Every once in a while, I have to remind myself that fly fishing still exists, since I’m still living in the Texas Panhandle – for now. Unfortunately, a guy can only take so many hours of watching YouTube videos. So, this morning, I decided to take stock of my fly rods, just to dream a little and pretend that it was getting me closer to where I want to be.
Since I went to the trouble to drag all the fly rods out of the “cartop carrier” for all of our rods, I figured I might as well list them here for you. Here’s what I found:
- 8′ – 6” Shakespeare “Supreme” 6wt
- 8′ – 6” Eagle Claw “Black Eagle” 8wt
- 9′ South Bend “Black Beauty” Medium Action 7-8wt
- 8′ Browning “The Midas Touch” 5-6wt
- 9′ Cortland “Fairplay” 7-8wt
- For what it’s worth, all of those are graphite or graphite composite rods.
There are a total of 3 reels mounted to those:
- 1 Pfleuger Medalist
- 1 Browning 2056
- 1 No-Name (probably half of a combo with the Eagle Claw rod)
The carrier I mentioned is a large Quickcrete tube that’s sealed on one end with a plastic bowl lid and duct tape. Don’t judge: it holds all of our rods, and we carry a lot of rods. Spincast, spin or fly, we’ve got it covered. Time was, when we went to the mountains to fish, we’d bring along as many family members and friends as we could and we had everything everyone needed.
Now, I’m guessing you’re about ready for me to get to the point and I apologize. Not only did it take a long time, the point of this article isn’t directly about gear.
The reason I’m writing this is that a good number of the Youtube videos I found about fly fishing were about hauling. Single, double and yes, triple hauling. And a good portion of those were supposedly for beginners.
Call me old school (I am), but I can’t imagine why you’d want to make fly casting seem complex if you’re trying to show them how much fun it can be. Here’s where the gear comes into the picture: with the rods and reels I just inventoried, I’ve found the need to double haul maybe .02% of the time. What I’ve needed to make long casts is a rod with the right flexibility, a little bit of room, and a dangling loop of line to shoot. A good sense of timing is important, too, but that will come with practice.
If you can master the basic, 10:00 to 2:00 motion and learn to be patient while your loops extend, you can learn to load the rod with the stop. Store all of that energy for the push in the opposite direction. You don’t need to false cast all day, even a roll cast will shoot line for you if you let the energy from that loop of line load in the rod tip.
Frankly, the easiest way to get your line out further is to get yourself closer to the water. Stalking is a great skill, and you can learn it without practicing in your yard. In fact, it’s better learned out there on the bank of the stream. No, I don’t recommend just stepping on out in your waders. If wading is an option, though, just try to do it on the bank that’s not throwing a shadow on the water, and try to keep a low profile. In the right water, at the right time of day, wading is a lot easier than throwing big loops. Don’t forget to keep that backcast high. Wading back to get your fly out of the bushes is annoying.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t learn to haul the line. Heck, there’s a natural tendency to do it when you’re loading a backcast, anyway. Besides, it’s not really a difficult skill. It’s just not necessary for getting your fly out on the water in most cases. There are a lot of other skills you’re probably better off learning first. A few that come to mind are reading the water, mending the line for a natural drift, and judging the swing to get your fly where you think the fish are. Oh, and please, learn the possible consequences of “castus interuptus.”
Learn to match the hatch. Learn how an emerging mayfly acts. Don’t forget to learn how to dead drift a nymph and how to pull it back to you. Find out about the top five flies for any kind of water at any time of year. Then learn which bugs are active at what time of year and time of day.
You’ll also hear a lot of comments about false casting for distance a waste of fishing time. I’ll concede the point that fish don’t feed on flies in the air (at least not very high). I think it’s time those haters concede that false casting will dry your fly, and if you can get the right angle on it, you can use the shadow of the fly itself to get the attention of the fish below as it comes in for a landing.
Finally, here’s my main reason for listing the fly rods in my “carrier” earlier. If you take note of the gear the pros in the hauling videos are fishing with, you’ll notice a lot of expensive-looking equipment. With the exception of the Browning rig in my list, you’ll find those rods and reels at Walmart and Target. Every single one of them has caught well more than its fair share of fish, and I’ve been able to fish more often when I’m in fishing country because I had gas money left over. Come to think of it, that’s a pretty good reason, given current fuel prices.
I hope you enjoyed my little foray into “what to know about fly fishing”. Keep in mind that what you’ve just read was written by a guy who learned to fly fish with a Zebco 202 combo, a clear float and a whole lot of loose line. I was an expert “bow” caster long before I learned to wave a nine-foot stick around. Most of what I’ve learned on that subject has been by trial and error, practicing in the yard or street, and losing a few thousand flies, mostly to various plant life along the bank. Some lessons called for stricter measures, like bobbing around below the dam.
