Teaching Myself to Fly Fish

[rufus]

Hello, this is my first post here.

I've been fishing for trout my whole life with a regular spinning reel. This year i decided that i wanted to learn how to fly fish. I picked up a scientific anglers kit 9ft 5/6wt rod. A friend of mine is a very good fly fisher and used to teach courses on it and is helping me. He gave me some flies, including a wooly bugger and a worm imitator along with some egg patterns. I fish in the brodhead creek in a pretty fast section of water. I currently have a 6x leader with a 4lb monofilament tippet(that i made with regular fishing line). I have the wooly bugger tied on and am looking for some tips. I fish in somewhat fast water, how should i have my line set up? Any weight? How should i cast? And retrieve? Thanks for the help, i've enjoyed reading a lot on this forum.

Sorry for any spelling mistakes, i typrd all this on an iPad.

 

[fishingkidPA]

well im no expert by any means, but i did pick up some stuff on here that could help. losts of different ways of fishing the wooly bugger, since i was an avid baitcaster/spinning fisherman, i fish it as if it were a hair jig by bouncing it off the bottom. try and get a good drift on it by casting a decent amount above the spot your trying to hit so the streamer has time to sink then let it drift down the creek. If you get no takes you can strip it in and make it hop by doing quick strips. I caught my first trout that way. Alot of people say the drift is the most important thing for streamers/nymph's so work on that. as i learned this week end casting streamers, especially ones that are a little to big can be hard. Some on recently told me on the forum to do a spey cast and i think its called a snap t cast. That is in the beginner topic "casting streamers"

most of the buggers i fish have a bead head so they get down a little quicker, but if yours dont or if you are having trouble getting them to your desired depth you can ad a small split shot or two.

hope this helps a little.

 

[njk3395]

Change that tippet to like 3x, toss it in upstream, let it swing down on a dead drift, strip it in. considering high water conditions you probably need some split shot.

 

[rufus]

My 4lb tippet wont work? Thanks for the responses guys i cant wait to go fishing

 

[gfen]

You come down and clean the Monocacy Creek Saturday morning, and I'll take you out and show you a few things when it over.

Assuming mother nature plays along.

See, this is the sort of thing I do for people. I care.

 

[surveyor06]

gfen, your heart is solid gold

 

[gfen]

Yeah, me and the grinch, baby, grew three times its size.

 

[zenherper]

rufus wrote:
My 4lb tippet wont work? Thanks for the responses guys i cant wait to go fishing

Your 4lb line is probably about .007 diameter, which is about equal to a 4x tippet, so assuming you are using a tapered 6x leader, you would be tapering down to a 6x at the tippet, then adding larger tippet to the end. From my understanding, this will give you trouble turning flies over if you are dry fly fishing. If you are nymphing, the 4lb is fine, but I would cut your leader to about 4 or 5 feet from the butt, and tie about 4 feet of the 4lb on the end.

But then, everything I said might be wrong. :roll:

 

[rufus]

Thank you. Actually the tippet end/beginning of 4lb look pretty darn close in diameter. But I'm sure that the tippet is probably a little bit smaller. I'll re-tie some mono on a little higher. Eventually I'll buy some tippet material, but I'm 16 without a driver license and can't drive to the fishing shop every time I need something. Oh well. As for now I'm fishing with just a wooly bugger, and won't be fishing dry flies for some time. So I assume for a 6x leader I want 6x tippet material? Only makes sense.

My mono is .008, with the difference being .003 between the mono and the leader. My fly fisher friend says its ok to use, I'll try it. I'm not shooting for perfection on my first time out.

 

[BPS]

If you fished bait your whole life maybe think like this. Fish the bugger like you would use a minnow. Swing it down thru the current then jig/strip it in. Fish the worm and egg flies just like you would fish a worm or salmon egg. Either ticking the bottom or under a float, er bobber, um, I mean indicator with a split shot to get it down. Then get the most natural drift possible. The equipment is different but the presentation on the business end remains the same.

 

[gfen]

dude there got to be alot of math in there.

5x is a good, simple, starting point. this is a standard size of tippet for the sort of trout fishing you will do with most smaller flies.

6x is thinner than 5x, and works on smaller hooks than the stuff that 5x is best for.

4x is thicker than 5x, and would be better for larger flies.

3x, thicker still, great for those biggest flies, like that bugger.

smaller hook size bigger fly lower tippet x-number maximum confusion, eh?

that 4# is basically a lowest quality 5x you can do. but you know what, it works. you would want a thicker, shorter, leader for that bugger than most other flies, because the bugger is longer.

a 6x leader would be too thin. that means its final tippet diameter is 6x, perfect for dainty size 18 flies, not so good for heavy bugger. awful, actually. foot or two of like 10# stepped to 6# would be boss. or a 3x or 4x leader.

 

[afishinado]

rufus wrote:
Hello, this is my first post here.

I've been fishing for trout my whole life with a regular spinning reel. This year i decided that i wanted to learn how to fly fish. I picked up a scientific anglers kit 9ft 5/6wt rod. A friend of mine is a very good fly fisher and used to teach courses on it and is helping me. He gave me some flies, including a wooly bugger and a worm imitator along with some egg patterns. I fish in the brodhead creek in a pretty fast section of water. I currently have a 6x leader with a 4lb monofilament tippet(that i made with regular fishing line). I have the wooly bugger tied on and am looking for some tips. I fish in somewhat fast water, how should i have my line set up? Any weight? How should i cast? And retrieve? Thanks for the help, i've enjoyed reading a lot on this forum.

Sorry for any spelling mistakes, i typrd all this on an iPad.

Fishing a bugger

 

[Fishidiot]

Rufus,
Welcome to the PAFF Beginner's Forum. You've come to the right place to ask basic questions. Hopefully you're enjoying your start with fly fishing (FFing) gear. My usual advice for folks who have been bait fishing who are attempting to transition to FFing is to mix the two types of fishing gradually. While some of the folks here on this forum would disagree....I strongly believe that one can enjoy both bait/spin and FFing. Take both rods with you when you head out and, if FFing is tough, try bait for awhile. You'll get a good perspective on the challenges of FFing if you fish a stream section with the FF rod first and then try it with spin gear an hour later. Don't believe those who claim you'll never learn to FF until you completely ditch spin gear. It's baloney. The goal is to have fun. Fishing is fishing.
With that said, stream fishing here in PA the last few months has been very tough regardles of gear - lots of flooding and, before that, creeks frozen solid. Conditions should improve soon.
Your 4lb test leader is fine. You'll find that FFers refer to leaders by the "X" system. Don't worry much about this. In my opinion, the "X" system is dated and ought to be junked. It's not accurate and nobody can agree with what any of them mean except that 7X is super skinny. Thinking about mono in terms of breaking strenght, which is how spin folks think, is actually a better form of reference than the old X system that FFers cling to.

 

[rufus]

I went fishing with my friend tonight and he showed me a lot of stuff. Turns out I'm casting all right, just need to practice letting it roll out completely on the back cast. We didn't catch anything, but neither did anyone else that was around. I used mostly a black wooly bugger and an orange egg.

 

[auriemma]

Just an FYI...

The Orvis store at the Plymouth Meeting Mall (behind Whole Foods) is giving free fly fishing lessons. Mostly on Sat. & Sun. bring your own gear or use theirs.

FF101 - Basics: gear, knots, flies, casting (in shop)
FF201 - Advanced (on the water)

I signed up for both.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

Welcome aboard.Just listen and practice.It's all good on the stream. GG