How to Have Fun Fly Fishing for Trout

I have for the most part have caught my first fish on a wet fly line - my first trout, first salmon, first bass, etc. I have even caught a bull head on a wooly bugger. I tie hundreds of these wooly buggers during the winter and spring. I will tie them on a weighted or unweighted, I will tie them on a variety of different sized hooks, in a variety of different colors. I will lose 10 or 12 of these during any four to five hour period, because I will allow them to drop as close to the bottom of the river or lake that I can before I start to pull the line back. I catch most of my fish this way.
I can also wet fly fish when the wind is too high for dry fly fishing. The heavier line allows me to force the usually weighted fly to get some distance in a strong wind. I find the dry fly while nice, to be too restrictive, so I tie mostly wet flies, and I will tie some dry flies. 70% of my time will be spent wet fly-fishing. I will dry fly fish on a calm day when the fish are breaking the surface.
There is nothing more satisfying than to watch a fish rise to the surface to take a fly that I have tied.

I was standing on the river bank, untangling my fly line, that had hit a tree behind me and had become one big birds nest. My nymph had sunk into the shallow part of the river's pool. I had only been fly fishing for a couple of weeks and had not yet learned the finer points of fly fishing, such that the roll cast would have been a more appropriate cast for fishing the river.
I spent 10 minutes untangling my line, I then started to reel in the slack when I felt the line go taunt and low and behold a nice 17 inch rainbow was heading in the opposite direction. I had made several horrible mistakes but I still landed the fish.
Other than my cast which was a total disaster, I had virtually dragged the fish onto the bank before the leader broke. Fly fishing leader is a very delicate fishing line and if you do not play the fish properly, they will easily break the line. I have learned this over the years with experience.
I am also quite good with the roll cast now. These are things that you learn over the years.
People will ask me - "It looks like alot of work, why do you fly fish?" I usually say "Cuz, it is a gas!"
When you hook a small panfish on a flyrod, you would swear that you have caught Moby Dick. There is no greater feeling of satisfaction than watching a fish grab a dry fly that you have tied.
In Cobleskill, NY there is a reservoir where the SUNY students stock several hundred tiger trout in the spring. These tiger trout are quite aggressive and are very active game fish. There was one occasion when I was on a pier and I was checking the action of a woolly bugger that I had tied. There were some small panfish following it, when out of the depths came a large form, my woolly bugger was viciously attacked, and down into the depths the dark form went.
He was a very active fish and broke the water several times. I had only a 2 lb leader on was very concerned about landing the fish, so I led him along the pier, about 30' to the bank to land him.
I love catching these tiger trout, I think for fighting they are just tad more friskier than the rainbow trout.
No matter where or when I am going fishing I will always take a fly rod, except for Ice fishing. I love fly fishing and get a kick out of it. If you enjoy fly fishing visit my Fly Fishing Store

Catching pan fish on a fly rod is a lot of fun. They are plentiful, and they will bite at anything! From Perch, to Crappie, to bluegill, etc, these are fun fish to catch. You can use any junk fly to catch these fish. I will use flies that I screwed up on to fish for these fish. They are also very tasty, especially if they are large enough to eat, the some of the smaller ones I will cook up and just feed to my cats, they love them.