I fling used hypos garnished with feathers from drunken drag queens boas at the fish on the end of a clothes line

Fake lashes make great hackle.

PS I used cone and crawlers on a flea pole like the PiLLgrimZ

ORIGINAL: emal7717

... They dress up in Tweed sport coats to fish for hatchery planted trout! Claiming that the only way to fish is the same way they do, and turn their noses up at anything different.

...

dude i'm calling bullshlt
when did you ever see that?
a book about atlantic salmon?

NotherOne,Ill throw my two cents in the pot. I think that most of us started fishing with conventional tackle,bobber,and bait. Through the years we progressed and found fly fishing to be a challange that we all enjoy or a pain the the arese and didnt take it up. It has its strenghts and weaknesses as any other type of fishing does, although in shallow water or streams it is the most versatile and will give the knowledgeable an advatage . Casting distance is for those who cant see the fish at their feet. Fishing is fishing what method of tackle we use is unimportant, what is is the way we conduct ourselfs.As for drag systems tell you friend, invisable or not, that fly reels have the most advanced drag systems their are, how else can we catch Marlin,Sailfish,Tuna,Sharks,Kingfish,Redfish,Chobia,Bonefish,Permit,Cuda,etc.,etc,etc, without a drag to take the 35+ mph runs to the point the reel so hot you cant touch it.

As it applies to erie steelmutts, fishing bags, jigs, etc for about 20 yrs and getting bored catching umteen gazillion fish on spinning gear/ floats, switched to fly rods, self tied flies and am having a lot more fun catching fewer fish. Don't consider it any more "sporting" really, just a nice, refreshing change and a different approach to erie trib fishing. I don't have to catch 20 fish a day anymore. Don't have to travel to fish and when the runs are on, fish the tribs on a daily basis. All the PA/NY tribs are an hrs. drive or less from where I live. So I guess the point is fly fishing for me is just more fun.

ORIGINAL: bingsbaits

I started beacuse I wanted to learn something new..
Challenge the mind and body, keeps us from becoming old and stagnant...

There is an appeal to me to just watch a good fly fisher..
It is almost an art form to watch fellas that are excellent fly casters, they make it look easy and artful at the same time.....

P.S. you can not beat the take on a dry....

Couldn't agree more!

Nobody in my family fly fishes. My friends don't fish at all. When Dad gave me my first fly rod for Christmas last year, he said, and I quote, "This will give you an opportunity to explore new avenues."

Truer words never have been spoken. An entire new "world" has been brought before me. It's prompted me to forge beyond my traditional stomping grounds and experience new locations, bigger waters (and smaller), and just get out there and experience what God gave ya. That, in turn, has extended my season from three weeks in early spring to "from now until the creeks freeze up." The people I've met...the people I'm still eager to meet...the next guy who shares a drift and offers a couple of belts from his flask of knowledge...the gracefulness of a well-cast line...the envy of others that pushes you to become better...

All that existential blather aside, it's another means to an end. It's a challenge, it's exciting, and there's a lot to learn about the discipline. Bettern than others? That's a personal debate. For me, it's a new excuse to grab my son and spend some quality time on stream.

ORIGINAL: JEB

and the next day on a creek near our home, I caught my 1st trout on a dry. I was hooked...

 
Yea, I hear ya, That's what did me in.
Now, half my life has been haunted by bugs.

ORIGINAL: SonofZ3

My dear sir, I believe you're confusing "cherry" with "sherry". While sherry is delightful for certain situations, ruminations of the piscatorial variety call for something more, how shall I put this, divinely influenced. Something containing the essence of fly fishing itself. For this the only real option is that fine spirit of the Scottish highlands, a single malt produced with water from the bountiful birthplace of the famous salmon rivers themselves. Equally at home on your favorite beat or in your study, it is the only choice for a true angler. However, if you're the sort that confuses mooching for eels (or some other equally vulgar pasttime) with angling, then I imagine any disgusting concoction of fermented grain or fruit would suffice. Now, if you'll excuse me I really must be off, my daily round of verbally bashing the plebian masses while wearing a barbour shooting outfit awaits.

 
 
Could'nt of said it better myself.     LMAO
 
 
OldSalt

ORIGINAL: NotherOne

a friend asked me this question.
"i can cast further, i dont have that fat fly line spooking the fish, my reel has a modern drag system , i can fish a fly with less drag than you, what's the point of using a fly rod and reel?"

what would your response have been?

I passed on responding to this at first, because I figured my response would take forever to type. Right now, I'm eating lunch and figure I can take a half-hour to answer.

"I can cast further"
Depending on the situation, a spinning rod can likely cast further. That being said, how far does someone need to cast for stream trout, or steelbows? Even in bass fishing most situations don't require a caster to cast as far as he can. I guess my point is, for the fishing I do, it's not a distance game, and casting long distances doesn't give me an advantage. I can shoot an entire fly line out of several of the rods I own, but other than the couple of days per year when I go striper fishing, distance is not needed.

"i dont have that fat fly line spooking the fish"
If you're spooking fish with your fly line, you're doing it wrong. You don't present your fly line to a fish, you present what's at the end of a leader long enough to keep you fly line at distance from the fish. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't have all that fat fly line spooking the fish either.


"my reel has a modern drag system"
So does mine. I own several reels labeled, Hardy, Nautilus, Galvan, Orvis etc... that have drags which I believe are as good as it gets. I doubt any spinning reel on the market is more smooth.

"i can fish a fly with less drag than you"
Not true either. With fly line, you can throw mends to compensate for the different current speeds, and get a true dead drift.

"what's the point of using a fly rod and reel?"
This will be a much longer answer...

I spent the better part of my youth with a spinning rod or baitcaster in hand. I had an absolute blast catching smallies on the local lake and river, and fishing for trout on the local creeks. I got to the point where I was effortlessly catching fish. I soon decided to stop using live bait, and focus soley on using lures. I did fine on lures, and soon fishing became easy once again.

I will admit, having some fishless days for trout on lures, especially once I started fishing the wild streams close by as a young teenager. On one of those days, I watched as a guy casting dry flies caught a bunch of fish on a run that I just fished, and caught nothing. There were fish rising all over, but I couldn't catch them. They wanted nothing to do with my rooster tails and small rapalas. It was at that point, I wanted to learn to fly fish.

I bought a fly rod at a local shop, and eventually learned about the bugs in the creeks and how to fish their immitations. I came to the realization that a trout's main diet doesn't actually consist of minnies, mealies, night crawlers and powerbait, as the spinfisher uses, and that the creeks were full of mayflies, caddis, stoneflies, etc.. which trout eat day in, day out.

It turned out, the more I learned about the bugs, the more fish I caught. Within a year or 2 I was consistantly catching fish, and learning more every time out. Constant learning is something that hooked me. At a certain point, I didn't feel there was much more to learn in spin fishing. I've never felt that way about fly fishing, and know some oldtimers, who've fly fished for 50 years, who still feel that way.

At a certain point, I began tying my own flies. I won't go too far into this other than saying, one of the most satisfying moments a fisherman can have is fooling his first fish on a fly he tied himself. The closest experience in spin fishing to this I had was digging my own can of worms or seining for helgramites.

I tend to view the difference between conventional fishing, and fly fishing through the type of fishing I do most, which is trout fishing. To be truly good at fly fishing, you not only have to learn a river's bug life, but also how to fish it. The average spinfisher doesn't have a clue about what crawling around the rocks on the bottom of the creek, or what's being eaten on the surface of the water. A saw a good example a few years ago on the Little Juniata. There were a couple of spin fishers fishing around my friends and I. There was a massive hatch of grannom caddisflies and the trout had no interest in anything but grannoms. The guys casting spinning rods had no idea, and just kept changing baits and lures trying to figure out what the trout were eating. One of the guys made the comment to me "the f'n bugs are bad today" as he swung his hat to keep the grannoms away, I looked at him and simply said "they sure are". Later on, one of the other guys made the comment "the fish sure are jump'n a lot today" as if the fish weren't coming to the surface to eat, they were simply out there jumping out of the water for the heck of it, just like flipper would.

These guys were at the same stage I was before I started fly fishing, whereas I simply knew very little about the fish I was trying to fool. Even after fly fishing for 15 or 16 years, I still feel as though there's much to learn. To make a long story short, there is much I don't know. It's what I don't know that keeps me fly fishing.

All that being said. I have no issues with guys using conventional tackle. There a lot of fishing that simply can't be done with my preference of tackle, and requires that same dedication to learning that fly fishing for trout requires. A good example is the type of fishing my brother does, which is trolling for stripers on Raystown Lake. When I go with him, I'm amazed by how involved that type of fishing is. I watch as he shows me arcs on his sonar, and changes in water temp, and explains why the fish and their food is holding at different depths. I'm sure there's other types of fishing with conventional tackle demand the same dedication and hook people the same way fly fishing has hooked me. It's just that fly fishing is the only one that's got me hooked.

drake,

That was a great post, one that I think nearly any fly angler can relate to in many respects.

I'll add that after meeting up with our resident Mountain Man, I have a newfound respect for the intricacies of carp angling as well.

Let's just say I get a "twitch" with a fly rod in my hand. Not so any more with a spinning rod. Oh what a feeling when one smashes a dry that you tied just before you went out that evening.

Coming from a spin/baitcasting fishing set up into a flyfishing rig I must say that I personally enjoy fly fishing much more. Granted it is all personal opinion . I don't look down on people who use standard gear! I have found that to me its more rewarding fly fishing versus using standard spinning gear. Noodle rods to me have a similar idea in the fact the rod having length allows for lighter lines on bigger fish seeing how it absorbs the weight and the line can reach its full potential! Yeah sure you can use flies on spinning rods but it isn't like using them on what they were designed to be used on. I urge everyone to try fly fishing a few times just to experience it! But also I urge the people flyfishing to not come off as tooo good to those who don't! Flyfishing can be an expensive hobby to pick up especially when if your like me don't tie your own flies... reguardless we are all out to enjoy the outdoors and lose ourselves in all that mother nature provides us!