Anyone fly fish?

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

V98

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Mar 2, 2020
Messages
383
Reaction score
773
Location
Oklahoma
My wife took it up about 2 years ago and she’s better than me! She didn’t have a lot of baitcasting habits to break!

We make a couple trips a year to the White River in NW Arkansas. If you haven’t been trout fishing with a fly outfit on the White River you ought to make it a bucket list item.

I’m told they have the largest brown trout in North America. People regularly catch browns over 25” with some over 30”. I have met people from all over the US and a few other countries while fishing the White.

I haven’t caught a big brown yet but, I haven’t stopped trying!

It is definitely an addiction!
 
Joined
Aug 7, 2009
Messages
4,746
Reaction score
5,020
Location
Edmond
White River rainbow
Nice - is that Bull Shoals Dam in the background? That area holds some big fish. They have a no boat / fishing area below the dam but big fish occasionally slip out of that restricted area. When the dam is discharging it is a sight to see the boats lining up, running up to the edge of the restricted area, fishermen casting along the edge of that area, and fast drifting back down river. It’s a little tough and fast to fish that area when the dam is discharging but we caught some nice size fish in that area.
 

SPDguns

Sharpshooter
Supporting Member
Special Hen Supporter
Joined
Feb 20, 2011
Messages
5,787
Reaction score
6,567
Location
Stillwater
Nice - is that Bull Shoals Dam in the background? That area holds some big fish. They have a no boat / fishing area below the dam but big fish occasionally slip out of that restricted area. When the dam is discharging it is a sight to see the boats lining up, running up to the edge of the restricted area, fishermen casting along the edge of that area, and fast drifting back down river. It’s a little tough and fast to fish that area when the dam is discharging but we caught some nice size fish in that area.
Yes. This was from back in the day before the minimum flow restrictions. You could wade all the way across the river up in the catch and release area. It was anywhere from ankle to knee deep.

I went last year and happened to be there during the shad kill. It was ridiculous. Combat fishing NASCAR style. I could have hopped from boat to boat from the dock all the way upriver to the dam. I was in my inflatable pontoon boat and their wakes were killing me. Motors screaming up and down the river all day. People illegally culling fish. People keeping fish in the catch and release.
 

LittleLoggie

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Mar 28, 2015
Messages
506
Reaction score
1,313
Location
Moore
Need to go back and read this thread. But I have a fly rod and a tenkara rod and let me tell you it’s all hard. I don’t have the time and patience right now to start learning this art. (I do believe this is more of an art) with my two young boys trying to fish next to me, no way. The few times I’ve went alone I give up without any guidance and resort back to a spinning rod.
 
Joined
Oct 12, 2017
Messages
1,477
Reaction score
1,931
Location
Oklahoma
My Marine Corps buddy (Bill Hall) for over 50 years (now a retired architect who would probably deny my assertion) has been afflicted with the same peculiar affectation as those of you whom are also proponents of this forlorn and obscure obsession. He sequesters his collected flies and paraphernalia with the same reverence as if it was pornography, and ties all sorts of ‘what he calls’ flies and secures them with bizarre, esoteric knots; then he violently thrashes lakes and streams all over North America from the PRC (People’s Republic of Canada) to the waters in the Gulf of Mexico. I ascribe his all of success to the desperate attempts of fish to make him stop beating the water’s surface. He ties flies with hooks of various sizes. sometimes without barbs (would you believe) large devices that con cross one’s palm to the invisible (I can’t make myself believe there’s actually hooks in them). He claims that the ‘no see um’ gnat sized flies actually catch trout, but I’m intelligent enough to know that hatchling minnows become snagged on these microscopic contraptions and subsequently fish of incrementally increasing sizes get impaled on the barbed fins of the smaller fish that they are eating until he finally feels resistance on the line; then, he reels, or drags, them in. To believe a microscopic hook without a barb is capable of catching a fish of any significant size is delusional. Despite all of the contumelious arrogance, obnoxious aires of superiority, extravagance and pomp and circumstance surrounding his peculiar avocation, there is one thing that I find to be the most annoying: he releases everything that he catches. By my standards, as well as the standards of every honest fisherman who has ever walked on this planet, serious fisherman eat what they catch! The only indisputable exception to this doctrine applies to Bass Fisherman who also release their catch. This practice (of course) is related to the ‘unknown’ fact that Bass are an ethereal, mystical species and higher life form that should be honored, praised and worshiped; but never harmed!!! If it was up to me, I would ban Fly Fishing all together. I honestly believe that Gill Netting is a more venerable preoccupation.
 
Last edited:

HFS

Sharpshooter
Special Hen
Joined
Sep 8, 2009
Messages
2,894
Reaction score
3,453
Location
Shangri-La
I fly fished a few times and caught some of the dumb ones.
There is a learning curve to it and when first starting I said Jesus was not a fly fisherman because there's no way he fed the multitudes with a fly rod.
It's a fun method of fishing but somebody said it's like smoking a pipe, there's extra equipment and some people go down multiple rabbit holes with it.
 


Write your reply...

Latest posts

Top Bottom