Fly Fishing

Skook said:
I even had (still have ?) "special" treble hooks that were designed with one of the shanks not welded to the other two (a split-shank, I suppose) so the loop knot run through the minnow could just be slid up to the hook eye without threading the loop through the hook eye and then looping it back over the hook.

It was more convenient, but I found that those hooks caused more problems than they solved.
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Dear Skook,

The Duty rigs had a metal contraption with barbs to hold the minnow that you gutted. They came with double hooks that had an open shank to pass through the rig and get stuffed back in the minnie. They were made in Muncy PA and came on a yellow card with the hooks and the minnie needle that had a notched eye.

After a while it was just easier to use a size 12 treble hook and pass a loop knot through the minnow and loop the treble on it.

I might rig a couple of them up this year for old times sake!

Invisible Minnow Rig, Muncy , PA

Fishing tackle for sale
www.invisibleminnowrigs.com

Regards,

Tim Murphy :)
 
TimMurphy said:
Dear Skook,

The Duty rigs had a metal contraption with barbs to hold the minnow that you gutted. They came with double hooks that had an open shank to pass through the rig and get stuffed back in the minnie. They were made in Muncy PA and came on a yellow card with the hooks and the minnie needle that had a notched eye.

After a while it was just easier to use a size 12 treble hook and pass a loop knot through the minnow and loop the treble on it.

I might rig a couple of them up this year for old times sake!

Invisible Minnow Rig, Muncy , PA

Fishing tackle for sale
www.invisibleminnowrigs.com

Regards,

Tim Murphy :)
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Yeah, I know I still have Duty needles around somewhere, and I think I might've tried the Duty rigs decades ago. I also had the split double hooks, but I always preferred treble hooks for spinning minnows. The split shank treble hooks were hard to find.

When I was a kid, I used to pre-tie my minnow leaders with a loop knot, coil them up like a fly fishing leader and place them into individual, small manilla envelopes in a vest pocket. These were the smallest envelopes that were probably 2" x 4", or less.

Good memories. Unfortunately, my fishing buddy from those days left this earth way too early.
 
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I thought the PAFBC actually defined it.

For me it's somewhat simple: if I'm relying on the weight of the line to propel my lure, I'm fly fishing. If I'm relying on the weight of my lure to unspool my line, I'm spin fishing.

I don't care to argue over length of leader, whether my reel has a gear ratio between the handle and the spool, or the length of the rod. In fact I've flyfished with traditional rods a lot shorter than a baitcaster I've used with a Carolina rig for bass.
 
Legal definitions are pretty clear. This, however,seems to be a philosophical discussion.

There’s a fairly ancient idea that anything not upstream and floating fly isn’t true fly fishing, so wets, nymphs and streamers are out for this definition.

A fly line is something of a modern addition to the sport. In izaak Walton’s day, a long rod had a fixed length line tapered to a single strand of horse tail hair, kind of like tenkara.

And casting by throwing the weight of line through guides dates to the invention of split cane rods in the early to mid 1800s. Before that was the greenheart rod, a long and heavy stick with guides that allowed the fish to run, but casting was essentially impossible.

I’m at a loss to come up with a consistent definition over time. To me, the history of the sport is part of what makes it fun.
 
JimKennedy said:
Legal definitions are pretty clear. This, however,seems to be a philosophical discussion.

There’s a fairly ancient idea that anything not upstream and floating fly isn’t true fly fishing, so wets, nymphs and streamers are out for this definition.
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The ancient tradition of fly fishing is wet fly fishing.

It was wet fly fishing only for many centuries.

Dry flies, nymphs, and streamers all came much later.
 
troutbert said:
Before spin gear was available people used fly gear for trout fishing, including bait, small lures, and flies
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That’s how I initially learned to use a fly rod on a stream….primarily with night crawlers, but sometimes with a cp swing. That was 1962 on Manatawny and Antietam Creeks. From 1959 or 1960 until spring 1962 I used a fly rod with a bobber and minnow to fish for crappie on the Conowingo Dam pool or the same equipment with a nightcrawler to fish for largemouth bass in local Berks Co ponds…until I got my first spinning rod in about 1965.
 
stashe said:
Thank you that's it there's no one thing that makes it fly fishing. Just enjoy the day on the water. I was fishing the little j with a streamer this fall, when a guy came along and gave me a 15min. lecture on how that was not fly fishing. Dry flies only.
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Was his name Bill 🤣🤣
 
jeffroey said:
For me it's somewhat simple: if I'm relying on the weight of the line to propel my lure, I'm fly fishing. If I'm relying on the weight of my lure to unspool my line, I'm spin fishing.
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This. If the weight of your line is carrying the fly/lure/bait to the fish you are fly fishing. If the weight of your fly/lure/bait is carrying out your line then you are not fly fishing. So if your using a fly rod to lob a gob of night crawlers you are not fly fishing. Merely using a fly rod is not by itself the definition of fly fishing.
 
afishinado said:
You can (and I now do at times) fly cast mono line instead of only using fly line to fish for trout. The mono line (20lb test Maxima Chameleon) has enough mass to use a conventional fly cast for smaller dries, including a dry-dropper, nymphs with or without an indy as well as streamers or wets. This rig is the most versatile setup I have found for fly fishing. I can switch over to a conventional fly line for dries and longer casts or for long distance streamer fishing. Check out this short video about casting a mono rig:
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Fluorocarbon line works even better than mono as it is denser. It is all I (and many others) use for "line" on my Tenkara outfits.
 
TimMurphy said:
Dear Skook,

The Duty rigs had a metal contraption with barbs to hold the minnow that you gutted. They came with double hooks that had an open shank to pass through the rig and get stuffed back in the minnie. They were made in Muncy PA and came on a yellow card with the hooks and the minnie needle that had a notched eye.

After a while it was just easier to use a size 12 treble hook and pass a loop knot through the minnow and loop the treble on it.

I might rig a couple of them up this year for old times sake!

Regards,

Tim Murphy :)
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On a wall in the area where I tie flies I have 2 full cards of the "Duty's" Montoursville made versions of No. 3 rigs I bought back in the early 90's at Nestor's in Allentown.

Also hanging on the wall in the same area is a 8 x 10 color photo of a night crawler on a hook... ;)

I was always fascinated with the "men" I'd see bait fishing with fly rods when I was a kid but I was such a snobby horse's a$$ when I first started fly fishing I would NEVER dare give it a whirl.

A couple of years ago I bought a Shakespeare 1390 Wonderod and a bunch of Shakespeare Tru-Art automatic reels with the intention of emulating those guys I used to see back then but I want to use worms or salmon eggs instead...

If I use a real cicada or a June bug on a hook with that rig would that be considered fly fishing??? :cool:
 
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FWIW - I fish flies on spinning gear all the time...

I refer to it as "fishing flies on spinning gear." ;)
 
Please! If you are using worms, minnies, etc. you are not fly fishing. I don’t care if that garden hackle is being tossed about by a $1000 Winston or some bamboo classic. Some of you are really trying hard to blur the lines between bait fishing and fly fishing.

My trout fishing tackle as a kid was a yellow Eagle Claw fly rod with crappy Eagle Claw reel of some sort. A blue fly line I got somewhere with one of those metal eyes jammed in the end of it. A length of monofilament for a “leader.” I was pretty good at flipping worms into likely holding spots for the stocked trout in Mill Creek and the Loyalhanna. I never once thought I was “fly fishing.”
 
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Merriam Webster defines fly fishing as : a method of fishing in which an artificial fly is cast by use of a fly rod,reel, and a relatively heavily oiled or treated line.
Oxford languages defines fly fishing as: the sport of fishing using a rod and an artificial fly as bait. So, even the people that make dictionaries don't really agree.
I tend to agree with Merriam Webster's definition because tenkara and fishing streamers on spinning gear is not fly fishing😀. Euro nymphers that use some treatment on the mono rig are clearly fly guys.
 
Roofin' Trouter said:
Merriam Webster defines fly fishing as : a method of fishing in which an artificial fly is cast by use of a fly rod,reel, and a relatively heavily oiled or treated line.
Oxford languages defines fly fishing as: the sport of fishing using a rod and an artificial fly as bait. So, even the people that make dictionaries don't really agree.
I tend to agree with Merriam Webster's definition because tenkara and fishing streamers on spinning gear is not fly fishing😀. Euro nymphers that use some treatment on the mono rig are clearly fly guys.
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Back when PA had the 18 foot rule regarding leader length in Fly Fishing Only Sections, the question of whether the PFBC regarded Tenkara as fly fishing was posed to PFBC law enforcement by several practitioners including Daniel Galhardo, the founder of Tenkara USA.

This is the reply:

The regulations were written long ago with the traditional practice of fly-fishing in mind. The intent of the regulation is to restrict fishing to use of tied flies as the terminal tackle. The style of fishing that you describe would fall under the definition of “fly-fishing” for our purposes. Thank you for contacting the Commission.​
​
Jeff Bridi​
Law Enforcement​
​
I tend to agree with the PFBC "definition"... 😀

​
 
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Just one opinion...
Fly line with a lure that is not bait of any kind (no GULP! please). The rod casting the line can be anything from a wrist-thick log, or your own arm. I almost included fly-reel as a requirement but didn't want to offend the cane-poles (Tenkara :)). Generically, the method uses the weight of the line to cast and not the weight of the lure.
I didn't check any dictionaries since Oxford just made "rizz" it's word of the year. I don't trust dictionaries anymore.
 
I was going to be a wise guy and say "dry fly fishing is fly fishing" but the truth is I do enjoy throwing streamers on occasion. I could fish my heavily weighted streamers on a spinning rod but there are some things you can do with drifting and swinging streamers with a regular fly set up that would not work as well with a short rod and monofilament or braid. Nymphing is also fly fishing though I rarely do it. I consider nymphing to be as much an art as any other type of fishing. The people I have met and watched who do it well are real masters. A spinning rod with a fly is not fly fishing.
 
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