Time to suck it up - fly fishing

When I was 14 years old, I bought 2 fly rods and reels. I don't remember all the details of the sale, but I have always had the impression that the rods and reels together all cost under $40.00. The reels were small department store models, and the rods were 9 foot fiberglass jobs. The line was floating......that's all I know. I didn't know anything about backing, exotic knots, leader butts, mid sections, tippets, fly sizes or any other sizes for that matter. I just tied some light monofilament line on to the end of the fly line, tied on a small rubber spider or cork popping bug and went fishing. Fishing like that, I would frequently practice at home and got to where I could dependably put a popping bug in a small saucer at 50 feet.

There's no telling how many fish were caught on those rods and reels over the years. Boatloads of bluegill were fried up after putting those bugs to use at the base of cypress trees in Mississippi oxbow lakes. From time to time a bonus would be an unexpected largemouth bass exploding on a small popping bug, putting me into panic mode. But I landed some. One of the largest I remember was a 4.5 lb largemouth I caught from a golf course pond (that we used to regularly get run off of) while fishing for the big bluegill that populated the pond.

That was 40 years ago. And guess what. I still have those two fly rods and reels. I haven't used them much in the last few years, but they still work.....and yep, they still have the original line, or what's left of it on them.

Doing the kind of fishing I now do from small boats, including kayaks and inevitably in the near future a belly boat, I decided it was time to dust off my latent skills, upgrade my fly fishing equipment, get some refresher information, and get back to it. So, of course, unlike 40 years ago, the first thing I did when I started looking at fly fishing again was Googled for information. This is one of the few times I wish I had just proceeded like I did 40 years ago, got the rods, reels, line, tied the stuff on and gone fishing. But, I wanted to do it "right". Shoot....

After Googling, I found out it was impossible to put a fly in a saucer at 50 feet with just a mono leader tied to a fly line. I guess times have changed since I was younger, but now you got to have several hundred dollars worth of primary gear and accessories to do that. And you can't just do it with a fly tied to a leader like I used to. Now you got to have a combination of lines, sized exactly, tied together, to form a precise "taper" to properly transfer energy through the rod, out the line, to the tip of the tippet and finally to the fly which lands perfectly provided you spent enough money to make it land in the water.

After a couple weeks of online information overload, I ended up feeling like I needed a course in nuclear physics to be able to figure out fly fishing equipment. Because of advances in technology, just like everything else, you can't just buy a few things and go fishing. Because you can't live without so many things! The array of sizes, actions, weights of all fly fishing components is mind boggling. When I found articles on Google that started out with something like "Fly Fishing the Simple Way", my excitement welled up only to be let down when I found out that even the simple way was complicated....and expensive. Then I finally backed up and armed with more information than I ever intended to get, decided I was going to have to lean on intuition gained during 46 years of fishing. And off I went to the tackle dealer.

It's amazing, when you finally make a decision and put most of what you've learned in the information age out of your head, and go do it, how easy it is. I bought two nice rods, matching reels, backing, fly line, monofilament leader and tippet material (I decided I would tie my own), bass bugs and a couple of streamers. Now, I'll put it together, tie the stuff together, put on a couple of bugs and I'll be off to get used to it on a nearby lake tomorrow. Big bass bugs early in the morning, silver streamers later in the morning. If there are schooling bass, it should be a lot of fun. If not, I'll be getting used to my two rods and learning the "feel" of my stuff.

Now granted, I spent a good deal more money on my new stuff than I did on those fiberglass rods 40 year ago. Close to $500 dollars for everything that I need to get going. But according to those Google articles I read, that $500 will only result in me purchasing "entry level" equipment that will ultimately allow me to fish very primitively, and will inevitably result in my rod and reel unexpectedly disintegrating in my hand on the water at a most inopportune time while fighting a giant fish of some species.

Maybe when I get used to this and catch some fish, I'll write an article that will help people like me do exactly a few simple things to be able to start fly fishing without having to learn stuff tantamount to learning to operate the space shuttle.

Have a great weekend. I'm going fishin......without Google.