When did you start fly fishing?

[JimT 0]

Hi all,

I started fly fishing last year and I'm just getting started tying my own flies. I've been a bass fisherman using mostly casting gear since the early 60's and just turned 54 last month.

[yellowstonedes 0]

I strated in 1950 have been in love with since then.

[Ralph Jones 0]

Gadabout Gaddis got me started too. 1963, 12 years old, I cut lawns and otherwise saved Money all summer to buy a Heddon Mark I HDH fly rod for $42. My grandfather bought me a Pfleuger Progress reel & a Cortland 333 level D wt. line. I started tying a few years later. Ralph

[dead_horse_bay_fisher 0]

I'm like JimT. I started fly fishing because of my son-in-law. I started fishing when I was a kid (1952?) But that was bait casting and latter on spinning gear and salt water. I stopped fishing for many years, but returned with a fly rod in my hand and fished the salt. Recently started fishing the Delaware River as well. I was 59 last year and heading way to quickly to the big six-oh.

dc

[Slacker 0]

I am hoping to get the line in the water for the first time in the next few weeks. I began tying this past winter when my wife bought me a rod and reel. I have wanted one for years and she was kind enough to get on for me. I started tying in anticipation of losing 13 dozen flies this summer. I am 31 now and am hoping to be at this for the long haul.

 

If read it in many places on this site ......... fly tying is quite addictive!

 

Slacker

[FrenchCreek 0]

Started FFishing & Tying at age 7, now 59! I guess I'm still learning but I didi take a break while chasing girls as a teen and then going to college. I dropped out of college at age 42, and my wife won't let me Ffish AND chase girls, so I'm relegated to the former.

[Redleg 0]

Started FFishing & Tying at age 7, now 59! I guess I'm still learning but I didi take a break while chasing girls as a teen and then going to college. I dropped out of college at age 42, and my wife won't let me Ffish AND chase girls, so I'm relegated to the former.

 

 

Wife won't let you chase her eh? Sounds familiar.

[billb 0]

I started tying at age 10, and got serious about fly fishing a few years later. Gadabout Gaddis was my hero in the mid-60s, and the copy of his "The Flying Fisherman" book he inscribed "To Billy" for me was one of the earliest volumes in my fishing library. This a fun book, if you've not yet read it (published in 1967 by Trident Press, New York).

 

-- Bill

[Sturgeon_Catcher 0]

Caught my first object on a fly road at the age of 12.My namesake uncle was delegated to teach me to fish. Caught him in the right should blade on the second or third backcast. Too big to land so released him and began pursuing fish instead.

 

A little stint in US ARMY curtailed the fishing for a time. Moved to Oregon and picked it up again. Will be 57 next month.

 

Especially like tying dries but the salt flies are quite interesting as well.

later

fred

[Joe Hard 0]

My first rod was a bambo at age 6 soon after I started tying flies, I have been fishing ever since. Now 42, I realy got sreious when I could aford it, about 20 years ago.

[GHow 0]

This will be a SHOUT OUT to my first flyfishing buddy Bill Dailey. We started tying flies and catching fish back in the early 70's back in Tariffville. I have a feeling he still has the passion. Haven't seen him in over thirty years but I'm hoping maybe he has found this sight. Send a PM :dunno:

[finhunter 0]

It was 1974, I was 13 years old. My parents had everything all pack to go camping including all our Zebco rods and terminal tackle. We arrived at Camp Sherman on the Metolious River in Oregon. I rigged up and went down to the river and started fishing, when an old gentleman said, what ya doin son!? I said fishin. He said, not with that pole and lure. I inquistively asked why, and he said this is Flyfishing only on this river. I promptly said whats that? To make a long story short, my dad took me to the local store and bought me a complete Eagle Claw Flyfishing setup and some flies. When I got back to the river, that old gentleman kindly spent hours with me teaching me about Flyfishing. I even caught several trout that day. From then on I was hooked :headbang: .

I got home and started leaning about fly tieing and the rest is history.

[Jim Stuard 0]

While I fished with every thing from a cane pole to gigantor salty gear when I was younger, it wasn't until I was a bit older that I got into fly fishing. Back in 1990, I was running a small woodshop, making reproduction antiques in a town 30 miles north of Cincinnati. The owner's father used to be a employee of Caterpillar and consequently had dug most of the ponds in the county. There were three good sized ponds on the property, where we worked. While I would spend most of my break time whittling small widgets to occupy my breaks (I still find that relaxing), one of the guys in the shop would go out, with what I now know to be a short 3wt rod, and slay the panfish in these ponds.

 

I picked up an inexpensive, Pflueger 6wt outfit, that's now a dangerous smallie/ trout outfit, and didn't do much with it. A few years later, I took a few business trips to Montana to help open a new department store and kinda got hooked on the scenery. While spending some time in one of the many outfitters in Bozeman MT, I was asked if I'd seen "The Movie". Innocently, I answered, "what movie....?". That's when I was told to go rent "A River Runs Through It" and I was definitely hooked on the romance of fly fishing. I just didn't have any snow peaked mountain streams to catch little wild trout. I started looking for fly fishing literature and how-to and basically tripped over John Gierach as well as, the Fly Fishermans Bible. The rest is history. Any sport that can illicit that kind of Mark Twain enthusiasm and still keep your clothes on, was definitely worth a shot.

 

Around 5 years ago, I booked a guide to take me up on the Mad River, between Dayton and Columbus and I was truly hooked. I've never met more friendly, enthusiastic people and had more fun, than when I joined my local club and started getting a line wet on a regular basis. My golf clubs have been collecting dust ever since I discovered steelheading.

 

That doesn't even cover when I started tying, three years ago. Man, that stuff is like crack! I've spent far more on tying supplies than I ever have on fishing equipment.

-Jim Stuard

Buckeye United Fly Fishers

[Igor 0]

Started at the 6 age. I am 32 years age now.

[billtiesflies 0]

I started fly fishing in 1980, and I actually started fly tying in 1978. So that's 27 years of fly fishing. Trout, Bass, Pike and salmon, steelhead, stripers etc. Anything that swims, I will throw a fly at it. Bill C.