it's a wonderful time to be in the sierras with a rod.

i used to float the Madison with my Dad in a little rubber raft with toylike oars back in the day. we'd go every summer. well i was back in Yellowstone this July for a week with the family. i wasn't going to take any guided trips but the wife talked me into it. fished the Madison twice, once with a noob. a great friend but these are 6-foot casts and on his first he tied a bird's nest that had the guide blinking in horror. it got worse from there. i managed a few trout, mostly overexcited 5-6 inchers hitting dries, and a couple handsful of whitefish wading while the guide clipped leaders to shreds retying flies for my buddy. my wife could tell i was disappointed so she sent me again alone.

great day. i had a pretty hyper guide who kept trying to get me to fish dry. he said in the six years he had been guiding his best was a 24-inch trout. i told him the very last time i had floated the Madison on July 2, 1988, i boated two browns over 24 inches within half an hour during a two-hour salmon fly orgy and caught a solid 15 more over 20 inches. doubt he believed me but before the whirling disease the trout were just bigger, and that was the best day of trout fishing in my life, nothing but pigs.

this trip was really good. brought my 5-wt Sage XP - great rod. i boated at least 40 fish and probably hooked a dozen more. things had changed in the 20 years since i had last done this. the leaders are much stronger now, so you don't really play the fish, just haul them in. the guide popped a vessel when i let line loose on an 17-inch rainbow, my biggest trout of the day. it was pretty funny. he started lecturing me about hurting fish and i couldn't resist but say, "Fish don't feel pain." took him a while to figure out i was messing with him. beautiful day on the water. despite the crowding and smaller fish, the Madison remains a spectacular fishing river. if i lived there i would walk it every weekend.

the madison has gone way down over the years since i fished it first in 1973. you use to see a couple of boats in a days flot or fishing. then it went to many boats and now almost you are never out of sight of multiple boats.
still some of the finest country to be in.
the fishing in canada surpasses it by far.

So, I'm about to graduate and plan on playing poker for a while and want to travel around and just do some things I've always wanted to do but never had time. When I was a kid, I used to go fishing all the time with my dad and grandfather. I LOVED going to fishing in Colorado. We would usually just use your standard rod/reel setup with bait like salmon eggs/powerbait and catch trout. It was a blast being out there. Anyways, recently I've been looking into getting into fly fishing because I love fishing and especially trout fishing and fly fishing has always intrigued me, but I've never got into it. Well, now is that time. I've been reading around and am thinking about starting out with this rod/reel setup: http://www.cabelas.com/catalog/produ...T.mc_id=k68563

Prob going to go with the 905-4 as that seems to be the most versatile from what I've read and should be decent for me while just getting started.

That being said, I'm prob looking to take a week or two (maybe more) sometime this spring (or even winter? i'm not sure how fly fishing is in the winter) and head up to colorado and try it out. Anyone have any recommendations for early spring (or winter) locales in colorado for some good trout fishing? (also if anyone would be interested in hitting up the stream/river for a few days or w/e that'd be cool too).

Spring is a horrible time to fish as the run-off from snow makes the water levels too high and the silt to thick for fish to see anything. From what I understand, winter isn't much better as the fish aren't very active due to colder temps. That being said, I don't pond or lake fish at all so you may be able to do that in the spring.

Sweet spot for fishing in rivers/streams is from late May (depending on snowmelt) through October with best month maybe August.

Rod looks good for a starter but all depends on what your use is. I mainly fish small streams where I wet wade so a 5 weight is way to heavy. I love my TFO 1 weight 3 piece as it has perfect action for me and works great when I backpack. That being said, heavier line tends to be easier for beginners to cast and a 5 weight is a good starter if you will be fishing full on rivers. Personally I think the sweet spot for an all-around rod is a 3-piece 8" 3 weight but that is based on where I fish (i.e. no big rivers, no lakes, never need more than hip waders if at all).

any warmer winter day brings out some bug activity in rivers. and fishing picks up. usually in the early afternoon. winter fishing is great as the fish havent been bothered much and will hit more as they are hungry and not scared as much.

an 8 1/2 or 9 foot five weight will take care of 90% of river and lake fishing.
as you get better and specialize you can pick up two more rods to fill in.

My wife got me this for Christmas...it's pretty cool, and not awkward to cast. Alas, the room we have with the most room has a hardwood floor. I've yet to cast a knot into the yarn leader, but just give me time.

yea you will have fun with that. you can also practice with just some line in your hand. or a small stick with line.

that thing you got is from steve rajeff. he was a distance world champion many years ago at casting. i fished with him one day in idaho back around 1980 i think. i was ashamed how far he casted as compared to me. i caught more fish though.

does anyone here frequent any fishing/flyfishing forums online? i am trying to get back into the swing of things a little and have no idea what the good forums are. specifically in the NE, I just bought a new desk that has a lot of space gonna start tying some flies again i think. been looking at fish pictures for last 45 minutes pretty juiced to go fishing and wishing there wasn't 3 feet of snow outside.

Go ice fishing. I've been killing the perch and gills here. I just recently switched to a fly reel for my panfish pole (okuma 4/5). Works very well with preventing jig spinning and line twist. Now I just need to disable the clicker.

icefishing website = iceshanty dot com

Where are you looking at in particular? I know some good fly fishing spots in Western Mass, one of which may actually be fishable right now despite the snow.

coastal. 99.9% of my knowledge, experience etc is in saltwater

i used to tie a ton of flies back in middle/high school and then didn't do anything during college. anyways, been out a couple years now and my mom just sent me all my old fly tying stuff. actually found a store in nyc too so went and bought some more materials yesterday and been playing around a little but. fun to get back into the game and tie a few.





here are some old sailfish flies i made and then a few shrimp patterns as well

good stuff there, they will catch fish and look like fun to tie.

niiiiice. is that area in NYC still there where they cut fur for the fur coats and stuff? Nick Lyons had a cool essay/story about hunting around that district for scraps for materials.

I'd love to hear some recommendations in the Berkshires if you don't mind. Me and my dad fish out there a couple times a year during the summer, we are pretty horrible but have fun with it. We've mainly done the Housatonic and haven't really tried the Green River yet.

I just found this thread and needless to say it is awesome. It reminds me of our fishing trips with my dad when I was a kid. I would love to get back in the game. Does anybody in here have any experience fly fishing around Chicago? I am planning to check out a fly fishing store this weekend and see what's out there.

have you checked out stripersonline? it's mainly stripers, but it's really fishing in general. mostly pluggers, but there's a separate fly fishing board as well as a couple of diy boards (rod building, reel maintenance, lure building, fly tying, etc) and regional boards. there's even a bunch of pretty good OT boards on there (not quite OOT but what is?) and a very right wing/conservative skewed politics board.

I believe spring in the Sierras has been canceled this year. And fall will happen in December for about 3 days.

I was considering wetting a line in the ocean today, but the weather remains crap...I did drive out to Pacifica, and the pier was open despite some water coming up on the deck when the swell hit a piling. Given how high I know that pier is, it's always a little scary to see that happen.

that pier can get hairy when the swell's up.
check out the southbay from brisbane to san mateo. some bass are showing already at the usual spots. the bait's small, so size accordingly.

i was out at the pacifica pier as well. no one doing anything even the crabbers. few out in the weather. big waves and lots of rain. so i played cards.

i always stop at colombos in pacifica for sandwich. best italian deli around.

i'm down in florida (vero beach) at my parents for a while so getting to fish a bunch. just got down here last week but been out 4-5 times so far. seatrout are everywhere. on saturday my dad and i went out and i think i caught at least 20. for a while it was almost every cast. most of it was on conventional bc the wind started really blowing after like 9am. but caught a couple on the fly earlier in the morning.

here is a decent trout (actually caught on one of the clousers pictured a few posts up)


kind of a cool closeup of one my dad caught


i caught a nice redfish prob about 4lbs or so wading last week one evening but didn't have my camera. and me and some buddies also caught a pretty nice bull shark in the river last saturday which was a lot of fun.

and here's a short youtube of us playing around w it at the boat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMvAmA616KI

since i have effectively been fired from my job i plan on fishing a lot for the next month or so. think i am going to go fly fishing at night and hopefully catch some snook one night this week. i hope the fish keep on biting!

nice fishing.... im jealous.

i used to catch snook in the canals east of miami and it was lots of fun.

did you ever consider changing your reel to the left side so you arent fighting big fish with your weak hand. assuming you are casting with your right hand.