willbb

A quite cheap option for a rod tube would be the cabela's 56" tube. http://www.cabelas.com/product/Fishing/Rod-Reel-Storage/Fishing-Rod-Tubes-Cases|/pc/104793480/c/104812380/sc/104541480/Cabelas-Deluxe-Rod-Tubes-with-ID-Cap/744422.uts?destination=%2Fcatalog%2Fbrowse%2Ffishing-rod-reel-storage-fishing-rod-tubes-cases%2F_%2FN-1102356%2FNs-CATEGORY_SEQ_104541480%3FWTz_l%3DSBC%253BMMcat104793480%253Bcat104812380&WTz_l=SBC%3BMMcat104793480%3Bcat104812380%3Bcat104541480

Before I got my 3wt, I read that 3wt have trouble casting weighted nymphs and struggle to turn over a #12 dries, then, a few weeks ago, I went to a river that I knew had bass, but I only had the 3wt, I started fishing with my tiniest, lightest streamers, but by the end of the day, I was casting my heavier #8 cone-head streamers which have quite a bit of lead in the body too. To cast them, you might be tempted to try a faster casting tempo, to put more power in the cast. Do not do that! You have to wait until the streamer and the leader have completely unfurled behind you before the shoot. The other problem could be the leader, I found that a quite long stiff butt helped to turn over the heavier flies.

For me, fly fishing is going to the beautiful wild untouched mountain streams, preferably remote, and catching a fish that you know has grown up eating what you tried to imitate and you managed to trick it into taking yours, but sometimes it's fun to go to a stocked stream and catch a ton of stocked trout.

I definitely agree with what MTFlyJunkie said about reels. Although I don't have one, I have heard good things about Okuma reels on some forums, so you could save a bit of money there and buy a more expensive rod.

Here's a picture of me with the trout, you can really see how sick it is. It's quite a big file, so it might take a while to load.

Hi Ikerajala, I'm glad that you enjoyed my story. I should have another one in a few weeks, when I head back there

Hi Obi, What I do when using I'm using CDC flies is have a piece of paper towel with me and every time I catch a fish, I press the fly into it and the paper towel removes the water and fish slime, you could also buy an amadou patch to do the same thing. Sometimes all you need to do is blow the water out of it. Good luck, Will

About a week ago, my new Sage txl-f 3wt 7'10" rod arrived along with a rigged up Sage Click III and an ultralight BlueSky furled leader. That day, I took it into the backyard to try casting it a bit. I decided that this weekend, I had to try it out. On saturday afternoon, My dad and I set out for a camping spot almost an hour and a half away from Canberra, but after one missed turnoff and half an hour of going around in circles in the labyrinth of dirt roads, we stopped at a clearing by a tiny creek. The next morning, as soon as the sun was up, I got up and spent half an hour getting a good fire going, rigged up my new rod and headed off for a fish. after twenty minutes of extremely tight quarters fishing in this stream that was no more than 1.5m (4"11') wide I reached a nice little pool and started casting my terrestrial insect imitation working my way up the pool, when I saw movement beneath the undercut bank about a metre in front of me. I cast the fly about 30cm in front of where I'd seen the movement, so that the current drifted my fly right up against the bank to the fish. The trout slowly drifted out from its hideaway, then lazily followed and swallowed the fly. When I set the hook, this nice rainbow went crazy, jumping and splashing about everywhere. With this rod, I could feel every single head shake and tail movement. I got the fish out and it was a beautifully coloured 10" rainbow. After a cooked breakfast,we rolled up the swags and headed for Tumut, which has quite a big (by australian standards) trout river I decided to try the 3wt on a bigger river, rather than take out my 5wt. I was able to cast a decent distance, but trees right behind me made the back-cast difficult, but with a ten o'clock 12 o'clock stroke, I was able to do a decent cast. In the current in the middle, the trout were massacring insects on the surface, but since I was restricted to the bank, I could only watch as my fly fell two or three feet short each time. I eventually moved a bit further upstream and tried a scud imitation in the current further up, after working my way up stream for about half an hour, my dad came to tell me that it was time to go home. I started working my way back downstream with a black nymph, when the drift in leader changed slightly,I set the hook optimistically, only to be disappointed by a dead weight on the end. After tugging for a bit, the snag seemed to be slowly coming towards me. Once it was about seven feet away, I saw that there was something huge on the end. I had pulled in a monster rainbow, almost two feet long! But this fish was very unwell, one side of its face was rotten looking white flesh and it had two big milky white patches on its flank on the same side. I put it back in and tried to give it some oxygen and help it recover, but when I brought my dad back ten minutes later, it was belly up at a snag a few metres downstream. I was disappointed that my biggest trout to date hadn't even tried to put up a fight, I don't think I'll count this one as a catch, as I suspect that it may have been snagged, because in its state, it would have been unable to seek out my nymph. All in all, I had a great day and I'm making plans with my neighbour to head back up there for a week sometime soon, but I'll need to get some waders before then to properly fish this great river. I'll post a review of the new rod sometime soon, but I'm a bit swamped with work , because of upcoming exams. If any australian members read this please contact me, because I'd like to try to organise an australian fly swap sometime soon, but I'll have to contact Smalliehunter first, because I think there are some rules about organising swaps through this site. Tight lines, Will Barker P.S. Someone on the bank took a photo of the big one and I gave them my email, so I hope that they send it to me, so that I can post it on here.

I've been looking at getting a 3wt rod recently, because in the streams that I fish, many of the trout are tiny and even the bigger ones don't give a great fight on a 5wt. The last time that I went out fishing, I was fishing a dry, then a small trout did a huge take, causing a splash, I got excited, thinking that I had finally caught the monster that I have been looking for this whole time, I did a rather violent hook-set, only to see 2" rainbow come flying out of the water and land at my feet. It was at that moment, that I said to myself that I needed a lighter rod. I've looked into it rather extensively and I now have my heart set on the Sage TXL-F 3 wt 7'10" with a Sage Click III reel and Sage quiet double taper fly line. I have found it online with free shipping to Australia, but before spending so much on a rod without ever having tried it on the water, I thought that I would check that no-one has had any bad experiences with this rod. Also, should I get the ultralight BlueSky furled leader to go with this combo? Thanks, Will

Thanks guys, I don't live very close to the ocean, but we have a coast house, so I get to fish the salt quite often, but for the moment I only have a 5wt fly rod and am looking for a 2 or 3wt, so I'll have to stick to bait and lures for the saltwater species for now. As for aussie flies, I learnt almost everything I know from a french fly fisherman and the rest from the internet, so I think it will be a while before I am able to start adapting my flies to australian waters, it would also help if it took less than a month for fly fishing/tying stuff to arrive from overseas, because for some reason everything to do with fishing seems to be almost twice what it is in Europe or the states. I just got back from a three day camping trip at a local trout stream, but the recent rain seems to have every fish shut down. On the way out of the National Park, I stopped at a bridge over a fishy looking river and ended up getting one small trout.

Hi everyone, My name's Will and I'm a fly fishing addict. I'm from Canberra and I learnt to fly fish last year, while on exchange to France. I was in a host family who lived near a friend of theirs who fly fishes, about a year ago, he took me into his back yard and taught me fly casting. After about half an hour learning to cast, he thought that it was time to try a bit of proper fishing. During my time in France, I must have gone fly fishing at least fifty times. At the end of the trout season in France, a fly fishing only trout lake opened, so I then had to learn different techniques, it was frustrating, but every chance that we got, we would head to the lake and I would practice. Often when it was freezing cold, no one would bother going fishing, but we would always be there, laughing about how only two addicts like us would be crazy enough to be out fishing on those days. At the end of november, my family came to France and we went for a two month holiday in Europe, before going back to Australia with them. When I left, Philippe gave me the fly rod, fly reel and fly line that I had been using all year. Now that I'm back in Canberra, I'm no longer able to tie flies with someone who has been fly fishing for years and I now have to start getting my own equipment to use here. I ordered quite a lot of stuff from taimen.com and am now waiting for that. Two days ago, I went fly fishing for the first time in Australia after months off the water, I only caught two small rainbows, but I really enjoyed finally being out fishing again.