I started coarse fishing aged 7 in 1951.

Since then I've also become a sea-angler.

I prefer active fishing (I can't be doing just sitting there waiting for a fish to come along, when the next swim looks so enticing, or wondering if the bait needs changing, or perhaps.......) so I've loads of lure-rods and boxes of lures, centrepins and stick-floats and fish for pike, bass, chub, mullet, perch, smoothounds ........

In 60 years of angling I've steered clear of carp-fishing, pole-fishing and fly-fishing (well apart from an olive dun that I bought aged 12).

Then late last year, after a couple of glasses of red-wine, I bid for a fly-rod on ebay just for fun (I really didn't expect to win with such a low bid).


When it arrived I remember thinking 'What the hell am I going to do with this?'


Well now I have 4 fly-rods, different lines, several reels, a couple of hundred flies at least, and several rainbow trout in the freezer.

I'd really like to get back to doing some coarse/sea fishing, but there's just too much still to learn, too many flies I haven't yet used, too many stupid questions buzzing around in my mind.

So I thought I'd drop in to say hello

welcome mate , youll enjoy yourself on here.i love cod but get sea sick so no can do.

tight lines

grahame

Can't get any more active fishing than fly fishing. This then leads to flytying, really a hobby/past time on it's own.
Welcome and enjoy.

I used to make my own jerk-baits etc, and still make floats, tie my own sea-rigs etc

But I'm firmly resolved not to go down the own-fly-tying route!

Life's too short! (and anyway my eyes and fingers really aren't what they once were)

Mind you my resolve almost weakened this evening, I started thinking 'How hard could it be to tie a bloodworm pattern?'

Not hard, peice of red wool knotted onto a hook.

Hi Leon and welcome

You only need to tie bread flies for Mullet

__________________

Hi Leon - fancy seeing you round here!

The grey ghosts are frustrating enough on genuine Mother's Pride.

I can think of far easier ways of driving myself over the edge than trying to tempt them to a bread fly!

---------- Post added at 09:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:26 PM ----------


Shhhhh! Don't tell Elton!

Hi Leon,welcome
more activity on here than AN's fly section i think

Amazing to find someone who's been at It longer than me-fishing that is! Haven't tried saltwater fly fishing yet, but wouldn't turn down the chance if someone offered to take me out one time. I started coarse fishing in the USA-South Dakota only one year before you. I was too small to handle a baitcaster so dad fashioned a pole from an old chevy radio antenna. As I didn't have to cast far it's surprising the fish I caught on that old antenna and I was sad in a way when I graduated to a bamboo pole and then a baitcaster (catch and release was unheard of then-probably still is except for carp in the midwest). Got introduced to a fly rod in 1955 by the late Louis Davis and the first largemouth bass that grabbed my self-tied conglomeration of deer hair got me hooked for life even though I had to wait another thirteen years to fly fish for trout. Had a break from 1979-2007 following the theft of all my tackle from my garden shed in North London while the family were on holiday in Norfolk. Now I'm retired I'd love to do more, but am limited as I have to rely on the good hearts of like-minded anglers who don't mind taking me out-my wife drives, but as she's disabled is uncomfortable driving me to nearby waters and I haven't driven in many years-since I left the US military in 1971 and I'm too long in the tooth to take it up now! You'll get lots of help on the forum (long as you don't get bored too easily). Sorry for going on so much!