I am a newcomer to the fly fishing and fly tying arenas, and would like to learn.

What should I do to get started?

What gear and or instruction and skills do you, or have you already had?

where are you located?

...that's an easy one...nothing whatsoever. I am unmolded clay waiting for the eager hands of the TFFers to make me into a masterpiece.

...and may God have mercy on your soul.

My advice, as someone who still hasn't had one single second of instruction, is to find a casting instructor before you even pick up a fly rod. Do not pass go, do not collect the hundreds of dollars you're about to spend on gear until you have completed at least a couple of lessons. The different styles of fishing and casting that a good instructor can introduce you to as well as the selection of gear that most of them invariably possess will allow you to make much better decisions about exactly how you should proceed.

What gear do you have? What kind of fishing do you want to do? Bass, sunfish...salt water...what? I don't know if anyone is a masterpiece here, I certainly am NOT. I have been fly fishing and tying now for a little over a year.

Get some casting lessons if you can. Bad habits can develope without you knowing it and having someone coaching you can save you a lot of time and heartache breaking those habits later.

Watch "A River Runs Through it"

If you are in DFW I would be happy to meet up and give you a first lesson. I have a spare rod and could give you some basics. I have been fly fishing since I was 12, but I am still not an expert by any means at all. Be warned though, once you start fly fishing you will become a snob and you will thumb your nose at any other fishing method. Also, you will have an uncontrollable urge to spend a lot of money. And that is before you decide to start tying your own flies.

I got an instructor, ya can meet him tonight at basspro

lol

Thank you.

I am completely open to whatever is out there at this point. I want to learn more about it (what's involved, costs, fly-tying, etc.)

I hate to say it, but if you are committed do it right. You will be much happier in the long run. Go with a sage or g.loomis rod. It is a pricey way to get in, but crappy rods are crappy rods. If you buy a Cabelas Three Forks, you probably won't become a fly fisher. I am a big advocate of cheaping out when it comes to reels. If you are only doing freshwater fishing it is merely a line holder. I worked at Cabelas and got in trouble because I would tell people they really didn't need a $200 reel if they were bass fishing. Saltwater might be a different story...
Fly tying is great. You will spend a lot of money though. Get a good mid range vice. Start off with simple patterns and buy materials as needed. In Texas a woolly bugger will get so much done and needs a minimal amount of material and money to tie.

I'd say the bottom end budget for one outfit (rod, reel, and line) should be in the $100 range. From there the sky is the limit.

As for the sport of fly fishing as a whole, I have never caught fewer fish or smaller fish, nor worked harder at it than I have since I started fly fishing. That doesn't bother me because I'm not the sort of person to yank a nice bass out of the water, thrust it skyward and intone "BOOYAH". I enjoy the pace and rhythm of the fly cast and the rush of catching a bass the hard way. If you're more of a trout kind of guy, it is probably the more efficient way to catch them, but for warm water you'd better enjoy something than just bragging rights about who won the tourney that weekend.

Abandon all hope ye who enter fly tying looking to save money. The flies you can find online are usually of decent quality and are well worth the $0.50 to $4.00 you'll pay for them. I got sucked into fly tying to get flies that aren't generally available and because I could at least imagine fishing while I was stuck in a hotel somewhere. I spent about $120 to get my tying equipment and enough materials to tie a couple of patterns.

Welcome to the forum, there are some great minds here that are more than happy to help you spend the kid's college fund in pursuit of fish that could be caught much more easily on a cane' pole and bobber (know known to you as a strike indicator).

I think txraider summed it up quite well.

Thank you for your kind words, sir (I assume you're a sir, but one never knows on the intarwebz). I didn't see that before I posted this, but if I had, I would still have said the same thing.



I respectfully beg to differ, although I hesitate to call myself a fly fisher. I'm more of a flinger or possibly a flailer. Out of the four outfits I own, everything but one rod came from Cabelas and all the rods are Three Forks with an even split between the older and newer Prestige reels. Even my el cheapo Eagle Claw 5 wt rod from Academy will cast better than my abilities will push it and my Cabelas gear is better than that by a sizable margin. They are all a definite step up from my original Wally World Shakespere fly fishing kit that was a $20 outlay.

I enjoy my fly flailing, but I have to keep within a budget. As Washington Hogwallop intoned in O' Brother Where Art Thou, "They got this depression on. I got to do for me and mine." I'd love to have better gear, like a Sage Largemouth or a TFO MiniMag, but for now I get to enjoy this sport just fine with the gear I currently have. No hard feelings on my end, I just don't want to scare away potential converts to our fine sport via sticker shock.

Yeah, I shouldn't have said that. I am spoiled. I am a poor college student who is lucky. My uncle wraps rods and has a source for factory blemish rods. As such I lucked into a corral of sage and loomis poles. There is nothing wrong with the three forks stuff from Cabelas. Like I said, I am just spoiled with the good stuff. I think what I meant to say was that the learning curve is shorter with decent gear.

The advice to get some basic fly casting instruction is excellent. I think there are a lot of good rods out there for not a heck of a lot of money. I have been impressed with the Temple Fork products, for example, most (all?) of which are under $300. Of course you can spend over $3000 on a custom bamboo rod but if I ever did something like that I would be terrified to fish it. I would say before you commit to a rod, learn to cast competently and then NEVER buy a rod until you have at least cast it in the parking lot. Fishing a rod is always going to be different but you will have some idea what you like in terms of action and "castability."

How Txredraider managed to tie his first clouser for $120 is a total mystery to me. He's obviously a lot smarter than I am because I'm into this fly-tying thing for over $200 already and I have yet to produce my first woolly-bugger (though I have enough stuff now to make probably 100 of them). Anyone who tells you that tying your own will save you money will probably also tell you about how they caught 19 7-lb bass just yesterday in that little pond you KNOW to be jammed up with nothing but tiny bluegill and three lazy catfish stuck in their holes.

The last thing I would say is that fly line is really important - a lot of it is quite good, so it is hard to go wrong unless you really just try to cheap out on it. Get a high-quality line (but don't pay full price if you can avoid it) as these are easier and more fun to cast.

Most of all, have fun!

I certainly didn't take it as elitism. We all have priorities in life that we choose to pursue and we all value them differently. That's the great thing about fly fishing: all the different species and techniques we can go after in our own way and at our own pace.

Now let's all hold hands and sing cumbaya.

agreed

That is excatly what not to do.

I'm just got back into it after a 20 year lay down, fished around alittle as a kid with me Dad. Go see Bill at Bass Pro Garland. He will talk you though it and not make feel like an idiot. He helped me a great bit pick an outfit.

Yupyup, another sucker!

All joking aside, gear does not make a fly angler. Neither does money or elitism.

My first fly rod was a Cabelas Fish Eagle III and it served me well for over 18 years.

Sure, there are some lame fly rods out there, but there are still plenty of good ones to be had in the 150.00 range.

I think if you get a Dogwood Canyon or above...you will do just fine. I have that variety, and it has served me just fine. Sure I'd like a Sage bass rod, but that is not possible for me. If I waited until I could afford the best, I would of never got into the sport. A Three Forks will be just fine as well. If you can get a TFO rod, even better. The reel is not important unless you are hauling in some huge fish, and they get in the backing. Mainly a reel for freshwater fishing is nothing more than a glorified line holder anyways. Another low budget rod is a Redington Crosswater series. That is what my 8wt is. I did not like their reel though, and I bought the reel separately. I got a pre-spooled Ross reel for my Mother's day present. Good luck, and if you have more questions, don't hesitate to ask.

I have a 19.99 eagle claw fiberglass rod that is very heavy& I bought it many years ago, I now use a expensive rod, the fish don't know the difference, fun is fun, use what ya got and wack 'em.

i want 2 buy a new fly rod and i don't know which brand 2 buy. I've been fly fishing before but i didn't use my own rod. this will b my 1st 1 so plz help me. i need suggestions.

Need to know,

Whats your budget?

What's your target species?

Are you planning on taking it backpacking or on airplanes?

Ever going to take it to the saltwater?