Skate or Fly: How two outsider sports foster the same creative flow state
From boardslides to redsides, meet a few notable skaters who fly-fish, and identify the big areas the sports have in common, built around getting into the flow state.
We're not a fly-fishing exclusive household. For the last several months, my seven-year-old daughter has been extremely excited about skateboarding.
For the first time in about twenty years there are issues of Thrasher lying around the house, and I've got banged-up shins.
All of it has sent me on a trip down memory lane—rather, bombing down memory hill—to a time before I veered off onto the slightly less dangerous fly-fishing boulevard.
Board sports were the first thing I got really passionate about. As a kid, I skated, I snowboarded, and I flailed around in the surf at such exotic big-wave locales as Newquay, Cornwall and Jupiter Beach, Florida on family vacations.
I was nutty about riding things: boards, bikes, blades, whatever you've got.
Call 'em my high-torque years:
Nick Parish
The skateboarding part lasted until my twenties, at least, when the price of falling became a little steeper, and I had fewer friends involved.
Fly-fishing and skateboarding: More alike than you think
My sister came by the other day. She bought my daughter the aforementioned May edition of Thrasher. Of course, with skate media, I'm trying to do a Parental Guidance pass to make sure there's nothing too aggressive for a little kid.
I was stoked to see the feature on Jamie Foy winning Skater of the Year talking about his fishing habit. They even snapped a photo of him with a sick little tarpon. (Note my censor marks. Here's a related vid, of Foy living his best life.)
"Fishing and skating can both really piss you off sometimes"
You got that right, Jamie.
With a few decades' worth of fishing experience, the parallels between skateboarding and fly-fishing are clearer.
Both are individual sports, practiced alone, on external terrain, rather than a playing field or in an arena.
When they converse, both skater and angler talk carries a collective creative pulse. The subculture comes alive with jargon. And in the creativity they inspire, in art, video, books, and magazines.
Sure, there are fanzines and enthusiast sites and various media about tennis and soccer and weightlifting and other sports. But creativity around individual sports like skateboarding and fly-fishing is different. The passion we bring extends beyond doing the sport.
The impulses that drive the two sports are so similar. Here are three things fly-fishing and skating have in common:
Riding a steep learning curve
One thing fly-fishing and skating have in common is the steep learning curve. It can feel hard to learn to fly-fish, in the same way watching other people skateboard can feel baffling. How did they get so good?
Commitment to technique
The hardest thing I learned to do as a kid was ollie. It feels like it took me years, alone, in my driveway, working in stages. The second hardest thing was to cast a fly rod.
I hadn't learned how to ollie, I wouldn't have had that pattern for skill-building and imprinting that I could apply to fly-fishing. First, on the driveway, then rolling, then going off obstacles. That progression mattered (I have since applied it to other sports.)
This isn't to say you can't skate without knowing how to ollie. You can have a great time just riding around. Same with casting. Catching fish doesn't require perfect casting. But being able to do both will increase the distance you can go in the sport.
Courage to be judged
At the risk of "when I was your age," I grew up before skateboarding was normalized. Today, it's a real sport. It's in the Olympics! Then, it was a fringe, outsider pursuit. It attracted the punks and the misfits. It wasn't on any authority figure's list of good ways to spend time.
And so people looked at you funny. You got heckled. Every time we skated someone would shout something negative at us from a passing car.
In both fly-fishing and skateboarding, you're going to feel judged. It can feel more comfortable to practice far away from onlookers. Find a secluded piece of river where your cast can suck. Find a driveway to practice your ollies.
Learning to fall, and fail
Invariably in skateboarding you're going to fall. And, that first really hard slam when you've gone full-send is enough to rattle some folks. Some won't set foot on a board again.
Both sports require you to find a balance or an attitude that accepts failure. You have to learn to fall properly to minimize injury. You have to accept that you go fishing and get skunked. You have to dust it off and try again.
This applies when you achieve any hard-fought satisfaction. Whether it's landing a trick or catching a fish, you should take that insight, internalize it, and apply it again. Remember learning to ollie in the driveway. First, do it stationary, then, expand outward. Now what?
Exploring the world below the surface
The "now what?" mentality, the curiosity about the world and what you can skate, or fish, helps you see a new kind of reality, one based in exploration and following your interest.
Seeing the world differently
People talk about "skate vision" when you first learn to skateboard. Skate vision is where, all of a sudden, you see staircases and rails and benches in a new way. Where they are more vivid in your mind because of the potential they hold as skate obstacles.
The same thing happens with fly-fishing. You start slowing down and craning your neck as you drive along a river, eyeballing water, seeing if you can spy a rise. You'll pull over to get a better look, and keep binoculars in the car, ready to drop an onX waypoint to go check the place out later. As you learn about reading water, you're going to think more about what technique might be better in a certain area.
Secret spots become familiar and coveted
Those places will start to become more familiar and coveted. I still remember the places we skated because they were so few-and-far-between. There were no organized places to go ride a skateboard, no city parks. Under the freeway at the Detroit Zoo. Efros Drugs' stairs. The Comerica bank curb. The abandoned Mobil station.
These spots became ours through multiple layers of experience, and they changed through a broad sense of our crew's shared awareness of their history. Today, I have those places fishing. The downed fence. The brush pile. The osprey nest. There's a strong place-sense that both skaters and fly-fishers guard and caretake.
An infinite canvas for creativity
As every urban streetscape becomes a place to skate, and every body of water becomes fishable, as you become a more adept skater or fly-fisher an infinite canvas for creativity unfolds.
This creativity expands into other areas, a more permanent expression of the ephemeral amazing session or fishy evening. It becomes art. Tennis players don't finish playing tennis and go paint a watercolor about tennis. But fly anglers and skaters do.
Embodied concentration leads to flow
In both skating and fly-fishing there's something about accessing the flow state that makes a difference.
It's the way of being that we are able to slip into by practicing the sport that resonates. It stays with us, traces of it linger. Those vapors become a muse to create, and perpetuate the cycle that brings us back to the flow.
It's a world in motion, on a skateboard, the wheels turning in gravity's slipstream, carving around the built environment. It's the river around you, balancing, semi-floating, pulled downstream yet moving towards the secret places we hope hold fish.
So, in conclusion, the stoke drives the desire to learn more, and learning more unlocks the world. Both skateboarding and fly-fishing:
- Help you unlock and enter a flow state
- Reward the steep learning curve with more flow
- Open up new horizons for exploration and growth
Notable board sports folks who fly-fish
Don't just take my word for it. There are a lot of folks who feel the power of the crossover between both sports, and act on the creativity it unlocks.
Rolf Nylinder
One of my favorite athletes who embodies this spirit is a Swede named Rolf Nylinder. In his youth Nylinder was a snowboarder, riding for Bonfire snowboards. But even in his early video parts he managed to work in fly-fishing.
From an older video featuring Nylinder on Snowboarder Magazine's site
Nylinder has since become an accomplished photographer and filmmaker, chronicling wild places and experiences as a mature storyteller. That's the creative fusion we talk about at work, the way fly-fishing can exist at an intersection of many different passions.
I'm really inspired by how Nylinder's style as a filmmaker has evolved and changed, while still being rooted in core themes. I hope I can accomplish the same sort of stylistic growth with my writing about the sport.
David Gravette
Closer to home, Creature rider David Gravette grew up in the Pacific Northwest and has used fly-fishing to help transition from the high-torque injury-filled years of skateboarding into a more mature, less-invincible body.
Here he is shredding (in waders!) on the Deschutes:
And ripping around PDX during the heat dome with Flyfish Journal:
Gravette was in conversation with the Wet Fly Swing podcast to tell his story, it's well worth a listen. Don't believe in the restorative power of fly-fishing? Take it from him. Buddy skates and fishes hard.
And, this is a totally true statement on the similarities between skateboarding and fly-fishing: “If you met someone who skated, they were your homie.” Same with fly-fishing, there's an instant bond.
Drew Wilson
Artist, angler, and skateboarder Drew Wilson is a homie of Gravette's, even designing graphics for one of his Creature decks.
He puts out his own stuff under the Kingfisher Skateboards brand, and makes art, tattoos, and hilarious merch from his illustrations.
He's definitely worth a follow on Instagram.
Moses Itkonen
Last, but not least, a little further up the coast in Vancouver, BC, is O.G. Moses Itkonen, co-leader of a skate crew known as the Red Dragons.
The Red Dragons came up in the late '90s, with Itkonen and co-Dragons Rob "Sluggo" Boyce and Colin McKay representing one of the strongest and most enduring skate teams (and, more broadly, skate brands) going. From the looks of it Moses is leading a very fishy life, together with his role as an elder statesman of the skate industry.
Combination fly-shop / skate-shops
I'm at the Pizza Hut / I'm at the Taco Bell / I'm at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell
Believe it or not, there are shops that cater directly to this great combination. What's better than that, it's like a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (shout out Das Racist), but for awesome hobbies.
Compound Boardshop
Compound Boardshop in Sarasota, Florida runs the gamut of Gulf-side board activities (surfing, skate-, skim-, and paddle-boarding) as well as offering fly-fishing goods and services, including running guides and classes.
Cutts and Bows
Cutts and Bows seems to be online-only, but affiliated with Itkonen and the Red Dragons crew in British Columbia, with both skateboards and skating accessories and fly-fishing related goods.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DB7i0ccyf7P/?hl=en&img_index=1
Old School Outdoors
Fishy godfather Joe Cermele's Cut and Retie podcast had a recent episode interviewing John Bullock, who runs a "skate & bait" out of South Trenton, New Jersey, Old School Outdoors.
They reminisce on the Philadelphia-area skate scene from the late '90s and early '00s, and talk about Bullock's operation manufacturing his own skateboards, as well as how the bait shop and fishing aspect of the shop has expanded over the years. It's fun to listen to Cermele talk about his love of skateboarding, skate deck art in particular.
Here are the Santa Cruz "Gone Fishing" series decks he mentions, courtesy another skate / punk-influenced fly fisher, Indiana-based Dave, who runs the site Pilecast and seems to love crushing smallmouth:
Bringing it all together
There are a bunch of crossover communities that touch fly-fishing, but skateboarding is the nearest to my heart.
I'm not sure how far my daughter will take her interest in either, but wherever she lands I'm hoping it's an activity that is able to provide such a strong burst of creative energy, both from the pursuit in itself, and from the community around it.
One parting tip: If you're going to skate in waders, wear your kneepads, because road rash isn't covered in their warranty.
Know of any combination skate & bait shops?
What other board-riding fly-anglers can we add to our list?
Tell us in the comments!
