Is desert just another word for douchebag?

I recently had a conversation with someone who told me that upon moving to the southwest they found the folks in the fly fishing community to be overly defensive and combative. Saying in an exaggerated manner that:

"The fly fishing folks from [specific southwestern state] live in virtual isolation from the rest of the fly fishing world. [...] The fly shop owners, the guides, etc. are all unknowns outside of [specific southwestern state], and the reason is because...by and large...these folks are a bunch of closed-minded arrogant jack-asses who really don't know much about the art and sport of fly fishing, but profess themselves the authority on it just the same. And when confronted with some "outsider" who actually knows a thing or two, they become very defensive and hostile, for fear of being exposed for the posers they really are."

This was mostly a joke meant to point out a perceived "regional cultural pitfall" but it got me thinking.... is it true? Are the majority of us poor desert-dwelling fly fishing-fanatics, on some level, just a buncha wannabes afraid of being exposed by those who really know what the sport is all about?

Back in September of 2008, the WSJ wrote an interesting article on regional stereotypes, The United States of Mind.

"Based on more than 600,000 questionnaires and published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, the study maps regional clusters of personality traits, then overlays state-by-state data on crime, health and economic development in search of correlations."

It was accompanied by a neat interactive map which made state-specific data very easy to compare based on the 5 fundamental traits of personality: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness. The states were ranked from 1-51 against the other states, 1 being the most of whatever trait. (duh)

The most interesting states right off the bat were Alaska, and North Dakota.

Alaska, it's the top of the US, but the bottom of just about everything. These are a non-socializing, argumentative, close-minded bunch, but they seem to be pretty darn happy about it.

North Dakota folk top the chart as the most outgoing, happy agreeable bunch, just don't ask them to change their opinion about anything.

My home state of Arizona wasn't all that interesting.

Arizonans are pretty happy, a little bit less than average about being agreeable and open to new ideas, and pretty good about throwing our empty beer cans in the trash. One interesting thing I noticed is that of the "four corners" states, (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah) New Mexico seems to be the most Neurotic, at #29, but not that bad overall. While Utah seems to be full of mormons? super happy party-people.

So what does this say about us desert fishermen? I have no idea, I just thought it was interesting. But who knows how the mental state a large group of water obsessed people fairs in a land of sand.

What about where you live? What would your regional fisherman stereotype sound like?

-Alex who believes he is already starting to go mad with crazy.