Fly Fishing Tackle

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Saturday, September 6th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed

You can fly fish without a vest. If you don’t mind cold water, you can fly fish without waders and wading boots. You can get out there in your jeans and Converse?s and fly fish as well as anyone. But there are four things you must have to fly fish: a rod, a reel, a fly line, and a hat. You gotta have a hat! Those are the essentials of fly fishing tackle.

Fly rods run from $60 to thousands of dollars. A good rod that will last a lifetime and will come with a lifetime warranty against breakage can cost around $200. An excellent rod with the same warranty will run about $400. Buy a rod from someone who allows you to cast it before you buy. You a lot of casting in fly fishing and a rod should be light but strong enough to cast a fly line a minimum of 30 feet. When you find that rod that casts the line with the least effort ask what the action of the rod is, fast, medium-fast, medium or medium-slow. The answer will be the type of rod you are looking for. Now you should by a rod with that action and weight that is within your budget. As for the weight of line the rod will cast, it runs from 1 weight all the way to 14 weight. If you are going to buy only one rod buy a 5 weight if you live in the East and a 7 weight if you live in the West. The West has bigger water than the East.

A fly reel seems a simple thing until you have a trophy trout on and you are fumbling with the drag. Your reel should have the following features: a smooth action, an easily adjustable drag, a large enough spool to hold your fly line and the backing. Fly reels from excellent Abel and Ross reels at $300 to the surprising good Clearwater reel from Orvis at $39. If you fish heavily a more expensive reel will last a lifetime. If you are the occasional fly fishermen the Orvis or one from Redington will do you in good stead.

There is a mystery about fly lines. Made with all sorts of magic polymers and encased air cells, the upshot of all this is one fly line is pretty like the other. They run in the $50 to $60 range and should slide like silk through the guides, which is appropriate since early fly lines were made of silk. The recommended line type is a weight forward (WF) floating line that matches the weight of your of your rod. A WF line is easier to cast and gets better distance.

For the last item of essential fly fishing tackle, I discuss the hat. I should say hats because you need two, one for summer another for the rest of the year. The summer hat should be wide brimmed to keep the sun off your neck and have mesh sides to release the heat and can be any color but red. The other hat is most important for it is the Donegal Tweed hat. It covers the ears in case it rains and it is made of wool so it insulates even when wet. It attracts fish like a magnet, looks great with a nymph or two perched on it and because.. you gotta have a hat!

b195-g Orvis Fly Fishing Fish Rod Reed Neon Light Sign