[vices]

With so many people coming from so many locations, with so many different techiques, I was wondering if you guys had a favorite catch. Something you could never forget, just seemed to be your day.. it can be the biggest fish, best looking fish or just the perfect cast that landed pefectly in front of that branch you snagged a thousand times before..

[TroutBum]

Sight fishing is my favorite way to catch fish. Doesn't matter if it's a rising trout or a tailing permit as long as I can present my fly to a fish I can see. There is no bigger thrill than seeing the take and the explosion when the fish realizes it's been hooked.

[fish]

Just in early August this year, I fished my local stream for brook trout. The water was quite low and warm and I managed to catch a couple in a shaded pool under a bridge that were rising to dries. I then walked upstream over a long flat stretch of water less than a foot deep. I spotted a small log on the far side held to bank which managed to scour the bottom to perhaps 2 ft depth but it was shady there. I cast my dry just about 2" from the edge and the current quickly took it along for about 2ft when I got a hard strike and ended up releasing a nice little brook trout around 11". It was very rewarding because of the poor conditions and because I pulled a nice little trout out of place that many people (certainly the worm drowners who frequent this stream) wouldn't have given a second glance.

[Kingfisher]

I honestly don't know that I have a favorite catch as of yet; they've all been pretty memorable. There are a few that stand out in my mind more vividly than others, such as crevalle jacks in the Keys, stripers in Maine, and huge pickerel in the area that I grew up in, but in all they've all been great moments. Now, when I land my first big pike on a fly rod, I'll be grinning!

[SmallieHunter]

Without a doubt my first Steelhead. I went to PA by myself last November and have never really fly fished for anything but Smallmouth. I showed up at 3 AM and started fishing. My very first cast with a brown wooly bugger.....fish on! I went there not expecting to catch anything and a fish that quick surprised the hell out of me.

[Sean Juan]

My favorite catch was way back in '82 I had just turned 8.

It wasn't the first time I had gone fly fishing and it wasn't the biggest fish I had caught up to that point. But on the way down to the Cape Cod Salt Marsh and for a few weeks before that my father was talking about how he wanted to catch a sea-run brown trout because he never had before, and that I may not want to go because we may end up not catching anything and we'd be there all day. I didn't care, if he said we were going to hell to catch lava fish-demons I still would have gone.

Each night between Wild Wild World of Animals and bedtime we would tie flies - again it wasn't the first time I had tied flies but the new shrimp patterns were new to me and to my father - when he asked me how it looked and what we should tweak he was doing so because he wanted an answer rather than to just teach me something about dry fly proportions. For once I wasn't copying a fly I was helping to create one, by looking through books and testing designs in the tub when Ma wasn't looking.

I read about tide, imagined how it worked. My father told me that at high tide the whole area looked like a lake and at low tide it was just a small creek. Living in Western New Hampshire at the time I had almost no understanding of tide and the idea of fishing a river where the current changed direction throughout the day was pretty intimidating, but exciting.

So when that fly drifted in the tidal rip between two sand bars and was taken by a nice sea-run brown, it was not the first fish I caught with a fly, but it well may have been the first fish I caught as a fly-fisherman. I have a nice picture of that fish, being held by an excited kid with a buzz cut -which I'm very grateful for because I'm not the type for taking pictures and neither was my father. We let that fish go and the few more we caught that day and drove home. I would still get tangles and I would still get bored but I knew that after that day I wasn't just the kid tagging along I was a fishing buddy, and of all the things a body can be I still say thats the best.

[MSUICEMAN]

the weekend after i built my first rod, i took it out on a stream that usually holds some trout. well, the day was the most memorable because it was a beautiful fall day, I caught my first fish on a fly i tied on a rod i made, I was with two friends that never fly fished before, teaching them the basics (with all my equipment also), and got them into fish. they have since become a little more interested in fly fishing (though they often use flies for steelhead with spinning gear), and that trip will stay in my memory banks when my friend scott said wow, this is awesome. it truly was....

steve

[artimus]

Mine would have been last year. I was standing on the gravel bar just below the highway drifting a deep run for salmon and steel. I cast my line just uptream abit, mended back and settld in. The drift just looked perfect. I muttered under my breath, "now", and my float slipped under the water. I ended up bringing to hand a strong 7-8 chrome steelie. I cut him loose and relished in the thought that I called a perfect drift.

Art

[Fly1]

Mine was my first fish on my first bamboo rod. It was a week before trout season and I was fishing a favorite pool and a section that's open all year for trout fishing. It was in the late evening and I was drifting streamers when I thought I heard something rising behind me. I stopped and just watched and there it was a large steelhead rising to feed. I quickly tied on a foam head emerger pattern and walked around so I was in front of him. On my first drift over and he came up and nailed it and the fight was on he must of went airbourne 8 times but I final landed him and he was 12 lbs. My first dryfly spring steelhead on bamboo.

Ken

[B.C.TroutHunter]

[sherman]

Mine would have to qualify as an "almost catch". A few years ago my buddy tallked me in to ging steelhead fishing for the 1st time. I think it was somewhere around my 5th cast that I hooked in to one, didn't land it but it jumped and I got to fight it for a few minutes. It was then that I caught the fishing bug. I don't get a chance to fish very often but when I do I can say that any trout or steelhead is the best catch for me. If I had to pin it down to one thing now it would have to be catching a salmon on a flyrod. I had a chance not long ago but they did nothing but no luck. I'm pretty sure thay were laughing at me

[Leaky Waders]

A large King Salmon last year around this time at 2:00 am ( Pere Marquette ), almost ripped the pole out of my hand. Cought him on a Tan PM wiggler.I fought him for about 10 minutes, I almost lost him several times to log jams, but managed to land him.That put a smile on my face .
LW

[luvinbluegills]

I had to think about this one for awhile...


My favorite catch of all-time, of all types of fishing...

I don't remember all the details, but I know it was my first visit to Neshannock Creek, and it was during the late Spring/early Summer. I was wet wading in shorts and sandals, and the air had that smell that you only get when you are far away from the city, and surrounded by trees. I honestly don't even remember what fly I was using, just that it was a dry.
Now, I had been fly fishing for maybe a year, tying for about 3 months, but I had done only warm water up to this point.

As I stood there, somewhat intimidated by the guys around me with thier loaded vests and chest waders with knee pads and all the thingies hanging from their vests and their bandying about of scientific names of bugs which I still can't remember...

...as I tried really hard to cast like they did, straining to remember all the stuff I'd seen on tv and in books, it happened!

A little Rainbow Trout, probably 10", took my dry fly and I landed it! I know different now, but at that point my heart almost burst from my chest with excitement as I finally "became" a fly fisherman because I'd caught a trout on a dry fly! I remember the feeling of the first Bluegill too, but this was a trout!
Only you all can understand this feeling. You just can't describe it to a non-fisherman.

This is why I like to take kids fishing now and then. Because I remember...

[yakfisher]

Any fish on a fly rod, especially on top. There is nothing like seeing a fish explode on a suface fly.

[vices]

Good stories all.

Mine was when i was about 13, I was my local creek with my father using row on a float rig fishing salmon. At this point I was still saving for my first fly rod, but I had begun tying some flies and I wanted to try them sooo bad. In a crowd of people I took off the float rig an tyed one of my flies I couldnt get any type of cast out, so I walked up the river an pulled free abunch of slack. I slowly drifted my line down over the rapids meeting the pool and smash, 1 1/2 pound bow. 1st trout on one of my 1st dry flies, and it had to be done without a flyrod.