Your Fly Fishing Information Center!

Fly fishing requires more knots than most other forms of fishing where, generally, if you can tie your line to the hook you are golden.   In fly fishing, you need to connect your backing to the reel, then you need to connect the fly line to the backing, then the leader to the fly line,  then the tippet to the leader, and then you can tie your fly on the end of the tippet.  In the instructions for each knot, you will see why each one is vital for a specific purpose.  It is important to be able tie all of these knots, however, it is not necessary to memorize all of them.   I will explain the hows and whys of each knot and a little practice goes a long way.  There are several more knots that you can add to your arsenal, but the ones I have here will do just about everything required for fly fishing.  Most of these knots I've learned from a handy tool called The Fisherman's Ultimate Knot Guide by J.E. Sherry.  The man who taught me to fly fish insisted I purchase this folding, light weight knot guide and it has been in my vest for years.  Get one, you'll thank me later.

The Basics

* Fly Rods are quite possibly the most important purchase when you start looking for your own fly fishing gear.  If you’ve been in a fly shop or browsed online for fly rods, you know the sheer number of options can be mind numbing.  You will have also noticed that the prices for these rods vary from around $50 to over $3,000 for some hand crafted bamboo fly rods.  

Product Review:  SAGE ZXL #5 Weight, 9'

Made By:  SAGE

Well my review of the SAGE ZXL has been a long time coming.  A little while back I wrote a blog post about trying to find the perfect #5 weight fly rod.  After trying several rods, including a Winston Boron IIX, an Orvis Helios, and the "budget" Sage Vantage, my two favorites were the SAGE Z-Axis and ZXL.  I understand the Z-Axis is SAGE's most popular rod.  In fact, it may be best selling fly rod of all time.  But, I instead chose the ZXL.  Well, I finally had a chance to take mine out on the water and I couldn't be happier with my choice.  Without question it is the best #5 weight fly rod...  for me. 

Product Review: Litespeed Hard Alox Reel

Made By:  Waterworks-Lamson

I was looking for the perfect reel to put onto my new 5 weight Sage ZXL rod.  I knew I wanted a durable, large arbor reel.  I didn't want a budget reel, but I didn't want it to cost an arm an a leg either.  Finally, I wanted to keep it light.  I narrowed down my list to a couple of reels and opted for the Lamson Litespeed.  I could not be happier.  In fact, "love" may be the perfect word to describe how I feel about this reel.

The Basics:

Keep this in mind; most trout taken on a fly rod are hooked within 25 feet of the fisherman.  It is a lot easier to cast short distances like this for the beginner, so, don’t be intimidated by what is overemphasized as being the most important aspect to fly fishing - fly casting.  Later I’ll talk a little bit about different casting problems and the skills needed to improve all around casting. But, for the beginner, it should take just a little practice to effectively cast a fly short distances.  Before you experienced Anglers start tearing me a new one here I am suggesting that it takes more than great casting to catch fish.  A beautiful and accurate 80 foot cast will do you no good if there is drag on your drift and you are using the wrong fly.  So, since casting is a necessity of fly fishing, let’s talk about the basics of getting the fly to the trout.  Oh, yeah, you will need a fly rod.