailed information?
