Fly fishing can be very effective despite what many gear anglers say, but I don't think anyone kids themselves and pretends it is the best way to catch the most and the biggest fish. I first picked up a fly rod because I started chasing Sea Run Cutthroat at my local beach with an ugly stik, Blue Foxes, and Spoons, and would see all the other anglers on the beach using fly rods. The fly casts looked gorgeous, and the experience just felt so meditative compared to gear fishing. I went and bought myself an Echo Base kit, started it and sucked at it, I couldn't shoot line more than an inch. For the next year I was honestly and truly was only fly fishing out of spite, and to prove to myself that it is something I actually could do. I have to admit I kind of failed, since I decided to move to a shooting head line without really learning how to cast the crappy WF line that the Base came with. I don't regret it because the easier to cast line combined with the marginal improvements I had been making to my casts got my line out far enough to fish, and the positive feedback of hooking into fish on a fly rod for the first time has kept me motivated to keep fly fishing and keep practicing. My WF casts still suck but they are noticeably better and I am sure the more I use the WF lines the better they will get.
It was getting decent casts out for the first time and focusing on fishing while the line was in the water that made me actually start to love it. The great thing about fly fishing is how incredibly technical it can get. Fly fishing seems to have far more emphasis on the kinds of presentations you make, the way you skate a dry fly on the surface for Cutthroat, or swing a wet fly for Winter Steelhead on a pouring day with a river that is either all to yourself, or shared with just a few other crazy people. With gear angling, when you watch videos or read articles online, I feel like the culture places far more emphasis on the kind of gear you buy. I am not a fishing gearhead by any means, I don't like buying a lot of gear because I know I will only end up using a few pieces of it, and that I will loose tons to snags anyways. Yes, gear fishing can be almost as, equally, or more technical than fly fishing but there are less spaces where folks talk about learning to read water, how to technically control your spoons swings or the float of your bead downriver. In fact, most of what I apply when I gear fish rivers I learned by watching fly fishing videos. This is even true for downrigger fishing of all things. Fly fishing conditioned me to always be looking for tide rips, points where those rips and fish will congregate, jumping baitfish, and finners. Rather than obsessing over the fish finder, my lure (I use a total of four lures and two flashers for trolling and could probably reduce the gear I use to just two spoons and still catch fish). Rather than asking people for what the best areas to fish are, I've noticed that even when you troll for miles on end, you are catching most of your fish in similar places, and you can find more fish by studying the marine topography of those places that hold fish to be more effective with your time. There is something to be said about the simplicity of fishing with just a line, leader, and fly, and one of my best memories of last season wasn't even a fish, it was seeing other baitfish school around my fly because it blended in so well.
In order to be a good fly fisherman, you can't just cast a bait, let it sit, and call it good. You have to learn about the fish you are targeting, where they live, why they live there, and what they eat. Then of course, you need to learn about what they eat, how they behave at different times of the year, and what features dictate the habitat they reside in. By now if you have spent enough time studying, you might know more about the fishes habitat than the fish themselves.
Then of course there is the "tug". My first catch of a target species was the beautiful 3-4ish pound coho in my profile picture, which is probably the best first catch a fly fisherman can ask for. There is something about the experience of sharing the fishes home, wading knee deep, and feeling the fish tug on your fly while you hold the line with your bare fingers. That experience just cannot be emulated by any gear fishing technique I am aware of, and if it can I would just ask that you share it with me. I love hooking into a fish on gear, but it just is not and never will be the same. Something about fly fishing makes even the smallest fish fun. Fish I would not even notice at the end of my line on a gear rod I am able to feel every pull and tug with a fly rod when I strip it in, and I haven't even hooked a big fish yet!
Fly casting started as a source of frustration for me but now it is part of the joy. I find it incredibly meditative because in order to keep making good casts, I have to stay constantly focus. I can't afford to think about sources of stress, negativity, or other distractions because then I mess up my timing and the cast falls apart. Believe it or not, fly casting helps me in my everyday life. I really enjoy socializing and talking to people, but I am quite poor at managing conversation. Equating conversation to fly casting has noticeably improved how I go about managing social anxiety. If I feel myself becoming anxious, I think about waiting for the loop on my backcast to form and begin to unfurl, and relax because well, if I want to cast I have to. If I need to get a word in and don't know when, I imagine pauses in conversation as the point right after my rod tip stops at 1 o clock, and I let go of my line. I certainly find it more pleasurable than chucking lead all day.
That and I clearly suffer from some form of insanity considering the amount of gas I have burned and time I have spent, but I think that is most of us. I am really interested to hear your stories and why you all fly fish.
It was getting decent casts out for the first time and focusing on fishing while the line was in the water that made me actually start to love it. The great thing about fly fishing is how incredibly technical it can get. Fly fishing seems to have far more emphasis on the kinds of presentations you make, the way you skate a dry fly on the surface for Cutthroat, or swing a wet fly for Winter Steelhead on a pouring day with a river that is either all to yourself, or shared with just a few other crazy people. With gear angling, when you watch videos or read articles online, I feel like the culture places far more emphasis on the kind of gear you buy. I am not a fishing gearhead by any means, I don't like buying a lot of gear because I know I will only end up using a few pieces of it, and that I will loose tons to snags anyways. Yes, gear fishing can be almost as, equally, or more technical than fly fishing but there are less spaces where folks talk about learning to read water, how to technically control your spoons swings or the float of your bead downriver. In fact, most of what I apply when I gear fish rivers I learned by watching fly fishing videos. This is even true for downrigger fishing of all things. Fly fishing conditioned me to always be looking for tide rips, points where those rips and fish will congregate, jumping baitfish, and finners. Rather than obsessing over the fish finder, my lure (I use a total of four lures and two flashers for trolling and could probably reduce the gear I use to just two spoons and still catch fish). Rather than asking people for what the best areas to fish are, I've noticed that even when you troll for miles on end, you are catching most of your fish in similar places, and you can find more fish by studying the marine topography of those places that hold fish to be more effective with your time. There is something to be said about the simplicity of fishing with just a line, leader, and fly, and one of my best memories of last season wasn't even a fish, it was seeing other baitfish school around my fly because it blended in so well.
In order to be a good fly fisherman, you can't just cast a bait, let it sit, and call it good. You have to learn about the fish you are targeting, where they live, why they live there, and what they eat. Then of course, you need to learn about what they eat, how they behave at different times of the year, and what features dictate the habitat they reside in. By now if you have spent enough time studying, you might know more about the fishes habitat than the fish themselves.
Then of course there is the "tug". My first catch of a target species was the beautiful 3-4ish pound coho in my profile picture, which is probably the best first catch a fly fisherman can ask for. There is something about the experience of sharing the fishes home, wading knee deep, and feeling the fish tug on your fly while you hold the line with your bare fingers. That experience just cannot be emulated by any gear fishing technique I am aware of, and if it can I would just ask that you share it with me. I love hooking into a fish on gear, but it just is not and never will be the same. Something about fly fishing makes even the smallest fish fun. Fish I would not even notice at the end of my line on a gear rod I am able to feel every pull and tug with a fly rod when I strip it in, and I haven't even hooked a big fish yet!
Fly casting started as a source of frustration for me but now it is part of the joy. I find it incredibly meditative because in order to keep making good casts, I have to stay constantly focus. I can't afford to think about sources of stress, negativity, or other distractions because then I mess up my timing and the cast falls apart. Believe it or not, fly casting helps me in my everyday life. I really enjoy socializing and talking to people, but I am quite poor at managing conversation. Equating conversation to fly casting has noticeably improved how I go about managing social anxiety. If I feel myself becoming anxious, I think about waiting for the loop on my backcast to form and begin to unfurl, and relax because well, if I want to cast I have to. If I need to get a word in and don't know when, I imagine pauses in conversation as the point right after my rod tip stops at 1 o clock, and I let go of my line. I certainly find it more pleasurable than chucking lead all day.
That and I clearly suffer from some form of insanity considering the amount of gas I have burned and time I have spent, but I think that is most of us. I am really interested to hear your stories and why you all fly fish.
I kid.
