Northwest Fishing Reports

Yesterday my brand new 9 ft, 5 wt, 4 piece rod and reel combo from Cabelas arrived. This is all new to me as I have NEVER fly fished before. I took a casting class a couple weeks ago and I am sure that I will probably spend the rest of the summer in the back yard trying to figure out how not to use my wrist. All those years of casting with a spinning and level wind have created bad fly casting habits.

Anyway I have been in the yard two days running now. I hope to meet some other local fly folks who will be willing to mentor an old man. I live in Port Orchard so there are many local lakes in the area. I have fished Salmon and Steelhead in the past, but I am not ready to try fly fishing for them yet by any means.

Fortunately I have a lot of the accessories already, waders, vest, pontoon boat, etc.

Anybody in my area looking to help a rookie let me know. I am reading everything I can get my hands on but nothing beats one on one help.

Mike

Mike-
Happy to hear that you are on a new lifetime adventure. =d> My first advise to you, get out of the back yard. There are no fish in it!o:) Continue with the lessons if you like them and you feel that they are helping. You have all the gear to get out on the water. If you can cast even 10-15 ft properly, you are ready to hit the water. Don't try to cast out real far now. That will come in time. Once out in the water, you don't need to cast far. Find an area where the fish are feeding and cast to them.
Take your boat and gear out to a lake that fly fisherman frequent in your area. Strike up a conversation with someone there. Most experienced fly fisherman are more than willing to help with any questions that you may have.
There are plenty of "old timers" on this site that can lead you in the right direction. There are most likely a few on this forum that live in your area.
Don't feel intimidated by the sport. All of us at one time "NEVER fly fished before". Once you catch your first trout on a fly rod, your life will be changed forever......I promise. o:)

I can relate to what your saying w7co. Several years back, a friend got me started with fly fishing. He did his best to tutor me, which helped a bit but still my casting progressed slowly. Perhaps it was because he was rather new to it himself. He would try to explain what I was doing wrong, but hard for me to get a real visual of what I was doing. Then it clicked that maybe what helped me with golf lessons would help here ..... Video.

Some of the fly casting videos I had would show advanced casters from the side angle. So I set up a camcorder and recorded what I was doing at the same angle ..... Night and Day difference.

This helped me a good bit. No doubt a hands on lesson with a good tutor would be best in my case also.

Last year I decided to visit a friend in Florida, so decided to contact a guide for some fishing on the flats. The guide asked if I was an experienced caster so I said yes. .... maybe I should have said I had a lot of experience trying to cast. I came up well short of the long 80 to 100 foot casts needed to get past the "spook zone" and present to the fish the guide spotted

Here is a followup on my casting progress. After I talked with my brother-in-law in Michigan, who is an accomplished fly angler, I had a new perspective on the whole thing. I applied some of his suggestions and low and behold things began to flow together. I can now cast reliably and with some accuracy up to about 35'. My longest cast was 50'. These were measured by tape in my yard. I am using a 9' 5wt 4 piece rod in case that is a question.

Now some of the things I have been reading are starting to make sense to me. I just had to get the the idea of what a proper cast feels like. I think my casting progress will be positive from now on. Fly fishing of course is another kettle of fish for sure.

Mike