How Did You Get Started Fly Fishing?

[Snowwolf]

I was self taught at about 18 yrs old. Had worm fished since I was 5ish. I went out and bought a Curtis Creek Manifesto and a cheap $40 dollar outfit some flys and started doing it.

Mainly have fished the rivers in Western Oregon, WA, but have made some trips down to Bishop, CA and CO. Would love to get down to MT sometime in the future

 

 

[Brownstone]

Pretty much bred into me I guess .. Dad and Pop are both fly fisherman. At around age 6-7 we were up at the cabin, the men away down on the river, i dinged myself in the forehead (missing my eye by about an inch) with a small red devil lure swinging it with an old fly rod, breaking off two of the three hooks in my face. The women rushed me into the Deer Lake hospital to get the hooks removed, after they caught me in the washroom with vice grips trying to pry out the hooks (i was more afraid of what dad was gonna say rather than the metal in my head). So I arrive back to a pissed off father (i'd been warned numerous times about fishing lures on the end of a fly rod) and he said "If you wanna use these rods then your gonna learn to do it right" off the the store to get a salmon license.

The next morning bright and early, I became one of the men. Betcha I fished two or three seasons before i even hooked a salmon (mind you patience is limited when your 7-10 years old) I rather be in around the rocks catching minnows or luring out eels with busted fresh water clams then cast all day and not see a fish. Landed my first Salmon around age 12 I guess then..I guess I was hooked.

Moved west at age 20 and had to learn how to fish all over again. Down and across and dries were all I knew,..I felt like a poacher with lead and more than one fly & "why you gotta learn the bugs?" . Wasn't long before i started to learn the Bow from strangers I'd met on the river.

[ausnuck]

I remember getting into it when I was ahout 13. I can't remember how, as there really wasn't any fly fishing where I grew up (Adelaide, South Australia). I guess I was always an avid reader of foreign fishing magazines. Through serendipity, my high school offered fly tying as a Friday afternoon time filler. Though lack of access to trout water, I stopped, and started again when I moved to Calgary in 2000. Since I took it up again, I have caught browns, brookies, rainbows, grayling, RM whitefish, pike, chum salmon, smallmouth bass, black crappie and sunfish on the fly (between Alberta and BC). It's a blast. My toys are a 3 weight, and a 5 weight. Used to have an 8 but the removalists made short work of that. Apart from salmon in the 'chuck, fly fishing is all I do now.

[bulltrout]

started when i was 6 trying to imitate my dad with a spinning rod...needless to say, it didn't work too well and it was one bird's nest after another until i only had like 10 ft. of line left on my old zebco thumbcaster...after seeing my enthusiasm, my old man went out and bought me a fly rod and the rest was history...21 years later, here i am...

[Gil]

The easiest cheapest way is if you know someone. I good friend of mine got me into it a few years back. Failing that I'd recommend you take lessons from a local fly shop. Teaching yourself to the point where you are able to catch fish is a long hard road.

[j5ep00]

When i was 10 years old my uncle and step dad had us casting to a hula hoop on the front street. we would practice for an hour every chance my brother and i could. once we got the hang of things it was off to sibbald beaver ponds for some brookies and cuts, as well as sibbald meadows pond for some stocked rainbows. after our fishing improved it was onto the bow. fished a ton of the nw stretch with the rare school night or weekend trip down to fishcreek etc for the huge caddis hatch's. spent 2 weeks or more every summer in Skookumchuck bc fishing gerrard rainbows.

i got it lucky! and im glad my family is so into fly fishing. sad to say it but my mom can whop my ass with a fly rod lol.

[126barnes]

I was a little late starting, around 28 I guess, never even seen a fly rod until I was 19 or 20. I don't even know why I bought the crapy tire special, but I'm glad I did. I whipped the water with crystal river orange hoppers in the summer, catching the odd ounaniche now and then, didn't even know about fly fishing subsurface or what a nymph was. I found FFA/FFC while surfin the net and lurked for a year or so reading every single post for a while. Pretty much I would have to give credit to the forums mentioned as getting me started.

[birchy]

My best buddy Corey got me hooked. Started taking me down to the Highwood in the summer of '06 with my spinning rod set up with a yellow bobber and flies for nymphing.. I think I caught one fish on that rig!!

 

This past year he 'handed me down' an older fly rod combo and took me down to the Crow in April. Caught 4 pan sized rainbows in one hole and absolutely loved it!!

 

Started visiting this site which added to the addiction and the next 11 months is history!!

[Snowwolf]

great stories you All. Glad to know that the spirit of the kid is still alive and well in all of us. I am teaching my 11 year old step daughter and she caught her first small fry last year (summer time) down around the beaver mines area and hopefully she can catch something a lil bigger this year. She has taken it up a little better then some of my friends I have tried to teach...L

[BlueNorther]

Got started when I was 12.Used to toss spinners and chunk bait on the Elbow river below the dam and was getting tired of catching suckers or nothing.Saw guys casting flies and catching trout and knew that was the way to go.

 

I saved my meager allowance and bought a Berkley Cherrywood 8.5' 7wt glass rod (still have it).I believe it cost $25.00 bucks then.My oldest brother had been FFing for a couple years already and donated an old Diawa reel and some D.T. flyline.

 

Went to the school of hard knocks and taught myself to flyfish and was catching trout my first season out.A couple of older gents I met on the river took me under their wing and started showing me some of the finer points and my success rate soared by the end of the season.I haven't looked back since.

[Brownstone]

Berkley Cherrywood 8.5' 7wt glass rod

 

 

I loved the Cherrywoods, great rods

[Guest bigbadbrent]

I don't really remember a time where i didn't fish. As far back as i can remember, my dad would take me and my brother, and sometimes one of my sisters to the livingstone or cataract, give us a fly rod to share and let us go at it. It's odd looking back at it, i don't even remember learning to cast, or even a time where i was more inclined to use a spinning rig. The normal day would be spent with my brother and dad, casting our yellow humpies (i don't think i ever used anything but humpies, adams and stimulators till probably 6 or so years ago). to the cutties and brookies. If i would catch one, it would usually entail me yelling for my brother to come unhook it for me, as i was not very good at getting hooks out, and i was always worried about the fish surviving.

 

In junior high i lucked out and ended up having a social studies teacher who was more into fly-fishing then myself. He came with us on a trip to the oldman, where i saw him doing something very strange, using a bobber and split shot. He outfished us probably 10 to 1, but i learnt to nymph fish that day. While nymphing is the true success story of fly-fishing, that dry-fly still floats through my blood on warm days on the highwood, oldman and livingstone.

 

I'm the only kid left that fishes in the family, and my dad has found golf, so its harder to get him away, but we still do our couple annual trips to the gap to get blown off the side of the canyon, to fish yellow humpies and stimulators.

[Brownee]

Originally from the Maritimes I never much bothered with fishing....probably just took the water for granted. Moved to Alberta, and missed the water....so started spin fishing. Used to drop a couple of nymphs off my line and try to fish as close to what I thought was flyfishing as I could .....however this method proved not to be as exciting as it was in the beginning. I always loved to watch people flyfish....such a beautiful art. So last year I took the plunge and started flyfishing...and I've been hooked and broke ever since!!

[trailhead]

I got started flyfishing in the early seventies, I was working at Woodwards and there was a young guy who I worked with that was my age and he was big into flyfishing and tying. I can't remember his name but he kind of introduced me to it, showed me a setup to buy, I think it might have been a Cherrywood glass rod too. Unfortunately he was killed in a car accident shortly after and I never did get to fish with him, and my brother stepped on the rod in my canoe and broke it. So I bought a Diawa that I still have, and I did some reading, and got some tips from Barry Mitchell's fathers booklet. I trolled around the stocked lakes but I think I caught my first fish on the Wildhay river, a athabasca rainbow on a Royal Coachman. I did catch some in the lakes, I recall a decent day on Black Nugget. Then I moved to Calgary and by doing field work was in proximity to a lot of good fishing, Smoky, Raven, Kakwa etc. Plus I started fishing the Bow, which was a different river in the eighties. Then took a few years off to have a family, but now that junior is older I have time to get out more. Plus we have a shack in the Pass and that offers more opportunity too. Sorry about the soliloquay but fishing is all about the memories.

[Snowwolf]

and good memories they usually are

 

[pheasantnut]

Dad and I used to go on our father son fishing trips for a week during hte summer. WOuld head up to the Findlay creek drainage past Raduim hot springs and we would camp and fly fish for a week chasing cutthroats and bulls around. Did that from the time I was about 7yrs old or so. Best childhood memories by far. The cutties were never any bigger then 8 - 10 inchers but tons of fun. High school and university were spent skulking around the bow. Surprised I even graduated given the amount of time I spent on the river.

[Teck71]

Got started fishing as a kid on the Notty and Boyne rivers in and around Alliston, ON. (this is chucking lures). the moved to Ottawa and discovered Pike, pickeral and muskie, spent 10 years chucking lures at that on the Ottawa, Rideau and Mississippi rivers. then moved and got a house as a grown up in Picton ON, bought a bass boat and fished for Bass, Gar, salmon, and walleye. then we decided to move to Alberta.sold the house in Waupoos on the lake, sold the boat, (sold GPS with way point for 3time the gps value). and moved to Calgary.

 

we got to Calgary and my son 15 decided to rebel long story short he ran away for 6 months lived on the streets and accumulated the Habits found there. In January he entered a program and when he did I asked him what he wanted as a reward for working hard at getting his life together. answer was to start fishing with me again. so I started looking around for information on rivers as fishing here is much different than at home found the FFA site 2weeks before it shutdown and the found FFC, Talked to Cody about type of fishing he wanted to try and he told me about watching some guy fly fishing around Princes island park and how it looked. so after 6 months clean and 1 yr of school completed. we took our lessons at Fishtales, and have been out most weekends since. on my son he is completing his last course now 80% average and has received his pre-selection letter form the armed forces. looking to basic training in the fall. wants to go either Combat engineer or vehicle tech. and I think now we are closer than we have ever been

 

that is how I got started Fly fishing, wasn't my father or a older mentor it was my son.

 

Proud father

Teck

[Tako]

Self taught @ age 12. I don't cast like anyone you know.

[luukesh]

This is a great thread, all very good stories...... especially Teck's.

[Maximum]

I always liked fishing but stopped for a few years due to school, work etc. Got back into it, and one day walked into a local fly shop to renew my license. The owner started talking to me about trying FF so I signed up for their intro course, one thing led to another and I was hooked! Never looked back since. And with the FFC board forming right around the same time, I met lots of other fellow chronics like Maxwell and SJW which helped me even further because I was a lost cause for a while there.

[walker1]

Great story teck. Glad all is working out.

[Teck71]

Thanks, it seems to be Ultamatly he he a good kid and has the help of a good program and councilors

[hopdrop]

Broke my leg skiing a few years ago. I always wanted to learn, so I bought some gear, taught myself how to cast (kind of) sitting in a lawn chair in the yard with a busted leg. Neighbours thought I was crazy, I don't know how many times I was asked, 'How's the fishing?'. It's been a slow, steady, spiral into addiction ever since.

[bigbowtrout]

I started by wanting to hang out with the Father inlaw so I took a rookie course at Troutfitters then the Father inlaw bought me a $60 combo but he was way to busy to fish with me (golf would have worked) so I just started to go out on my own or with my Bro and a buddy and it's been all down hill from there.

[SanJuanWorm]

I started with BigBowTrout. But im not sure why you have to fish with your waders down around your ankles yet. Is this normal in flyfishing?