Why did you start fly fishing

[DevinKaradeema 0]

My wife asked me today why ive become so bent on fly fishing, and it got me thinkin.

 

personally i fly because it proves to be a challenge that i have yet to fully master, unlike the jigging and spinner baits for bass, or worms and grubs for sunfish.

i guess im impatient i would much rather keep moving then let a ball of powerbait sit suspended in a lake.

i feel there is much more to fly fishing then throwing your lure out, there is the magnified sense of presentation that a bobber and worm just cant compare to

[oatka 0]

I got into fly fishing, as opposed to spin/bait, because I liked catching fish.

 

As a kid, we'd fish with my grandfather every other summer out in Utah. We did 2 kinds of fishing, either traditional fly fishing with a dry fly on a creek or river, and then spin/bait fishing on still water...sometimes with a fly under a bobber. That's how I thought fly fishing was suppose to be. So, when I grew up and was in my late teens I would spin/bait on still water, and fly fish on moving water....until that fateful day about 15 years ago. I was dating a girl and her father got a nice new Orvis rod and reel for his birthday. Well, her and her mother thought it would be a nice bonding moment for him and I to go fishing together. So, he strung up his new fly rod and we headed to a pond. Now, again based on my history, if I was at a pond I'd usually go with my spinning rod, but since he was using a fly rod, I decided to use mine too. For the next hour and a half I caught about 12 sunfish. Those 12 sunfish changed my opinion that fly fishing was only for moving water. See, prior to this day I was lucky to catch 16 or 17 fish all summer....and I had almost caught that many in under 2 hours. So, from that day until now I rarely pick up a spinning rod (don't even have my own any more) unless it's to put a fly under a bobber for one of my kids.

 

Fly for life!

[Chase Creek 0]

Seperated from my parents on a Lake Erie beach,I was raised by a family of Mayflies. I took up flyfishing after my adoptive family was wiped out by a large Brook trout while on vacation at a small stream in Norhtern Michigan. It's a revenge thing.

[Cheri 0]

Because my rod and my reel they comfort me.

[smalliestalker 0]

I make a living as an artist...I work around people all week long.....I always liked to fish but was never successful with spin tackle....My younger Brother had a fly rod that he never used...I asked to borrow it one randomly day....I walked out into the middle of the stream we were on and started swinging it back and forth....the rest is history.....My obsession grew, I now fish 5-6 days a week, couple of hours a day before work and tie all of my own flies.....I now fly fish because it centers me, relaxes me, enlightens me, makes me feel as though I am part of something much bigger then ourselves, getting lost in nature, feeling your surroundings, becoming part of them as we try to artfully and skillfully fool fish into grabbing our offering as if it belonged there....I caught more fish in the two years that I have fly fished then I have my entire life....It's an art that you can never learn enough about.....Thats why I fly fish

[Wounded Minnow 0]

I just always found it rather unique and amazing to watch. I would have to say what got me interested in it was watching guys do it on the Saturday morning fishing shows when I was a young lad and worked my butt off mowing lawns to get my first fly rod. My Family doesn't fish, but I grew up on the river and just would walk down and fish off the dock and later on as I got older take the pontoon out.

 

It certainly is a great sport and has helped me through some really tough times in my life.

[smallieFanatic 0]

I started because I read like 32,000 old Field and Stream fly fishing collections and really wanted to give it a try. So far it is one of the best things that ever happened to me.

[ChuckingFluff 0]

I got into it by mistake. I was really wanting to get a float rod and ended up with a fly rod instead. The rest is history.

[JSzymczyk 0]

I was fly fishing long before it was "Cool" so I don't know. It's an extremely effective way to catch most fish, but not always. I like fly casting. I am of the opinion that casting is a large part of what makes fly fishing FLY FISHING. I'm certainly not a wonderful fly caster, and right now until I get my right shoulder back in about 7 months, I'm not a caster at all, but I used to be OK. To me, catching fish with a fly on the end of your line isn't necessarily FLY FISHING, it could be on a spinning rod with a bubble. That's OK. I also own and use several spinning rods of different types.

 

I PREFER fly fishing, but I'm not snotty enough to disregard spinning tackle from time to time.

[DevinKaradeema 0]

Yes i still use my spinning rods and bait casters. there is no way im gunna play with a tiger muskie on fly line. i do still sit back at the pond and drink a beer while i watch my bobber dip due to perch and blues. :drunk: but i know the ponds lakes and rivers here and how to fish like that. but fly fishing for bass pike salt water never heard of that till just a few months ago... someday........ personaly i know my 50 yr old fly pole would snap if i caught a bass let alone something 40+ inches. :crazy: so once again i am a child learning to fish all over again :shocking: ... and to tie your own flys is like a billion times cheaper then buying those buggers

[Old Hat 0]

Started in College, I was very attracted to this girl (now my wife) who fly fished so I let her teach me how it was done. For our first Christmas while dating she got me a fly rod and a tying kit. I always tease her that she just chose me because she needed a new fly supplier after her Dad cut her off and she saw how much I enjoyed tying.

[Peterjay 0]

I took up fly fishing because I missed the registration deadline for the ballet school that I'd always dreamed of attending. :crying:

 

Awright, I made that up. When I was in grade school 50 years ago, a friend of mine who ate store-bought rainbow trout for breakfast every Saturday told me that there was a free trout fly in every package of fish that his mom bought. He wasn't a fisherman, but he thought I looked dumb enough to be one, so the next day, he gave me a handful of classic wets: Montreal, Parmachene belle, queen of waters, etc. I thought they were pretty, so I kept them, and every Monday morning thereafter, he'd give me another one to add to my collection. Once I had a boxful, I figured it was time to take the plunge, so I picked up a SOLID fiberglass fly rod and a cheapo reel at the local hardware store for $3 or so. Even with the limitations of the rod, (I eventually made a flounder spear out of it, which should tell you something about the action) I managed to catch enough trout to keep me interested. What was even better was that not long after that, the local game warden gave a couple of free fly tying lessons to several of the village's juvenile delinquents (including me) in the hopes that a productive pastime might keep us from turning into drunks, thieves and sexual deviates if any of us lived long enough to reach adulthood. (needless to say, it didn't work) As they say, the rest is history. Just because I once knew a kid whose parents could afford store-bought trout, I've spent the last 50 years on a quest to acquire a piece of every bird and mammal on the planet that isn't extinct, (and some that are) and a hunk of every colorful synthetic material that's ever come out of a chemistry lab. Not to mention $500 reels, $500 rods, and just about anything else a tackle hustler can wave under my nose. All I can say is that I was fortunate that my friend didn't have elephant steaks for Saturday breakfast. God only knows where that might have led.

[blakejd 0]

I can't think of any one specific reason but I can "explain". To put it quite simply my father (a terrible fishermen as he would admit) saw that I had an interest and took me to Wal Mart and bought me a rod package for a summer trip out west from our home in SC when I was 13 or 14. Every year we would do our trip out west and every year I would get a chance to do some fishing with that cheap rod. As I fished I realized it was just more fun to watch a fish take the fly than to throw a lure and guess. I wish I still had that cheap rod but it was broken by a lousy Navy room mate and replace by my current not so good rod that continues to remind me its not the rod but the fishermen.

[simmons_j_m 0]

There is a certain allure to connect with nature when I fish. I didn't get it when lure fishing and certainly not by dropping power bait. Now I couldn't care less if I don't catch that record trout, just as long as I connect with my surroundings and refresh my soul.

[Flyfisher13 0]

I started fly fishing thanks to my wonderful husband (BigDaddyHub). On our first date he took me to this little place on a local river to fish and I thought it was going to be fishing like I had remembered as a kid when my grandma would take us, someone's farm pond, a can of worms, and a baitcaster in hand with lawnchairs or an old quilt, however it was nothing like that at all. It was the most amazing thing to see him cast his fly rod and the flies that he had tied was really neat to me, that day he introduced me to a beautiful thing. After a few trips of watching him and the beautiful art of flyfishing, he was showing me how it was done and before I knew it he had bought me my own flyrod and it was on from there and til this day I enjoy every minute of it and we both laugh with each trip of me saying just one more cast honey. And when we can't fish we sit and tie together and I wouldn't give it up for the world.