what are your reasons for choosing to be a flyfisher?

i thought it may be interesting to get some background. i will go first!

i started fishing at the age of three, i caught two blennies at morecombe bay with a shakespeare starter kit, i was hooked!
i started off course fishing, you know the drill maggots and floats on my local leeds and liverpool canal. through my teens, i started pike and carp fishing, which opened my mind to thinking more like a fish.
i prefered pike to carp, as all my methods for carp were using an unatural bait to tempt the fish- i prefer to catch and fool a fish in a natural way, at the end of the day this is what fishing is to me, hunting and fooling your prey. so from this i got into lure fishing for pike.
a great way to catch them, it is very energetic as you are always on the move trying new spots always working the lures, and watching the fish chase your lure in the water, dont get me wrong, i still enjoy all other forms of fishing, but theres nothing like lure fishing.
i started using spinners for trout and perch. the sport on my local river was great for trout, but it only worked on days where the trout were preoccupied with minnows, and i could feel that i was missing a lot more trout that were not interested.
i tried using bubble floats with flies suspended beneath as i felt that casting a fly line was such a waste of energy and time, but this method just scared fish as it hit the water.
so i started fly fishing- it all made sense, i could catch and fool any fish with natural methods, with the most subtle presentation, plus i dont need to go to the shop to buy bait any more- i make my own!!!

so how about you?

Started coarse fishing with my Grandad as a little boy over 50 yrs ago, then went onto do some beach/rock fishing, [which I still do a bit of.]In early October 1989 I had a week in the highlands of Scotland and saw some late end salmon and trout fishing being done on rivers and loch and really fancied having a go at it. I got myself some tackle and have returned to Scotland every year since to fish. I also fish various venues in N. W. England.

I began fly tying as well as fishing and the two are now my main hobbies, I have a static caravan in S. W. Scotland and spend a lot of time on river and loch in that area as I am retired.

My only regret is that I didn't start fly fishing sooner.

I'm with you, I have a picture my dad took of me in the front of his boat out in the middle of the Mississippi River, that was taken when I was 3. That was late April and there were still pieces of ice in the water, you'd probably get arrested for taking a 3 year old out fishing like that now, it's probably considered neglect or something.

I first say fly fishing on television and in the pages of Field & Stream magazine and for whatever reason I wanted to try it. I didn't know anyone who fly fished, though, so I was on my own.

By an absolute miracle, I was at an outdoor jumble sale (aka "Flea Market") when I was about 11 and on a table I spotted a old fiberglass St. Croix fly rod. It was orange, it had an action that was so slow that to land a fly in front of a fish tomorrow, you'd have to cast about now, and I had no concept of anything like line weight, but I jumped on that rod like an alligator on a poodle. I must have stood there for half an hour just holding it, I'd never held an actual fly rod before.

So I bugged the stall owner for an hour and finally he let me have it for something like $10 which was all I had, plus he threw in a reel that was a beat up old Pfleuger Medalist knockoff.

I caught a lot of fish with that old rod. I learned to cast by reading a book that I checked out of the library about 40 times in 2 years. I didn't catch an actual trout until 20 years later when I was on my own and I moved somewhere that actually had trout water.

As I always say, I fish because I like to fish and I like to catch fish. I'm not a fly-only angler, I fish bass, trout, steelhead, occasionally salmon, pike, walleye, panfish, and so on by whatever method might work best or be the most fun at the time.

I'm now the proud owner of 3 boats so I simply split my time between the two seasons of the year: Fishing season and boat maintenance season. Each is about 6 months long.

Grouse

Started fly fishing because I couldn't bear not going for three months during the coarse fish closed season, and the sea was too far away. The fact that Grafham was just as far and I couldn't afford to go to a small stillwater was neither here nor there; I used to fish the various streams around my Hertfordshire home, whether or not they actually held trout. As it turned out one of them did - the Chess.

My first fly 'outfit' consisted of a twelve-foot glass match rod, Shakespeare Alpha fixed spool reel and thirty yards of string, waxed with a candle stub. Don't laugh - it worked, sort of. I upgraded to a proper fly line wound onto a Strikeright centrepin the following year, and used the top two sections only of the aforementioned match rod, with the reel taped to the end. I finally got a proper fly rod (a Daiwa red fibreglass eight and a half footer) two years after first attempting the Indian rope trick with the string, by which time I had mastered the rudiments of casting.

Nowadays I have a selection of Hardy, greys and Orvis rods and reels to choose from, and I can even afford the odd trip to a proper trout fishery. Do I enjoy it any more?

I doubt it would be possible.

Do you still have the string/rod combo? Be interesting to cast now and see how it feels!

I started surf fishing in West Wales, casting lures for Bass, as well fishing with worms for Bass/slob trout in the estuaries, before progressing to traditional sea fishing in the solent when my parents moved to hampshire, getting really into distance casting with a multiplier. Then one fortnight I camped, literally, on a mud shelf trying for a stingray. I never got one, nobody did, and the sea fishing mag next issue stated that lots of stingray had been caught off this shelf! Rubbish! So I gave up in disgust convinced that sea fishing was rubbish and was hyped to look good by the mags to try and sell more mags.

Then a carp fishery next to me converted to trout fishing, and I was walking past one day with my cousin, and we thought we'd give it a go. I couldn't believe how helpful and friendly the other fisherman were! They helped me to cast, one chap gave me the home made fly he had been catching with ( I can still remember it, shell back made from a bin liner so he said ), another surrendered the hot spot he had been fishing from, I was totally blown away by how welcoming and supportive these adults had been to me, a snotty 12 yr old in a fake barbour wax jacket, especially when compared to the average course guy hiding his secret bait! So that's what got me into fly fishing, fly fisherman themselves, a better bunch of folk you'd be hard pushed to find, and I still passionately believe this to be true. Here's to all those kind souls at Mopley Farm, Southampton, for introducing me to this wondeful sport! sniff........... ( land of hope and glory...fades.........)

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http://www.flyfishinglessons.co.uk
http://www.aapgai.co.uk

Standing at the falls of Killin with my wet fly fanatic father, about 10 years old, watching a very skilled flyfisher cast a long line upstream was the inspiration. wanted a fly rod for xmas and got a soft 7' 3 weight fibreglass milbro, took me a year to catch my first trout...nothing much changed there then.
one of the few things in life that draws real encouragement from others that do it.

I had my first rod and reel bought for me by my dad for my second birthday by a fanatical dad, a shakespeare 6 foot glass spinning rod and reel , i cut my teeth at a local pond catching roach and perch on bronze maggot under a porcupine quill float, won my first match when i was 5 and went on to win the area junior match league.... carried on coarse fishing for everything in as many different waters as possible by as many different means as possible.

I reached 17 and discovered girls motorbikes and beer, took a sabbatical from fishing... moved to the south and as i was 5 minutes from the beach thought i would have a bash at sea fishing, spent many cold night sat on the beach... i was fishing one sunday for mackerel to use for bait that evening wen a chap wandered along the beach in a pair of chesties with a 5 weight rod , sink tip kine and a small eddystone eel as a fly, he was catching mackerel like they were going out of fasion and on that 5 weight you would have thought they were tarpon !!!

It fired my imagination, i did a bit of reading about swff and found out i live on one of the south coasts biggest bass nurseries... i bought myself a cheap 8 weight rod and reel made some clousers minnows and off i went... the first day at the beash was hillarious to say the least, i spent 20 minutes thrashing like a maniac, i was knackered and managed to put a line a healthy 8 yards

quite by chance a local fellow whe fly fished was walking his dog, he gave me some pointers, and i was off, just through reading forums and websites and magazines i developed an interest in game fishing... i bought yet another cheap rod and reel more conducive to river fishing, went to a local tackle shop and bought a fisht full of dry flies ( 90% of which have never been wet ) and hit the river... second cast i got a bite and hooked into my first ever graying... that was me addicted... i have found fly fishing far more challenging than any other method but infinately more rewarding, i have found my fellow fluff chuckers to be the most accomodating gentlemanly folk... its a train thats out of control and it shows no evidence of slowing down

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I did it to get away from the hoards of female admirers.

Brilliantly executed strategy, Buzz. Women don't seem to get within a mile of you.

Damn. Makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Grouse

some great stories guys, keeep em comin, and its great to hear that the fly fanatics are a fiendly bunch coz we are arnt we
its great to see how people have progressed on to fly fishing, i my self believe it has has a definate edge over other types of fishing. maybe i should attach a poll to see wether what type of fishing background we started in? i.e. course sea or game?