Reading a thread today it reminded me of some misconceptions I had when I started fly fishing, and thought it would make an intersting thread, so here's mine.

When I started, I got confused over dapping and normal fly fishing, so I thought when you were casting you had to allow the fly to land on the water, not the line or leader, and then immediately recast before the line landed on the water. Needless to say this led to some frantic casting and nightmarish problems trying to get the hang of it, even now I'd struggle to achieve what I was trying to do as a beginner. I'll never forget on my 7th or 8th visit a chap coming over to me and pointing out the error of my ways. It also makes me wonder about the first 7 visits when the grown ups quite happily let me get on with it doing it all wrong!

What's yours?

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

that trout are easy to catch!!

Darren, I can't get that vision out of my head, glad someone finally told you.

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"A glint of sun has warmed the air,The flies will soon hatch out, To lure and tempt from their deep lair, The bonnie speckled trout." SKB tackle supporter. I love Furled Leaders.

Biggest misconception ? I thought I could eventually understand women.

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It is in truth not glory,nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting,but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with his life.(Declaration of Arbroath, 1320)

When I was younger, long before I started fly fishing, I thought the purpose of false casting was to make the fish think a fly was flying around the place.

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Steve


"There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb, and getting licked in the process." Paul O'Neil

Come on!

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www.anglersholidaycottages.co.uk

Ha ha funny u shud say that i thort the same

The biggest misconception I had about fly fishing, specifically fly fishing for trout, was that trout are terribly fussy and are always somewhere between difficult and impossible to catch. Hatches must be matched with microscopic precision using only flies made of endangered species and at a given time trout would eat one and only one thing. So unless the angler can figure out what that one thing is, it's hopeless.

I think magazine articles tend to overplay this "fussy trout" angle and it probably also strokes the ego of some authors to crow on about how they managed to catch so many of these "fussy" trout. Also, when I was growing up, fly fishing was far less common than it is now and the articles that I could get my hands on tended to focus on the famous rivers of the northeastern and western US, which certainly can be very difficult to fish.

Trout certainly can be fussy, but on average they are not as hard to catch as I had envisioned when I first started out. I had the image that to catch even one or two (the fish are all wild here, BTW) was an almost impossible feat.

Needless to say, thanks to 2 anglers in particular, I understand that with technique and presentation, trout will generally take a variety of flies and it's this combination of the fly that's offered and the presentation that puts fish on the line.

Grouse

---------- Post added at 04:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:32 PM ----------

I suspect that's not an uncommon one. I've actually been asked by a bankside bystander if that's the reason for false casting.

Grouse

I suppose mine is somewhat similar to the famous grouse's: I thought you needed boxes upon boxes of flies. After a while, I realised that the flies that succeeded were those that were well presented.

Lol can just picture that. did you manage to catch anything on your outings before you were told?