Long-time friends know, I’ve always been a man of many hobbies.

I’ve played guitar, wrote songs, smoked cigars, run fantasy baseball teams, played golf, collected journalism books, played poker, built model cars and grown roses. Once in my very young life, I even collected stamps. Coins, too.

There was a time when I would throw myself into a hobby and that’s all I would do and approach it with a mindset of “this is my new hobby for life” and all of those other hobbies would be forgotten.

That’s not my way these days.

I kind of keep most of my hobbies going in some form or another — I still have my guitars, and even pick them up once in a while, and I win the occasional poker tournament  and hit (or try) a golf ball around green areas from time-to-time (playing tomorrow, in fact). And the roses are doing great this year.

But a new hobby is creeping into my life: Fly fishing.

Bill Blevins got me started.

After Bill took me out a couple of times (once last fall on Lake Honeoye and once this spring on Irondequoit Creek (Bill’s post with video)), I decided to start assembling my own gear (especially after losing six of Bill’s flies on that last trip — he ties his own). So far I have a cheap fly rod and reel, some flies in a box, Wal-Mart waders and a straw hat (subject of future post: How to get into fly fishing on the cheap).

I’ve been to Irondequoit twice on my own.

No caching yet. Just fishing.

Last night my wife asked me why I want to fly fish, do I think I’ll enjoy it and do I enjoy it?

Here’s pretty much how I answered the question:

• My motivation isn’t to be the best fly fisherman; at this point I’m not even motivated to catch anything (though, I certainly want to — why else throw your line in the water);
• I love living in Western New York. There’s so much nature, so much open space, such a vibrancy and variety of living things (which is why I’m also getting into native plants). Fishing is a relaxing thing to do out in parks. It’s always a way to learn more about and explore New York.
• It might be a way to make some friends in the area. Pittsford has a fly-fishing club I think I’ll join. Billie is always telling me I need to make some local friends (as in, “go outside and get out of my hair”!).

Speaking of Billie — in all the years I’ve known her, she’s never been much of a hobbyist. Well, she’s treated domestic things as a hobby (she collects homemaking, cooking and etiquette books, for example). Recently, she took up painting. That, I think, is very cool.

I told her last night, maybe by next spring we will be in a position to rent a cabin in the Catskills and we could take Pachuco, and she could paint and I could fish and we could just hang out. That sounds like a hell of a nice vacation.

Related book: Flyfisher’s Guide to New York