Fly Fishing: How To Start

The purpose of this piece is to help the beginner fly fishing. The terminology and the basic practice employed in fly fishing may be unfamiliar to the beginner at fly fishing, so we will commence from the very beginning. Therefore, if you are a beginner fly fishing person, please read on.

The things needed for fly fishing are generally called tackle, but if you want to be more specific about the type of instruments you need, you can add the words "fly fishing". So, you get the phrase: "fly fishing tackle". Fly fishing gear basically comprises artificial flies, a fly rod, a fly reel and fly line. The set-up is: the fly is attached to the line, which is wound around the reel, which is attached to the rod, which is used to cast the bait (the fly).

To make it easier to cast the fly as far as required from the angler, the line has to be a little weightier than the other types of fishing line, since a weight is used in other kinds of fishing to achieve the same result. Furthermore, the artificial flies are made in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colours to reflect real, live flies, depending on the sort of fish the angler wants to catch.

Generally speaking, an artificial fly is made of hair, plastic, feathers, fabric, fur and many other kinds of material in order to make the flies resemble, as closely as possible, the insect or fly most commonly taken by the particular sort of fish in that particular month or at that time of the day. This means that each fishing spot requires that you choose a definite kind of artificial fly that will look like the insects living in the area where your desired type of fish frequent. Therefore, a kind of fly used in one part of the region may not be as successful as you'd expect elsewhere.

However, there are classifications of flies too, although they fall into two basic general categories, which are known as 'attractive' and 'imitative'. The imitative artificial lures look like real insects, while the attractive lures just rely on colour or the twinkling of sunlight in order to attract fish without necessarily looking like the fish's natural prey.

These classifications are then used to further sub-divide artificial fly fishing lures into: a] dry (resembling grasshoppers, dragonflies, etc. which float on or near the surface of the water); b] sub-surface (looking like larvae, pupae) and c] wet (looking like leeches and minnows and other small fish or fry).

The main distinguishing feature between fly fishing and non-fly fishing is that fly fishing relies to a great extent on the weight of the line to get the artificial lure to that area of the stream where the fish are schooling, probably at a distance from the shore. The line is often camouflaged and hollow, so that it will float.

Non-fly fishing depends rather on the attached weight, often made of lead, to draw the line off the reel and carry it forward to the right spot, where the weight will also take the bait or lure down to the feeding fish.