New to Fly Fishing

[gene goss]

Hello Everyone,

I am an aspiring fly fisherman. I am have only been fishing for 3 years and of those 3 years I was a conventional one. I was recently been given a Fly rod as a gift and I went to kienes to get geared up with a reel and flies. I don't know much about fly fishing and I was hoping to get some tips. They suggested on classes but I am not ready for that yet. I would like to read up on terms used in fly fishing and the basics before I consider taking a class. Are there web sites that you guys know that would be beneficial for that? I would like to learn from the ground up so I prefer some homework before I do instructional training. that way I wont be wasting my time trying to understand these new terms and techniques. I actually enjoy learning things myself so I find this very fun and new. I chose the shad thread to put this in because I think this would be the easiest fish to learn and from reading the previous threads in here, it looks like everyone is easy going and willing to help. Thanks.

ffn.

Here's a couple of local fly fishing clubs web. site
http://www.cffu.org/
http://www.gbflycasters.org/index.html

[JasonB]

Hey welcome,
I didn't bother to read this post at first because I've not yet fished for shad, although it's on the list to try and sounds like a ton of fun. Not sure about them being the "easiest" for beginners though, you might find that dry fly fishing with attractors for trout on small to mid sized streams to be a good place to start also. I don't know enough to compare the two side by side, but I will say that once the water warms up just a little more there are lots of small streams in the foothills that are very beginner friendly and fun to fish (darn educational as well!).

The Curtis Creek book has some nice stuff in it, surprisingly so for such a small book. I also got a great general book put out by Orvis (forget the name now), which was far more detailed and helpful with specifics on presentation types, knots, bugs, equipment, etc. I am pretty much "self taught", but I had some really key things that helped me in that learning curve:
-read books, magazine articles, online forums, etc etc
-spend lots of time out and around the water, paying lots of attention to as many details as you can. (most of these will not likely help you much in the beginning, but an awareness that starts now will really pay off later on).
-keep notes on your experiences, good and bad. refer back often when jonesing to go fish.
-befriend better anglers, and make sure that they enjoy the time that they spend with you enough so that you get lots of chances to fish with them (and their friends). Watch, listen, and learn all you can from them
-even better, hire a guide or take some lessons from a "pro" if you can afford to. The beginning is probably the best time to do this, as you have a fairly clean slate and thus can absorb a lot more new information rather than spending as much time and energy unlearning...

Whatever you do, do NOT start tying your own flies... it's all downhill from there with no hope of recovery
JB

[Mike O]

+1 to www.flyanglersonline.com

Especially the bulletin board, but hit all the links, sublinks, etc off the main URL.

I only participate in two FFing bulletin boards, Kiene's and FAOL.

Whatever you do, stay away from the Drake's FFing BB. They're not nice, and especially jerky to new FF'ers

[goby]

This man taught me how to cast. I'm betting he taught many others, too.

This is not the beginning of the video, but it will give you an idea of what it looks like. Its 20+ years old, and still amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtXQM...DCE3A1618255DF

[FlyFishingNewb]

I would like to thank everyone and anyone else that will post on this thread. As it has helped me learn so much about fly fishing in such a short time. I would also like to thank bill for creating such a fine forum and shop. Thanks again everyone!

[Slice]

Another good site with lots of info on casting and faults is sexyloops.com

http://www.sexyloops.com/flycasting/contents.shtml

Using this site I corrected (well im working on it, i still need to concentrate) my tailing (closed) loop issue that has caused me several hours of bird nest untangling.