The Addiction...

[NJ All Day 0]

Hey everyone,

 

I was just wondering what's everyones story on how they got into this addiction we call fly fishing and fly tying or maybe just one of the two. Either if it was a way to get away from everyday life to sooth your nerves, or maybe family issues you had to get away with, maybe a hard time in your life, or maybe you wanted to just start something different. Hers my stories.

 

Fly fishing: Well for me fly fishing came first, I was on and off with spincasting. So about two years ago my dad, uncle and I were on a fishing trip for smallies and my uncle was pounding them while my dad and I got one every once in awhile. And I was really cool just to watch him cast this big ugly fly and watch this smallie smash it. So when we got home I asked my uncle if he could teach me how to fly fish. He was more than happy to teach me. So one month later we got a date and went to a pond with plenty of room. this was around mid November so the bass and bluegill were getting ready for winter. And after learning the basic roll cast I threw a big ugly yellow streamer out and landed a 6" largemouth and I was hooked. That Christmas I got a 6wt Cabelas Sweetwater Fly Fishing outfit there started me off. As I always say a fishing rod and good friends is the only therapy I'm ever gonna need.

 

Fly tying: Fly tying started a couple moths after Christmas when I went to Rays Sporting shop ( local fly shop, sadly they closed last year) to ask for some pointers on where to fish and what flies to use. And the man was telling me all this great information and I saw some vises in a glass case and asked what they were used for. He replied fly tying. So he pointed

me twards the little kit. And payed for a DVD for me and told me to watch the DVD as much as a I could. That day when o got home I decided to try it out. The first fly I tied was a San Juan Worm. I was so proud because it somewhat resembled the one in the book. The next day I caught 10 bluegill on that San Juan Worm and holy crap I was so happy I caught a fish on my own tied fly. Ever since that day I caught the fish it started this wonderful addiction.

 

So just post your stories I would love to hear them.

[Flytyer14 0]

Sounds great man! I don't have time right now to write the whole story out.

[smallieFanatic 0]

Several years ago I rented this large book with the title of "Field and Stream Treasury of Trout Fishing" from the library. I read the stories, and many of them were centered around fly fishing. So I decided I needed to look into this fly fishing thing. At the local Wal*Mart they had this Scientific Anglers kit for around $80 with rod, line, reel, fly box, flies, DVD and who knows what all. I was all geared up to buy it when my brother advised me that Fly fishing was a pretty elaborate and expensive hobby...so I ended up not getting it. The spring of the next year my brother and I (same bother) were looking around this pawn shop and they had a dusty foam handled Sheakspear 5/6 wt. rod with reel on it in the back. He bought it for me and I figured out how to use it on my own. Later that year my Dad came up with the idea that I should try making my own flies. So he bought me a Colorado Anglers Vise for around $16. I taught myself how to use it...and here I am, with more fly tying and fishing stuff than I could of ever imagined back then

[Flytyer14 0]

Jan I believe you got the same rod at the pawn shop that i got from my grandfathers basement!

[Steve P 0]

When I was 6 I saw a show on ESPN called "The Walkers' Cay Chronicles" with Flip Pallot. The man was so entrancing... every word out of his mouth just drew me in more and more, he was fishing for permit with a fly and it seemed like a magical mystical thing and I was hooked, I HAD to have a fly rod so I could fish like this. I begged for 6 months for a fly rod for my birthday and low and behold there it was next to my birthday cake, a gift from my grandfather. Unfortunately not a single person in my family did or had ever so much as attempted to fly fish so completely on my own I set out to the library on my bike and found a book by some guy with a cool name (Lefty Kreh). I checked it out and took it immediately to my grandfather who helped me with the bigger words that I could not figure out on my own. After a month or so I had it pretty well figured out (sorta).

 

After getting started with the fly fishing I kept reading the book and found an interesting little piece about fly tying...... one thing led to another and I ask for a fly tying kit I found in the Bass Pro catalog that my grandpa kept in the bathroom for my next birthday. I was utterly crushed when I didn't get one for my birthday but about 3 weeks later on Christmas I received the fly tying kit that had been on back order!! I got a couple of books over the years and just lashed stuff to a hook for the most part but I caught a bunch of bluegills and loved doing it.

 

20 yrs later here I am trying to make a small living with it and though it's tough and I may not have a ton of money I am happier than I have ever been and still have the original fly rod and vise that my grandfather gave to me all those years ago. It's really weird to think that 20 yrs has passed since I started tying and fly fishing. It also just dawned on me that the little fly fishing kid in me is of legal drinking age... that would be a bad idea think I'll wait a few years before I take him to the bar!! Cool thread keep them coming.

 

Just a quick thanks to my grandpa for humoring me with all my weird crazy ideas and encouraging me to do whatever made me happiest. He always quoted some author or philosopher ad it went something like this. The richest man in the world is not the one who works the hardest and makes the most money. The richest man in the world is the one who works hard loves what he does and is happy to be who he is with what he has.

 

Steve

[FishyboY 0]

Okie Dokie,

 

Here is my story. Fly Fishing First. Started spin fishing for bass and decided i wanted to try fly fishing which a friend did. I asked my parents about it and they said i already had enough fishing rods (LIKE 2 RODS!!!) cause they had some idea that one rod worked for every species on the planet. So after a few more fishing trips i decided that i needed a boat. did a little research and found out that kayak fishing was pretty cool so i saved up for a fishing kayak for 2 years. Was on a family vacation and there was a little outfitter. Walked in and the first thing i saw was a fishing kayak at the back of the shop. Talked to the owner of the shop about it and got really into the kayak (a heritage redfish 12) I did not have enough money to buy the kayak at the time but the owner of the store invited me to come to his house to fish his private section of stream he owned. He taught me how to cast in the grass and all then he got me wadered up and we went out in the stream. i ended up catch a nice little stockie 12incher rainbow. Got totally addicted from then on. A month later for an early birthday present my parents got me tickets to go to the virginia fly fishing festival. The day i left 10 minutes before i left they asked me to run and get the tickets out of the closet. when i opened the closet there was a fly rod, reel, and line sitting there! i was so excited that day i could hardly stop screaming because of the amazing gift of the fly rod. Had an amazing time at the fly fishing festival and about a month later i had finally saved up fully for the kayak and bought it (which i still use to this day for smallie fishing) fast forward a few fishing trips not understanding anything and slowly things started to make sense! Then came all the finer stuff such as czech nymphing, dry droppers, double nymph rigs, streamer nymph rigs, technical wading, stalking fish, stealth fishing.... etc, etc. now my obsession of fly fishing has led me many places such as Alberta Canada on a family vacation where i was able to go pike fishing, to fishing the famous AuSable River in Mi, then to team usa youth fly fishing team tryouts, and then working at a fly shop. And then in 2.5 weeks my first trip out west. I have chased species in coldwater, warmwater, brownwater, and starting this summer saltwater. I have landed somewhere around 10-15 species on a fly. Looking at starting guiding soon for a local dude next summer in high school and then guiding in either montana or colorado during and after college.

 

Fly tying is a much shorter story. Was short on money. liked to make my own things. took up fly tying a few months later after starting fly fishing. I taught myself the basics of fly tying and then learned different patterns from the you-tube. Now i do a little bit of commercial tying. I was luckly awarded 1st place in the junior division of the Mustad Scandinavian Open (MSO) fly tying competition this year. I work a lot with project healing waters mostly with fly tying.

 

So i guess you could say i am a little obsessed!

[Cheri 0]

Been spin fishing since I could walk and loved every minute of it. After our kids quit camping with us cause it wasn't cool to camp with the 'rents; I decided I wanted to learn to fly fish. Hubby bought me rod and reel from Wally World I think and we spent many weeks in the Eastern Sierra fishing the streams and lakes. Graduated to a real rod and reel a couple of years later and have added a few more . Moving to Arkansas has spoiled me rotten and I can fish any chance I get now.

 

Tying seems to always come after picking up a fly rod. I won a wapsi kit in a one fly fishing contest locally. Played with it on and off for a couple of years but the real tying breakthrough came during our late January snow storm this year. I had the opportunity to spend four days with 7 crazy ladies in my fishing club. Two of which are fly shop owners, fishing guides and avid tiers. WOW! I learned so much in that four days!! Finding this forum added the icing to the cake. I probably can count on one hand the days since January I have NOT tied. You all are awesome!!

[NJ All Day 0]

Looking at starting guiding soon for a local dude next summer in high school and then guiding in either montana or colorado during and after college.

Hey FishyboY this is exactly what i plan on doing during the summers, guiding for people. Hopefully going to a guiding school next year as a graduation present from my parents.

 

Hey Steve i remember a couple years ago when i only spin fished i saw a show on Versus called "Chasing Silvers" i think dont quote me on that one. But they were all fly fishing for Tarpon, and since i was a a spin fisher i didnt like watching it. but now i wish they would bring it back i would love to watch.

 

Great stories everyone, cant wait to hear more.

[Flytyer14 0]

I asked my parents about it and they said i already had enough fishing rods (LIKE 2 RODS!!!) cause they had some idea that one rod worked for every species on the planet.

 

 

That's what my parents still think....(sigh)

[Justyn 0]

Whenever i ask my parents for a new rod the y say the same thing

[James Daly2 0]

I had always trout fished, ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper. It was my way of getting out with both of my Grandfathers. Grandpa Daly was a salty dog and turned me on to striper and blue fish angling. My Grandpa Spence was the trout guru and loved all things freshwater. I am/was truly blessed to have two very engaging Grandfathers. When I was 16, I had got tired of catching trout on spinners, eggs, etc, etc and wanted a challenge. I had always seen flyfishing on tv and found it intriguing. It just so happened at the time, unfortunately, one of my Grandpa Spence's friends passed and his wife gave him Dusty's fly tying stuff. My G'pa, being the staunch night crawler drifter as he was, immediately handed them to me and said here, try this.

Well, I tied a wooly bugger, took it to a local creek, flailed it out on what I thought was a cast with my 6wt Sci Angler get up and wham! 10 in rainbow. Done, done and done. Hooked forever. I remember saying to myself, "Are you kidding me, it actually took a fly I tied?". 15 years later, forays into all things fly tying from Salt to Classic Salmon flies and back, material dying, studying old world methods for tying without a vise, anything and everything and I'm still obsessed. I have recently become re-obsessed with trout flies. I probably spent 4 years tying Classic Salmon flies (Which I would suggest to everyone. You'd be amazed what it can do for your technique) and would tie only enough trout flies for the next day's trip. Now I'm hell bent on stuffing my boxes so full that you see fluff and beads stuck out all over the place. Although, through it all, I always kept my smallmouuth box full, I've been fortunate to have a great mentor in Mike Laskowski of Oil Creek Outfitters for around the last 7 years or so and he really helped to push my tying to the next level. It's a great addiction and it's not crack....I try to tell that to my wife all the time. Tight lines and tight wraps, my brothers and sisters of the fly. -Jamie

[FishyboY 0]

Looking at starting guiding soon for a local dude next summer in high school and then guiding in either montana or colorado during and after college.

Hey FishyboY this is exactly what i plan on doing during the summers, guiding for people. Hopefully going to a guiding school next year as a graduation present from my parents.

 

Hey Steve i remember a couple years ago when i only spin fished i saw a show on Versus called "Chasing Silvers" i think dont quote me on that one. But they were all fly fishing for Tarpon, and since i was a a spin fisher i didnt like watching it. but now i wish they would bring it back i would love to watch.

 

Great stories everyone, cant wait to hear more.

 

yeah dude where you thinking on going to guide school. i am considering sweetwater because i know a dude who regularly comes to the shop who went there. he said he got offered 3 jobs. montana, alaska, and mongolia so i guess they can higher you right there which is sorta what i want.

 

as far as the chasing silver i have seen that again. i was in the same predicament as you with as seeing it before i fly fished then i really wanted to see it again. i just got to see it again a few weeks ago. it was killer :headbang:

 

 

I asked my parents about it and they said i already had enough fishing rods (LIKE 2 RODS!!!) cause they had some idea that one rod worked for every species on the planet.

 

 

That's what my parents still think....(sigh)

 

my parents now sorta understand it. i sorta go my own way now and it use to be really strict but now that i am doing good and school and staying out of trouble they are fine with it. you just gotta explain how there are different rods for different uses

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

The person who started me fly fishing doesn't have a name or face but he did have a graceful loop and an old used car.

 

Back in 1973 I was bass fishing this borrow pit pond in the woods where we (my father and two younger brothers) were on a camping/hunting trip. It was in the middle of the day between hunts and nothing was eating our plastic worm offerings when a middle aged man pulled up to the pond in an old used car. He brought his rod to the rear of the pond where I hadn't tread before because that end of the pond was always weeded up. He stepped into the water which I hadn't even considered doing with all those weeds; hell, some deep water creature could have come

up from the depths of those weeds and grabbed a kid by the leg and he'd be gone forever. But what this stranger did next was even more fascinating.

 

He started throwing this thick looking white line back and forth with great control in a rhythmic and graceful way that was mesmerizing. I think I had heard of and maybe even seen fly fishing on the Kurt Gowdy show or something like that because I remember knowing it was fly fishing, but I had never seen a fly fisherman in person! This was very cool! And the thing that got my interest peaked even more was when he started catching fish. Which was a superhuman feat on that day, at least to a 10 year old. Although we went over and spoke with the stranger, I don't recall his name.

 

Sometime in the following weeks, my dad was nice enough to support my new interest and purchased a yellowish-orange fiberglass fly rod for me and I've been fly fishing ever since.

 

I'd really like to meet that stranger of 1973 again and hear whether he is still wading in farm ponds and see if he would be interested in chasing some redfish with me and his magical bass wand.

 

My first tying attempts came about 6 years later but I didn't get serious into tying until 1983 when I joined the newly formed New Orleans Fly Fishers. Now, I often daydream about fly designs, and look at every body of water I pass on the highway wondering if there are fish there and what fly I would use if I could be fishing for them. The later of which often gets my passengers talking so as to distract me from the roadside back to the roadway.

 

I do have much appreciation and many thanks to all the folks who have shared their fly fishing and tying experiences and knowledge with me over the years and continue to do so and I only hope that I can make an impression and help other fisher/flyfishers in ways that I have been inspired, motivated and helped.

 

Kirk

 

[DoctorD 0]

I got the bug in 1961 when I went away to a summer camp in Northern Wisconsin after I finished 8th grade. Camp Horseshoe had been founded in 1935. The camp founder, Maurice Hirshberg, known to all of us as simply Doc H, no longer ran the camp but he had a house on the grounds near the lake. On many a morning I would see Doc H with his fly rod casting bass bugs to a small patch of weeds just off shore. I had to try it so I signed up for flytying and fly fishing. The camp had a small cabin with a central table where "Moose" Gordon taught me how to tie a few simple flies. Moose and Doc H took use to a small stream where I caught me first brookie, I was hooked.

 

I still have the first rod and reel I got that summer.

[utyer 0]

I began fishing about age 5. I remember going out with my grandfather to lakes and ponds north of NYC. Then our family started to spend two weeks every summer in the Adirondacks. We camped on Indian Lake, and fished the whole time. When I was 12, we moved to Utah, and we kept on fishing. We had now moved to real trout country, so I got intrested in fly fishing and fly tying. My dad had a box of fly tying stuff. The materials and hooks were all from Herters. When we dug it out, most of the materials were gone (eaten by bugs.) I started teaching myself to tie using whatever was left in the box. Those flies were pretty awful looking, but I fished them anyway. Then I took a break for about 8 years. I started competitive swimming, and playing golf all summer, and skiing all winter.

 

Then in 1965, I went up to Jackson Hole, to visit a friend. He was floating tourists down the snake river in a big raft, and I went along on the trip. We saw people fising on the way down the river, and I really liked floating the river. By the next week, I was working for my friend as the second boatman. The 33 foot raft required two. By one or two in the afternoon, we were done floating, and Wayne suggested we go fishing. I hadn't even brought any tackle with me, but he let me use his spare rod. We went over to some beaver ponds near Moose and caught brookies by the score. That night I called back to Salt Lake and had a fly rod sent up. I was fishing every afternoon after the floats were done. I fished the Snake, and Cottonwood Creek, all the lakes at the foot of the Tetons. On days off, I would fish the Buffalo Fork, or one of the many other streams on the east side of the Hole. That first summer, I was buying flies at the shop in Moose. They were expensive (all of fifty to sixty cents each,) and much of my pay was going to purchase flies, leaders, and upgrade my fishing rod and reel. By that fall, I was hooked.

 

Once I returned to Salt Lake, I dug out the old fly tying stuff, all that was left were the tools, and some assorted hooks. I shoped around in Salt Lake for materials and ended up getting a new Herters Catalog, and ordering material from there. I learned to tie on my own, the Wise Fishermans Encyclopedia was my only sourse of instructions. By the next spring, I had restored several sections of old bamboo into one fly rod, and had a picnic basket sized fly tying kit. I had three or four boxes of flies. Back to Jackson. The flies worked, the rod worked, I was fishing until dark every night, and fishing before work in the mornings. We lived a long way from town which kept any other distractions to a minimum. That summer my mom brought me my first book of flies and fly tying. That started another "addiction," I now have more books than I can count.

 

I haven't stopped fishing or tying since 1965. I started working in various sporting goods strores and fishing tackle stores to support my "addiction." I soon started selling flies (also to support my addiction.) In those days hooks (Mustad was all there was,) were just 3 or 4 bucks a hundred. Whiting and Metz necks were a long way off, so hackle was cheap, but not anything like what we have now. By selling flies, I was able to support my fishing addiction. I collected materials, fly rods and books. At one time, I had 25 fly rods, all for trout, fortunately, I was making my own rods.

 

In the late 80s I decided it was time for a "career change." Not only was my business not paying off, but I was working so much all summer and fall, there was little time to fish. The career change took me to Pennsylvania. I had a "real" job that paid the bills, and plent of time to fish. Somewhere along the way I went into self imposed "rehab." and cured myself or at least controlled some of my addictions. I stopped buying or building six hundred dollar fly rods, and sold off, traded, or gave away most of my fly rods, and other tackle. Don't feel too bad, I still have plenty. My friends, and relatives are all fishing with my old rods and reels. I have given away enough fly tying material and equipment to outfit no fewer than 6 new fly tyers. I have gone from 8 vises in my collection to only two, and I am down to only about 15,000 hooks. I haven't purchased a new dry fly neck, or saddle in years, and I still have about 60. I think I have it under control now. I can walk through a fly shop, and not HAVE to buy anything. Of course I still do, but thats only to keep them open.