Making the switch

I haven’t always been a fly fisherman. I still have my spinning tackle for trout but I never use it. I don’t even know where my box full of Panther Martins and worm hooks is. The last time I used my spinning tackle I was fishing for bass and big blue gill off my float tube. I strung up my line and broke the tip of a rod I had used since high school. I used to love that rod; it didn’t even bother me that I broke it. I wanted to learn how to fly fish but it seemed so arcane and obtuse to a bait fisherman. You cast the line? The fly hardly weighs anything? How does that work? There were more questions than answers. The different types of flies were so numerous I could barely keep straight what was floating and sinking let alone a baetis imitation or a midge. I would look at forums and see that someone caught fish on a GB prince nymph. I thought it was Great Britain….I was hopeless. If you saw me try to cast, it would make you want to duck and take cover. I took out more bushes and trees than trout that first year. I would bring my spinning tackle, catch a few fish and then switch to fly fishing to see how that worked out. It never did. Once I went fishing with my friend Mark. He was just learning to fish for trout and we were using worms. I think he caught one that day but I’m not sure. I caught a few on spinning tackle and switched to my fly rod. I needed to attach the tippet to my leader and was attempting a double surgeons knot. I say attempting because I never got it to work. It always slipped out. I finally gave up and became a decidedly sour fishing partner for a while. Mark has since switched to fly fishing and told me one of his funny beginner stories. He was sitting on the bank of a river in Montana (probably after paying something like $20 for a fishing license for the day) and couldn’t remember the knot to attach the leader to tippet. He finally gave up, tied the fly to the leader and caught a trout on a hopper pattern. That would have been enough to hook me on fly fishing. I have since learned that a baetis is a may fly and to not try to attach a thick leader to a tiny tippet with a surgeons knot. I now can catch way more fish with flies than I ever did with bait. I can tie most of my own flies and have more fly rods than most people have ties. And yes, my wife doesn’t understand why I need more than one fly rod let alone two 3wts a 5, a 7 and a 9. I sort of want a 0 but that’s silly.

My advise for learning to fly fish is pretty simple
Don’t take spinning tackle with you. If you go out to fly fish focus on that.
Don’t start with dry flies. Learn to cast a nymph, indicator rig.
Start with a small number of fly patterns but many sizes. (18-12 for most flies) Size is usually more important than the difference between a flash back pheasant tail and a natural.
Get decent equipment. If you have a $200 spinning rod and a $19.95 fly rod combo what are you going to want to fish with?
Don’t go overboard on expensive equipment either. You won’t know the difference between a Z-axis and a TFO for a long time.
Learn to tie flies. There is something great about catching/fooling a fish with a fly you tied. Most nymph patterns are pretty easy and it is a fun hobby. Like arts and crafts for adults.
Just go out and try it. Screw the books that say you can’t practice casting while you are fishing. I think the best motivation for learning to cast better is having fish right in front of you. Read about casting and maybe get a lesson then go out and do it. Learning on the water from a friend is the most common way people pick up the sport. For trout fishing you rarely have to cast more than 20 feet. Even I can do that.

I hope this helps, if I knew what I just wrote when I started thing would have gone better sooner.