Fly fishing...

I am interested in getting started fly fishing but have never done it before. Anyone have any interest in posting a writeup or even a link to some info about getting started? I've looked around and here in my area there area guides but not really classes. So I need a basic guide(manual) to purchasing good reliable starter equipment and something about technique of casting. Can anyone suggest anything? Even a good book for getting started. I've fished just about every other setup out there but I understand fly fishing is a different animal.

Thanks for any help,

Jeff

Jeff,

Are you interested in kayak fly fishing or fly fishing in general?

Brian

Jeff~
 I have been fly fishing for over 20 years. Built my own rods, tie my own flies. The whole shabang! The best guide/book I can recommend for someone starting out is called " The Curtis Creek Manifesto" by Sheridan Anderson.
IMO the best straight forward easy to understand information on  fly fishing presented in a very humerous way not only by the writing but by the illustrations as well. It is almost comic book like but the info is right to the point. You will not be disappointed.
I got mine when it was only $5.95 ( yea, that long ago ). I think it has gone up $2 or so.
One of my favorite lines from the book is when he is talking about automatic reels. " Drop one in a sandy creek and learn something about applied mechanics."

Yeah that book rocks! My dad is like you except the rod building, and I swear there is always a new fur or feather to tie with! 

My advice would be to start off with a inexpensive rod that is somewhat stiff. A good fly shop will be key to setting you up. This is actually for me the best part of the year to fly fish.

What I did was practice casting on the street. I would setup some kind of marker and aim with a piece of yarn and see how close I could get.  To me Fly fishing is like surfing,  no matter how good you think you are , there is always something to learn.  I could go on and on, however I should be up on the Trinity fishing for Steelhead right about now!!

Man you are lucky living in Clear Lake and Placerville. I have to drive through two major metro areas to get up north (Sf and Satan Rosa) with horrible traffic or SF and Scramento to go East. And traffic has more than doubled in the last 5 years It really makes getting to good fly fishing arduous and has substantially cut back on the number of times I can get out and fly fish lately. If I could mvoe to either palce, I would.

Bsteves,

Both actually, but now that I own the kayak I don't really fish any other way these days unless I go out on a charter so most likely from the kayak almost exclusively. It sounds like a great way to target stripers in the delta.

Tote,

Thanks for the reference material I just ordered it off Amazon, kind of funny actually I got it for 4.80 used but it is going to cost almost four buck to ship it so about eight bucks was a good guess.

Thanks for the help everyone,

Jeff

I would love to learn how to fly fish.  How much would it cost for me to get setup with entry-level gear approximatley?

Travis~
Come see me. I will show ya everything you need to know and stuff you don't need to know too.
I will be at OC this weekend but not entering the Randy Fry tourney. Leaving in about 20 minutes. No time to get my kayak stuff ready.
I will PM you when I get back.

If your going to be fishing for bass get an 8wt. SA sell a complete kit for around 150$ . The line in these kits is usually a floating line which is the best to start out with.
In a kayak worry about accuracy more than distance. Now pay attention Jeff, do not bend your wrist when you cast , your thumb should be against your rod handle and it should be pointing straight up. I taught flyfishing
at the adult schools here in Fresno, and anytime I caught a student bending their wrist I tied their wrist to their rod with yarn. Worked everytime.
A good cd won't hurt, anything by Lefty will be good.
I'll post some photos when I get the chance.

In looking around a bit I see that there seems to be two basic types of fly fishing outfits, those being freshwater and saltwater. I would be interested in something for starting out that would be capable of both is that a possibility?
Mostly I think I will be targeting stripers in the delta but the ability to ocean flyfish and target larger fish is where I am thinking. I grew up in Reno and I just don't have the interest in little trout and such that I used to. My book hasn't arrived yet though so I am still sorting out information here.

Paddle and flies - What or who is SA that sounds like a good starter package to me?

Thanks,

Jeff

Hey Jeff, Trout are simply one of the fish I fish for . Most of the time I chasing Stripers or large mouth.
I use to use and 8wt . Now I use a 9wt. I like weed beds particularly in the Delta, I fish in them as much as I do their edges and I like to cast big flys say about 3/0. I HAVE TWO 9 WTS  a Powell and a Sage. They are high end rods and a bit lighter then your normal middle of the road rod. A lamniglass 9 wt is going to feel like a club compared to them. Now unless you can get a 9 wt in one of these kits and 8wt would do the trick unless  you hook a hog and even then ...maybe.

Paddle and flies,

Sorry about the trout comment, I'm not trying to be offensive or anything just trying to help you guys help me out. Some of the people I've talked to keep suggesting what sounds to me like equipment that would self destruct the first time I hooked into a decent striper and I thought if I got it out there that I am wanting a fly fishing setup to target larger fish maybe that would help narrow done my selections.

Jeff

No offence taken what so ever. One of my greatest joys is needling fly fishingtrout snobs.
Scienticfic Anglers. One of there outfits would last in the salt as long as you cleaned right after your fishing.
Some pretty big fish have been caught on an 8wt such as Lee Haskins 40lb striper.

Paddle and flies,

Okay I'm checking out the SA packages - any opinion on number of sections in a rod. It looks like more pieces more money and easier to store but is there anything else important there that I am missing? I am thinking for storing on the kayak a four piece rod sound like a great idea but will it lack something I don't even know about yet?

Thanks,

Jeff

No offense taken on the trout--I like bigger game fish like Stripers these days as well. But if you think of trout as little fish, you've just been fishing for stockers in the wrong places or haven't hooked into an Eagle Lake Strain Rainbow. You catch a 4-5 pound Trout on a 5 weight and it will battle as hard as an 12-pound Ling on an ocean rod and jump a lot more. their fight is more liek a Striper than a Ling or Halibut.  Of course if you are a 'meat' fisherman, then the choice is obvious. Nothing wrong with that--I keep fish sometimes and I like eating them. But there are differences in how fish fight.

More importantly, sport depends on more than the size of the fish--its the tackle as well. Fly rod setups don't use 8 oz sinkers so you really feel the fish. You may have caught those little trout on spinning gear and that's a whole different kind of tackle than the fly rod. Yeah I don't like Fly Fishing snobs either, but most fly fishers I know aren't snobby about it--just a few. And I've seen pretty snobby Nascar-lovin' Bass Pros who didn't have much class as well. Sounds more like a class warfare type of argument when I hear it and I won't go there.

I use Temple Fork Outfitter 9-weights. The TiCR-X, their beefy salt water rod, for my shooting heads--very stiff butt section so it can push  a heavy deep water T-14 head and muscle in a big fish runnign to the Kelp or in the rocks and the Pro, a much slower rod, for my Bass bug taper for Striper top water. the TFOs are reasonable prices at $149 to $249 list. I cannot wait to get my first legal Ling on a fly rod. I am trying this weekend.