Tips For Beginners: Watch Your Fly

Another of the challenges for beginners is seeing their fly on the water surrounded by natural flies and/or reflections. To increase your selective vision be sure to watch your fly land.

To start, fish with hi-vis flies that have a brightly colored wing or post to aid in locating them. Once you see your fly do not take your eyes off of it. Another option is to fish two flies, a large visible fly with a smaller more imitative fly as a trailer.

Remember, in fly fishing you see the strike, you do not feel the strike. The exception would be when fishing streamers, but this is an advanced technique. Whether you are nymphing with an indicator or drifting dry flies, it is a necessity to see your flies for effective hook sets.

Tips for Beginners: Mending

Mending is the term used for line control once your fly is on the water. The purpose of this technique is to create a drag free drift – a natural imitation.

Similar to casting, mending is another skill that is best taught first hand. Every drift demands different mends, and mending is not limited to nymphing. The better you are at mending, the longer and more effective your drifts will be.

Tips for Beginners: Check Your Fly

When learning to fly fish, we all have a tendency to break our wrist on the backcast and/or have timing problems. These errors lead to whip cracking, rock smacking and weed snagging. All of these faults equate to losing flies and breaking hooks.

You can usually notice when you lose a fly because you will hear a whip crack or are unable to see the fly land on the water. The bigger problem is hook breakage. Many times, you can fish for an hour or so and wondered why you cannot set a hook. Usually you will find that the hook has broken off.

This tip might seem fairly elementary; however, it’s usually the simplest remedies that will result in more fish landed.

Tips for Beginners: Casting

The poetic motion of a fluid casting stroke is the first image most people equate to fly fishing. Hundreds of books and instructional videos are available. While we could have an entire website dedicated casting mechanics, we strongly believe the best way to an efficient, repeatable casting stroke is through personal instruction. Hire a guide or sign up for a casting clinic for hands on instruction.

Here are a few tips to keep you on the river…

• Use less power! Every novice angler applies too much power to the rod. Let the rod do the work for you.
• Limit your false casts. No one has ever caught a fish while their fly was in the air, so why do most anglers insist on false casting a dozen times between each drift? The more you wave around your fly rod, the better chance you have of catching a tree or tangling your flies.
• Personalize your casting stroke. Similar to a baseball stance, each angler will develop his or her own unique casting stroke. There are a few basic fundamentals that need to be incorporated in every cast, but you also need to tweak the mechanics to fit your body.
• Practice. Nobody expects to take up golf or skiing and be performing at an expert level from day one. The same holds true for fly fishing. You need to practice your cast between fishing adventures to hone your skills, and make you better prepared the next time you are surrounded by feeding fish.

Tips for Beginners: Knots

Knots are one of the most intimidating parts of fly fishing for beginners. Unfortunately, knots are probably the most important aspect of fishing. A weak connection between your line and fly will result in you losing fish no matter how strong your casting or fishing fighting skills.

Entire books are dedicated to knots; however, most people can get away with knowing only two: the clinchand either the surgeons or blood knot. The clinch is used for tying the fly to the tippet. The blood and surgeons knots are used for attaching tippet to leader. Because the surgeons knot and blood knot are interchangeable, we suggest you use the one that is easiest for you to tie. Typically the blood knot is better looking and symmetrical, and the surgeons is a little faster to tie.

We haven't mentioned a knot for attaching the leader or butt section to the fly line because many new systems include a loop-to-loop connection. Most manufactures sell leaders that have a loop already tied or you may ask your local fly shop employee to tie the loop for you (specify that you want a Perfection Loop). The system that most of us use is a butt section attached with a nail knot. You will want to learn the nail knot eventually but it is not necessary right away. Once again, if necessary, ask your local fly shop employee to tie the nail knot for you. To switch leaders when using a loop-to-loop connection you simply thread a new leader into the loop system – no need to tie any knots!

Before you cinch tight any knot, be sure to moisten the knot with you mouth. This applies a lubricant to the line that will limit the friction created when tightening the knot. Too much friction can weaken a knot’s strength. The most important thing for beginners is to learn the knots well. When there are fish rising all around you, it can be difficult to tie knots even when you are a pro.