BlogOctober 2022

Three Reasons to Learn to Fly Fish

Three Reasons to Learn to Fly Fish

By Andy Whitcomb

Oct 11, 2022

Fly fishing provides a unique fishing experience. Although some new anglers may be intimidated at first, here are several reasons to learn to fly fish.

Perhaps the best way to learn fly fishing is to begin reading. Volumes of instruction and tips regarding learning how to fly fish can be found in the sports section of any bookstore or online. Patience is a significant component of fly fishing, and fly fishing learning for that matter. How long does it take to learn fly fishing? This is not something picked up overnight. However when you learn how to fly fish, new opportunities and adventures await.

Effective

For fly fishing, learning to cast is a huge first step, requiring practice with special attention to timing. Once achieved, though, anglers will gain the ability to present essentially weightless lures (flies) admirable distances without a fish-startling splash from a regular lure. By learning how to fly fish, there will be places that an angler may be able to show fish something they have yet to see, even in highly pressured areas.

Challenge

For many, the process of fly fishing learning is pursued for the very reason that it is not for every angler. Is it hard to learn fly fishing? It depends. One can partially learn to fly fish after picking up the essential basics and start “flogging water” after a few minutes of instruction. But for many, the quest to learn fly fishing can last many years, perhaps even including tactical fly fishing lessons learned from competition for all anglers.

Fun

It also could be argued that the best way to learn to fly fish is closely tied to the best place to learn fly fishing: a dock or pier. When a novice angler is provided a pre-rigged fly rod here, no casting is involved. Just strip a little line and lower a fly to cooperative sunfish that always seem to be lurking around the structure. Once someone experiences the sensations transferred by the action from one of the unique, long, whippy rods that even a small bluegill can deliver, there might be no turning back: they will learn to fly fish.

Andy Whitcomb
Andy Whitcomb
Andy is an outdoor writer (http://www.justkeepreeling.com/) and stressed-out Dad has contributed over 380 blogs to takemefishing.org since 2011. Born in Florida, but raised on banks of Oklahoma farm ponds, he now chases pike, smallmouth bass, and steelhead in Pennsylvania. After earning a B.S. in Zoology from OSU, he worked in fish hatcheries and as a fisheries research technician at OSU, Iowa State, and Michigan State.