If you know fish will take your dry fly, even if it is wet and under, or…
If you know you can false-cast your fly to fish near the surface, you don’t need… floatant
If you know how to use currents to sink your fly, you don’t need… split-shot
If you know how to keep your line tight, and watch it as it goes by, you don’t need… strike indicators
If you know how to tie three of simple knots, you don’t need… tippet rings or dacron for the level line
If you know you can cut your line using your teeth, you don’t need… nippers (though we highly recommend this, because…you should know you can ruin your teeth that way!)
If you know 4X and 6X looks virtually the same underwater, you don’t need… multiple spools of tippet
If you know most fish will be caught between 15 and 40ft away from you, you don’t need… a bunch of line
If you know tenkara allows you to keep it off the water, you don’t need… to mend your drift
If you know how to tie flies by holding the hook, you don’t need… a vise
If you know fish checkout most things that could be food, you don’t need… a hundred fly patterns
If you know most artificial flies resemble many different things under water, you don’t need… 30 fly patterns
If you know how to present one fly in a variety of different ways, you don’t need… a dozen fly patterns
If you know the points above, you don’t need… a vest full of pockets
If you know you can fish with a pole that has the line tied to its tip…
If you know you can fish with a fixed-length of line…
AND, If you know you can land a fish without a reel, you don’t need…well… a reel.
My grandfather used to say, “knowledge is the only thing no one can take away from you”, and generally it is difficult to lose or forget it at home. The nicest thing about knowing, is that once you know you can leave a lot of things behind. And, as they say, “knowledge is weightless”.
What else do you know that would allow us to minimize what we carry and what we think we need?