Basic Fly fishing help

[wesleykey]

I am looking to get into fly fishing this fall, and hopefully be good enough to go fly fishing in a nearby national park by spring. Does anyone have some good pointers or a link to a good web site? For example, I want to know more about leaders, tippets, backing, and the other components of fly line. My first experiences will be fly fishing for bass, I assume using poppers, etc. Any pointers would be useful. Also, Wal-Mart has a cheap fly rod combo for $20. Would this be sufficient to learn casting, etc? If not, please suggest low-cost entry level equipment I might use.

[TheBassMan]

I would go to a local fly shop and ask a lot of questions. If you are jsut getting it to learn and are going to try it out on bluegill, and small bass, then i thing one from wallmart or dicks sportting goods in 5wt. will be fine for the learning process. Then once you get good, you could upgrade to a better setup

[wesleykey]

That is part of the problem. Since there are few trout in Alabama, I know of no fly shops. Any suggestions, or anyone know of a shop in North Alabama?

[TheBassMan]

is there a bass pro, or cabelas around......you might get some advise there....but if you are just learning on the fly rod......i would get hte wal-mart one. Its not close to the best, but you will learn all you need from it, and it wont kill your pocket book so you can upgrade in the near future once you get comtorble with it...