How Did You Get Started Fly Fishing?

[bigbowtrout]

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?

 

I find it easier to use my third leg for balance

[j5ep00]

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

 

 

 

 

teck awsome story man!! im glad to have run into both of you a few times on MY stretch of river HAHA

we will have to get toghter in the near future to fish the home stretch.

tight lines

chris

[reevesr1]

Teck,

Wow. I don't know what else to say to that. Great, great story.

 

All the best to your son in the Armed Forces. I did 8 yrs myself, and it couldn't have worked out better for me.

[reevesr1]

Been fishing ever since I can remember. All with lures fishing for several different saltwater species. Went with my dad and brother almost every weekend. The Pastor at our church used to say that to find out if "the Reeves boys" were going to be at church on Sunday, all he had to do is look outside. If it was blowing/stormy, we'd be at church. If not, we'd be fishing.

 

I didn't start fly fishing until sometime last year. When I moved to Grande Prairie several years ago, I wanted to try but was frankly a bit intimidated by all the stuff. That and the fact I didn't want to be "new" at something I've done my whole life. So I drug flies under casting bubbles on lakes and tried my luck in the Kakwa. Caught some rainbows in lakes and a couple of cutties in the Kakwa. So I knew catching them was possible.

 

After a stint back home in Texas, I moved to Calgary 3 yrs ago. Took a client on a float trip and decided I would look the fool and try the fly rod. I completely sucked with it, but did manage to land a few and got the bug. Took a FF boot camp from the same place as Maximum (he is the star pupil by the way), took some Walk and Wades from Max, and am now as addicted as it is possible to be. My wife calls me "the Crackhead in the Crackhouse." My oldest son has also taken it up, but at 15 there are lots of other things occupying his mind, so getting him out is not as easy as it used to be. I'm still working on the wife and younger two kids....

[Pescador]

I had always fished since I was a kid, Nova Scotia, Thunder Bay, but didn't get into fly fishing until I moved to Jasper in 1980. Like SnowWolf, Curtis Creek Manifesto was my first book and learned to cast on Maligne Lake with a Cherrywood rod. Became obsessed with fly tying and spent many many days on the lakes in Jasper.

[Teck71]

I thought once I would like to get the wife flyfishin. but then when I'm on the river i think now sometimes a man needs something his own.

[Hawgstoppah]

I thought once I would like to get the wife flyfishin. but then when I'm on the river i think now sometimes a man needs something his own.

 

amen.... thought it's nice if once or twice a summer if the wife and young kids come along and we just spend a day (read a few hours) on some small little stream chasing small little fish.

[Hawgstoppah]

The Pastor at our church used to say that to find out if "the Reeves boys" were going to be at church on Sunday, all he had to do is look outside. If it was blowing/stormy, we'd be at church. If not, we'd be fishing.

 

Still works on sunday's at my house, although it's the wife wondering if I'll be joining her today or not... LOL

[Hawgstoppah]

Ok so how did I start? Been fishing since grandpa first put a rod in my hands. I think I got addicted to the fly fishing bug when I moved to alberta when I was 14 and saw a fella at Nic Sheran at Lethbridge land about 5 huge browns in an hour. He taught me a few simple things, and I also started with the trusty berkley cherrywood

 

Picked up almost all of the rest on my own, through hard practice, reading, and observing the good fisherman and asking a lotta questions. Learned a lot from watching others.

[Red]

My Dad took me along fishing since I was too young to remember. Caught my first fish at Spray Lakes, a nice rainbow, when I was about 5. I spin casted until about 4 years ago when I finally jumped into fly fishing. I've always been intrigued by fly fishing since I was a little kid when I found a couple of old fly reels under the stairs of our house. I asked what they were and my Dad said they were his Grandpa's fly fishing reels. My Dad never fly fished but I've been intrigued ever since.

[trailhead]

Kind of off topic, but do you have Grandpa's reels?

[Red]

Kind of off topic, but do you have Grandpa's reels?

 

Sadly no, they went missing after a move. I wish I had them, it would be cool to catch a fish on my Great Grandpa's reel. I still remember the line on it, it was brown and kind of rough.

[maxwell]

great topic...and lots of great stories..i love that we all fish for different reasons and its different those reasons that brought us to flyfishing.......caught my first back in 89 bait fishin.....bait n raps got boring quick n started flyfishin in late elementary school........was frustrating as hell..but it was the next step for me and started too really pick it up in my teens... made my dad scratch his head and look at me funny tho

[flyangler]

My brother and I used to beg a ride down to the non trouty part of the Missouri river and fish until one of us got hurt before going home. Maybe that's how I ended up in health care. Our Grandma was an avid outdoorswoman who impressed with her fishing and hunting skills as well as her garden and kitchen arts.

 

Mom left me a canoe and my husband and I drop a line in the city lakes from time to time. A few years into our dating, friends separately took us out flyfishing and it was a done deal. The gear, the flytying stuff, the whining until an open season returned, the glazed eyes of our non-fishing friends as we unspooled endless stories and vacation photos.

 

And if you want to see our vacation pics, you'll see a lot of Alberta and BC.

[Saltamontes]

When I was a kid, I did some baitfishing in the ocean back home (Chile), caught fish, but never really got into it, other activities such as tennis, soccer swimming took priority. In my teens I did some bait fishing at the local pond and did get some little trout. In one of those outings I noticed a "kid" (who is now a man and a very accomplished fly fisher and who just happens to post here regularly) here swinging this stick in the air very gracefully and getting fish to come up to the surface to take his offering. I was intrigued, but never did find out what he was doing. I didn't fish for decades after that. Got married, had kids. My son was into many sports and one day out of the blue he mentionned he'd like to try fishing. I went to crappy tire and picked up a spincasting rod for him, while there I looked at fly rods, thinking that in order to keep him company I should get myself some kind of fishing rod. I bought the cheapest fly rod I found, paid $30 for a 7-8 wt, which I matched with a $20 reel and a # 4 line from Walmart, note here I did not have a clue about what I was shopping for. I took junior fishing and left my "fly gear" at home. Next day I went to wallyworld and picked up an assortment of flies, all dries, and headed off to the local pond. To my amazement, little trout were coming up to eat my cheap wallmart flies. By the end of the outing I had caught my first trout. Next day after junior found out I had a fish on a fly, he wanted to give it a try, we took turns sharing the fly rod, a kept catching little rainbows, junior kept missing the strikes, until eventually he hooked and landed his first, that was 7 years ago. We have since blown a substantial amount of money, rods, reels, boats, waders, vests, fly tying materials, you name it, we probably have it by now. Oh yeah, gotta add, I am now getting into rod building, sheeeesh! there is no end to this obsession.

Anywho, those were my humbling beginings. I stumbled across fly fishing acidentally, and I love it, and it all happenned when my kid said "dad, do you think we could try fishing some day"?

[Hawgstoppah]

and it all happenned when my kid said "dad, do you think we could try fishing some day"?

 

That's just awesome.

[Snowwolf]

I had always fished since I was a kid, Nova Scotia, Thunder Bay, but didn't get into fly fishing until I moved to Jasper in 1980. Like SnowWolf, Curtis Creek Manifesto was my first book and learned to cast on Maligne Lake with a Cherrywood rod. Became obsessed with fly tying and spent many many days on the lakes in Jasper.

 

 

Hey Pescador,

 

kinda cool to know that someone else learned using that book.....

 

Dann

[Snowwolf]

some really goo stories. I think I have said this in another thread but I have been teaching my 11 year old step daughter how to fly fish and she caught he first fish down around the Beaves Mines Lake last summer...it was only a small one but she really ribbed her Uncle who also started last year and didn't catch anything then.