fly fishing
 

i am new to fly fishing i went to walmart and bought my first fly rod and reel just something cheap it has a single leader with it that is like 6 feet long do i use all of the leader of cut i down if so how long do i wont my leader and do i use the small end or the larger diamiter end also any tips would be appresated

RE: fly fishing
 

you r going to want to use the hole leader. Your going to want to tie the smaller end to your fly and the thicker end to your line. I would recomend you go buy a fly fishing book from that wal-mart where you got your fly rod. I learned a lot from mine. Make sure it teaches you a few nots.

RE: fly fishing
 

The only tip I have is fish as much as you can.

RE: fly fishing
 

Yes, you tie the thicker end of the leader to the butt section of mono that should have been tied to your fly line coming out of the reel. I would recommend purchasing some tippet. Find tippet of the size you want and tie about 2-3 feet onto the end of your leader. Then tie your fly onto the tippet. This will serve two purposes:

1. Saves your leader as you change flies.
2. Gives you a little more distance between the fly and the fly line.

Other than that, just go get your hands dirty. I have a good pdf document with knot instructions if you are interested. It's too big to post here, so you need to send me an email and I'd be happy to share it with you.

Cheers,

RE: fly fishing
 

mustad has a good suggestion about knots. You will need this info. I lost more fish to poorly tied flies than I care to mention. So, get good tippet and tie well. EJ

RE: fly fishing
 

you definately need to get a beginner book--it will help a lot. cabelas sells some great videos as well such as the 3M How to videos. One thing you can do is practice your knot tying while sitting on the couch--get some regular ol mono and practice until it becomes like tying your shoe---you really need to master two knots to effective at changing your fly(s)--(something you'll want to do often:D). The improved clinch or swirle knot (for tying on to your fly) and the blood knot or improved surgeons to tie on more tippet. Nail knot for tying the leader on to the fly line, but hopefully you won't have to use that one often.

you'll find fly fishing rewarding and also very technical and equipment oriented, then one day it will be easy and you'll be the onehooked

RE: fly fishing
 

Flyanglersonline.com has a lot of good beginers information as well as forum to ask questions. I send all of my buddies who want to start fly fishing there. Where do you live?

RE: fly fishing
 

Don't know if you can find them, I ran across them by accident at wal-mart one time. They're barbed eyelets that go into the end of you fly-line (which will be hollow) and make is so that tying your leader to line is the same as tying a line to hook (much simpler to us beginners) The one tip that I learned on my own is that THE ROD must do the work, not you. "Load" the rod (make it bend) and let it 'shoot' and 'pull' the line. Once I lost the mentality that I HAD to move the line and learned to guide the rod, not the line, things came alot easier. Hope that made alittle sense.

RE: fly fishing
 

Those are simple, but be careful. The day you take that rig to do some serious fishing is the day you'll hook one that that needed a solid knot. knots are a little intimidating at first, but now is the perfect time to be practicing them and it will add greatly to your fly-fishing efficiency which will help with everything else.

I know A guy who went with some buddies of mine on the Dechutes River, OR. The steelhead he hooked took all of his leader and LINE,WAY, WAY down the river. knot between line and backing was the culprit. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.......and this guy teaches fly-fishing at a local college. Man I wish I was there for that one:D:D:D

RE: fly fishing
 

Hillbilly I have witnessed that first hand. It was a freind of mine and we were on a lower MI river fishing for salmon. We managed to chase the fish down and I snaged the line, we just pulled hime in by hand, we all gave him a hard time, but that night we all secretly checked our rigs.