Fly-fishing fashion: Streetwear goes streamside

Every few years, a major hatch erupts across every river all at once: the sport enters the pop culture conversation and hot takes start popping off.

Old-timers in both age and outlook are rattled as they are forced to consider expanding their self-imposed sporting boundaries. There's some variation of hew and cry around how "our sport is elegant and sophisticated, and the new attention it is getting will spoil it, starting with its mores, and the places we love so much."

First, it was The Movie that drove interest in the sport into overdrive. Then, hairdressers began buying up all the saddle hackle. After that, Yellowstone drove a stake into the heart of the last best place. The C word is almost as scary as the W.

Of course I'm being hyperbolic. But some concerns are legit. We do, after all, participate in putting pressure on natural resources, no matter how lightly we tread and how few fish we catch (ahem). A thousand additional fly-fishers in a state will impact its watersheds, from trampling new stream-side trails and eroding banks, to wearing out the margins of parking areas and disturbing underwater ecosystems when as we wade carelessly. The constant sub-division of large wilderness tracts to create mini-ranches will further disrupt rural economies and drive dollars into speculative cul de sacs (culs de sac?).

I'm not here to chide, though. I'm largely ambivalent to these fad moments, because they fade quickly, and in some ways, they refresh the sport. They both help us insiders see how others perceive our subculture, and they open the door for new folks to join the party, and help shape the future.

As you'll see later in this essay, taken together, the collection photography and influences that have brought us to this place, where fly-fishing fashion feels more mainstream than ever before, almost seems predestined, or a natural progression.

Drake and Nocta: Are they like us?

The latest third rail item comes courtesy Nike, Abel reels, and Nocta, a lifestyle clothing brand collaboration between Nike and Drake, (Canadian actor-turned-rapper Aubrey Graham, mostly in the news this year as Kendrick Lamar's punching bag).