The purpose of this piece is to help the beginner fly fishing. The terms used and the basic methods used in fly fishing may be unfamiliar to the beginner at fly fishing, so we will start from the very beginning. Therefore, if you are a beginner fly fishing person, please read on in order to become acquainted with fly fishing.
The things required for fly fishing are generally known as tackle, but if you want to be more specific about the sort of things you need, you can tack on the words “fly fishing”. So, we use the phrase: “fly fishing tackle”. Fly fishing tackle, or gear, basically comprises artificial flies, a fly rod, a fly reel and fly line. The way it works is: the fly is attached to the line, which is wound around the reel, which is affixed to the rod or pole, which is used to cast the fly or other bait.
In order to be able to cast the fly as far as possible, the line needs to be a little heavier than other types of line, because a weight is used in other forms of fishing to achieve the same effect. Furthermore, the artificial flies come in all kinds of shapes, sizes and colours to reflect real, live flies, depending on the species of fish the angler intends to catch.
In general, an artificial fly is made of hair, plastic, feathers, fabric, fur and many other kinds of material in order to make the flies resemble, as closely as possible, the insect or fly most commonly eaten by the particular sort of fish in that particular month or at that time of the day. This means that each fishing spot requires that you select a certain type of artificial fly that will look like the insects living in the area where your desired type of fish frequent. Therefore, a type of fly used in one area of the country may not be as successful as you’d expect elsewhere.
There are classifications of flies too, although they fall into two basic super categories, which are referred to as ‘attractive’ and ‘imitative’. The imitative artificial lures resemble real insects, whereas the attractive ones just rely on colour or the twinkling of sunlight in order to lure fish without necessarily resembling the fish’s usual diet.
Further sub-classifications are then used to sub-divide artificial fly fishing lures into: a] dry (imitating grasshoppers, dragonflies, etc. which float on or near the surface of the water); b] sub-surface (looking like larvae, pupae) and c] wet (looking like leeches and minnows and other small fish or fry).
The main distinguishing feature between fly fishing and non-fly fishing is that fly fishing depends to a great extent on the weight of the line to carry the artificial lure to that area of the stream where the fish are located, probably at a distance from the bank. The line is often green and hollow, so that it will float.
However, non-fly fishing relies rather on the added weight, usually made of lead previously, to draw the line off the reel and carry it forward to the right pool, where the weight will also take the bait or lure down to the feeding fish.
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