Zebco 202

[Lkyboots]

Most of us didn't start out fly fishing and probally started out with some pretty crappy rods and reels. I didn't catch my first Trout on a fly rod till I was 12 and didn't get my first nice Rod today till I was 16. I got a Shakespeare Wonder rod for Xmas. That was 50 years ago.

At what age did you fellas start fly fishing?

 

[Acristickid]

Had some time with zebcos with my dad and three brothers.

I started really fishing in 1993ish. Typing this as I’m awaiting to be picked up to go fishing. 0-2 so far on a couple short outings so far this year.

 

[Swattie87]

26, I think.

First rod/reel combo I had was a BPS Dogwood Canyon 7' 4wt...that I bought primarily for fishing WW with! I spin fished (and still do) essentially only with ultralights, even for Bass, and thought I didn't need a bigger fly rod than that. Haha, I was wrong.

I still have that rod. Needs a small repair on the tip guide, but I'm planning on gifting the set up it to a friend who's just getting in to FFing and needs a Brookie rod to pair with their bigger rod. The rod actually isn't half bad, good starter middle of road med/fast. Drag on the reel is basically useless though, and was so out of the box, but it won't be needed anyway in a Brookie set up.

 

[djs12354]

Zebco 202 - Brought back some great memories with that!

Started fly-fishing in 2012 at 64 years young. Had the good fortune to have a good friend who was a little more advanced than me, but also just starting.
Next piece of luck was finding PAFF and getting to meet Heritage Angler and many others for tutelage on both fishing and tying!

 

[CLSports]

I bought my 1st fly rod at a local bait and tackle shop when I was in my teens in the early 80's. I don't recall who the maker was. I think it was a Shakespeare rod. It was a royal blue color is all I can remember for sure. I used it for panfish and bass mostly. None of my friends or my father fly fished. I learned on my own.

I recently found my very 1st fly box mixed in with my old baseball cards. I didn't even realize I had saved it. The rod is long gone. My mother go rid of a lot of stuff when I went off to college. I told her she can get rid of anything, but DO NOT touch my baseball cards!!! Thank god I still have those, and the fly box. Good memories.

Does anyone know if Shakespeare made a royal blue colored rod in the 80's?

 

[dryflyguy]

I didn't start FF until age 25.

And I do have great memories of fishing with a Zebco 202. Pretty solid and dependable spincast reel. And it was cheap!

 

[djs12354]

dryflyguy wrote:
I didn't start FF until age 25.

And I do have great memories of fishing with a Zebco 202. Pretty solid and dependable spincast reel. And it was cheap!

Dependable? Darn near indestructible!

I remember being around 10 or so and fishing with my brother, who would have been around 7. Using a little Zebco 202 combo for bluegills when my brother hooked into a 5 or 6 pound bass! To us youngsters that was a monster. I can still hear that little 202 screaming!

 

[JerryC]

I've been fishing since I was 5 or 6. My first reel might have been a Zebco. But mostly I fished spinning reels. Mitchell and Penn reels.
My first introduction to fly fishing was back in the mid-70's when I was in college. I was to meet a friend to fish a farm pond in NW Tennessee and he showed up with a fly rod. I didn't take up fly fishing until 20 years later when I was in my mid-forties. I'd been building my spinning, surf and trolling rods for around 10 years. Went up to Dale Clemens Tackle in Allentown and picked up a no name blank. Built a 5 wgt rod. Can't remember what my first reel was it may have been an Orvis reel. It took me another 3 or 4 years before I switched completely over to fly fishing in fresh water. Transitioning to mostly fly fishing salt water took another couple of years.

 

[tomitrout]

We moved from IL to PA when I was 4 and memories of those years are kinda blurry as to the exact year. I do remember fishing the old farm pond near my parent's shortly after we moved and also one or two early memories on the Illinois River with my dad and grandpa...

Early 80's I discovered my dad's flyrods in the garage gear closet, a 6wt WonderRod and a 6wt 4pc W&M Traveller, still have both of those rods stashed in the corner and his old Pfleuger reel sits on the mantle. He used them for slinging poppers to bass and panfish on Illinois farm ponds, he never really took to trout fishing the way I did but we always went out for opening day. He's always preferred lakes and now saltwater, I've always been more into moving water. Still have my old Garcia spinning reel I grew up with somewhere in a closet, it's got a broken bail spring. Finally got a fly rod of my own for my 15th or 16th birthday ('85/'86), a Westminster Silstar Boron along with a Pfleuger reel for it, still have both and been thinking about breaking out the old rod for some smaller water smallie fishing this year.

 

[Canoetripper]

I'm almost 60 years young and spent ages 6-10 living in a development called Green Lane Farms on the York County side of the Yellow Breeches Creek approximately between where the PA Turnpike crosses the creek and its mouth at the Susquehanna River in New Cumberland. This is warm water fishing and perfect for a young boy with a Zebco 202.

My grandfather owned a cabin in the Michaux State Forest near Pine Grove Furnace which is where I caught my first trout, a native brookie, on a fly rod with a garden hackle.

Grandpa taught me how to fly fish at that young age at the Dream Mile Club along the Tobyhanna Creek near Blakeslee in the western Pocono Mountains in PA and also at a Dude Ranch in northwestern Wyoming.

I still have the 7' 6 wt. fly rod that my grandfather taught me to fly fish with that Fenwick has told me was manufactured in 1964.

 

[moon1284]

I started fly fishing at around 14. The rod and reel was a scientific anglers system 1 6 weight combo I bought from Janns netcraft. The rod sucked and I lost the reel. Upgraded to a st 4 weeight Croix rod and orvis battenkill disk 3/4 reel. Caught everything from trout to kings on that rig until as it was my only rig for the next 4 or so years. I still laugh when people say you need a big reel with a strong drag to catch steelhead or salmon. Haven't used a reel with a disk drag in years and have caught 30# kings in the niagara river and atlantic salmon in the Canadian maritimes.

 

[sgrim]

Started fishing with Dad pretty much as soon as I could walk. I know I owned a few Zebcos as a kid. I was about 12 (late 1970's) when I bought my Dad a cheap fly outfit...Daiwa or Garcia or something .. for Fathers Day. I'm pretty sure I commandeered that setup within a week or two. I managed to land a few smallmouth & panfish from a local creek on a Mickey Finn the first time I tried it and the rest is history.

 

[wbranch]

I started to fish when I was 12 and remember my first outfit was a JC Higgins spin rod and reel. I soon progressed to a Mitchell 300 but then saw an article by AJ McClane in Sports Afield about ulralight spinning and I got hooked on the Mitchell 308 and Fenwick spin rods in the 6' - 7' lengths.

I got my first fly rod, a Phillipson 8 1/2' fiberglass when I was about 14. I never fished flies with it though and only used it to drift worms and caddis larvae to the stocked NJ trout. I started to dabble in fly fishing when I was about 16 and would fish flies until I got skunked or had only caught a few and would revert to bait. I really got hooked onto fly fishing in July of 1965 when I made a trip to the Beaverkill. I caught a good number of trout during that weekend on Hares ear nymphs just throwing them out into the current and letting them hang below me.

That was fifty-three years ago. I still spin fish for smallmouth bass and sometimes for steelhead when the pools are just too long and slow to get good fly rod drifts.

 

[1fish]

It's funny that many of you had a Zebco 202. I never had a 202, but had a 606, which had metal covers. I believe the 202 had plastic covers.

 

[just_jon]

Also started fishing with my father about 3 or 4. First trout that I recall was a brook trout caught on Big Spring when I was 3 years old. I recall it because it was on only time I fished with my dad on the pong created by the dam at McFarland mill. Pretty sure of the year as the mill dam was removed later that year. My dad’s reel of choice was a Johnson. Caught my first fish on a fly (with spinning gear) at age 6. Took up fly fishing at age fishing a brace of wet flies along side dad. Also swung a lot of rigged minnows on his South Bed 9’ 6 wt.

 

[dc410]

I started flyfishing at age 12. My first outfit was a heavily used white fiberglass Shakespeare Wonderrod with a Phleuger reel ... Still have it. I caught my first trout on the fly rod that year in the FFO stretch of the West Branch of the Octararo Creek just upstream from the mouth of Stewarts Run. The fly stretch on the Octararo was definitely where I cut my teeth in flyfishing. Great memories!

 

[tomgamber]

Grew up spin fishing. Biking distance to Maiden Crek, Willow creek and lake Ontelaunee. Found my way to Antietam dam, Bernhard's dam...

One Christmas my mother bought me one of those Diawa blow mold cases with a spin/fly outfit. Only used the spin outfit but it was nice to stash in the car.

One Sunday, in college, I was headed to Mill creek near Clarion and realized there was nowhere on the way to buy bait on Sunday. Pulled up to the creek figuring I had to have a spinner or something in the case. I looked at the fly reel and reversed the handle on the 6 1/2 ft rod, tied on one of those flashy florescent blue flies that come with those kind of kits and headed upstream.

It's not a big stream so short casts came pretty easy. Got lucky and dropped the fly in the middle of a deep bend pool and it traveled right through the seam like my worms and minnows always did. Huh...

Big fat holdover slapped his tail, the tip bent over and he was hooked and so was I. Caught a couple native bookies upstream a little further, something I'd never caught with bait. That was the clincher. Those spots!

Now, other than a surf rod I use at the beach, the only spinning rod I own is the first "real" fly rod I ever bought with an ultralight reel on it.

Oh yeah, I had 303.

 

[KGStine]

I started flyfishing when I went to college in 1965.

My first outfit was spinning, a Mitchell 300 and a Shakespeare Wonder Rod. We had a cabin along the Susquehanna in York County, the cabin was burglarized and my rod and reel were stolen. Several months later the Pennsylvania State Police recovered them and they were returned to me. I still have them and they still work. Last month my 10 year old grandson was using them to fish with shrimp off the dock in Florida and the tip top came off the Wonder Rod.

My first fly outfit was a Phillipson fiberglass rod and a Pfluger reel both of which I still have, but no longer use.

 

[bikerfish]

A certain farmer from ohio and I may or may not have fished his pond with Zebcos a few years ago!!

 

[tomgamber]

bikerfish wrote:
A certain farmer from ohio and I may or may not have fished his pond with Zebcos a few years ago!!

HEY IF GUYS CAN RE-ENACT THE CIVIL WAR, WHY CAN'T YOU ? :lol: :lol: