after withstanding years of pressure from my brother in law, finally had a go at casting in his back garden last year - that got me interested!

have worshipped the golfing gods for a lot of years and played to a reasonable standard but sadly have grown weary with how the new equipment has cancelled out the years of hours I spent hitting golf balls

anyway, my B-in-L told me about this forum, should I wish to find some trout waters around where I am (North Yorkshire) so I joined the forum, fired off a question and pretty much hit the jackpot straight away and am sorted

what I have been doing is firing off questions, mainly about equipment as I'm trying to second guess what I'll need before I get started - probably a mistake but I'm trying to shorten the learning period and quickly get to a reasonable level of competence

so its goodbye to golf for now, and I'll start worshipping the fishing gods from now on - but I have to say you fly fishers certainly talk your own language and who honestly can remember the names of all the flies - I'm trying to put together a list of likely contents of my fly box from reading up on fly types and my heads bursting

anyway, back to this casting thing, I'm buggered if I can get it. I can move a 1.62oz golf ball 250+ yards relatively straight but I can only move a piece of coloured string 10yards in front of me, not so straight - there are so many parallels with golf whereby people can make the complicated look so straightforward (enough of this, need to get back outside and try to keep a firm wrist)

now I need to work out where to ask a question about these flies

all the best, Dave

Welcome to the forum Dave. I'm a golfer also, if you thought golf was expensive, better get a bigger wallett

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Eddie
"We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation."
Voltaire

thanks Eddie, I know a lot of people who successful combine the two, I think I have too much of a compulsive streak whereby its all or nothing

the thing is having been involved in golf for a good few years, I'm not likely to be taken in by marketing, whereas now, I know I've got

'fishing novice=sucker' on my forehead

whats cheap and whats false economy?

Never really got into golf, but like fly fishing one gets plenty of excercise.doing it Don't worry about all the names of flies. Just ease into it gradually. Some anglers think they need every fly ever invented, but really it's best to find out what patterns are best where you fish and try to keep things light. As far as casting a large back garden is handy for practise(I have a sizeable park across the road from me as long as I can keep the dogs from chasing the end of my line). It's also money well spent if you can afford some tuition from a qualified casting instructor. Outside of that just keep reading the posts and absorbing like the rest of us on this forum.

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The scenery in the Grand Coulee area of eastern Washington was worth the air fare on its own!

thanks flytier

about the flies, am out for a work day with my new club this weekend so I suspect I need to take a paper and pen to write down the names of all the flies people catch with

the casting, I'm fortunate to have a couple of competent people to coach me and my drive is long enough to go up and down - the sort of distances that I aspire to at the moment

if only I could get my left hand to do as its told - hold on to the line, dont throw it forward. I wouldnt mine but I can juggle, which requires left and right hand doing different things simultaneously. Never mind I need to watch that casting DVD again

Hello dave, how long did it take you to master your technique with golf,?? i would say before you find casting a fly line too difficult thinking you will never do, i was the same years ago!! if you can just get just 1 lesson from an instuctor maybe from this forum, and take this information so with practice and including fly patterns and entamology through the season you will find after a time become a good fly fisher. you can also think a casting video might help and a good book on fly patterns and water craft to make reference too each time you go fishing. i have said before on here i dont rate myself a master of casting after 40 years, and at times trying to know what the trout will be munching on at any time i can get to the water can be ing, what is important is to enjoy those moments by river or lake and soothe the soul.

thanks flyfishy, that puts things into perspective - in search of perfection - if I can pinch a line from a famous golfer's autobiography

I've only been out twice, once to walk the streams of my new club and once where I caught my first trout - hence the big cheesy grin in my avatar photo, from a pond though - you are right, it is good for the soul and if it was easy, anyone could do it. Your suggestion about qualified tutelage is a consistent one so perhaps I'll have to reconsider

this forum and the wider internet is an amazing source of mental triggers and penny dropping moments e.g. an almost throw away comment in one post about stopping the forward cast at (approx) 10 or 2 oclock produced a neat smooth loop in the fly line that straightened out whereas before, my line was falling in a messy pile

onwards and upwards, Dave

Dave, this may sound a daft way to explain the stopping part of the forward cast but: Did you ever as a kid grab a handfull of mud and squeeze it onto the end of a stick-tennis ball size...bring the stick back over your shoulder and propell smoothly forward then arrest it's progress quite sharply around 10-11 o clock-mud flies off at high speed and whacks your mate in the mush . Get the timing wrong and just like the fly line it lands at your feet.

Silly way of explaining I know, but the principle applies.

Chris.

hello dave, i am sure a lesson would benifit and get the casting technique right before any bad habits form, i am sure is same in golf!!. then it is just practice and fish. yes when i have on occasions shown not taught a few people over the years i just said remember a clock and forward to 10 and back to 2 with a gentle rhythm start with a d/t and progress to a w/f. fishing the w/f is more about shooting the line past the head. i most use light d/ts for river and w/f for lake but you can use a w/f on the river this season i have a 5 w/f cortland sylk. i am not 1 for above a 7 these days, so hope all will go well for you and enjoy

As an instructor, I'd recommend you book a lesson and get the basics right instead of developing your own bad habits to the point where you have to 'unlearn' before you can progress. This is not touting for business, by the way, it's just that it took me a heck of a long time to unlearn my own faults before I qualified, and a few quid spent early is worth a fortune later.