Skid's Fly Fishin Guide

>complete with awful spacing and little to no editing

The first thing to consider is a rod; the action, line rating, and action. Let's start with action. There are 4 common actions; slow, moderate, moderate fast, and fast. Each has it's time and place.
-slow: slow actions bend through the whole of the rod during the cast, handle to tip. These rods have a few advantages; for dry flies they allow for lower line speed, and subsequently a more gentle landing. The other is they allow for the use of lighter tippets, because they can flex more easily and absorb headshakes more easily. For casting, it will give you a very good feel of the cast.

-moderate: the medium flexes with less of the rod during the cast, about only 2/3-1/2 of the rod, and this allows for a gentle presentation but a little more line speed and flex, and will give you an okay amount of feel.

-fast: this is made for one thing: line speed (and subsequently casting distance)  most salt water rods will be a fast action, and for lakes and the salt, the fast action is important for those long casts, however a fast action rod will not roll cast as easily, and feeling the cast will be a little and you won't feel the cast as well

Moderate fast: this is a bit of a compromise between medium and fast; you'll be able to roll cast but not as well as you could with a medium and you'll be able to cast far, but not like you could with a fast. It's a good option for a do-it-all rod. it will also give you a little extra feel in the cast but not like a medium.



Next is line rating, which is measured by the weight of 30 feet of line in grains (437.5 grains is an ounce, 7,000 grains in a pound), that goes (commonly) from 2wt to 14 wt. I'll cover the even weights.
2 wt is ultralight. It is the lightest line and has the least casting power (~80 gn/30 ft)
4wt line is a light, it's what I would recommend for bluegill, crappie, small trout, nothing particularly big though  (~120 gn/ 30 ft)
6 weight line is moderate, it's the standard and what I'd recommend for 90% of beginners use. It's light enough to have fun with bluegill and heavy enough for fairly bulky streamers, and has enough back bone to cover small carp. (~160 gn/ 30 ft)
8 weight is heavier, and is usually used for salmon/steehead, carp, small pike/muskie, and is the standard for saltwater fly fishing (~210 gn/ 30 ft)
10 weight is heavier, it's mostly for big salmon, pike/muskie, and bigger saltwater fish (small tarpon, smaller cobia, big drum and striper) (~280 gn/ 30 ft)
12 weight is getting way up there, that's trophy stripper and drum, bigger tarpon and cobia, and smaller billfish (~380 gn/ 30 ft)
14 weight is top end, this is the realm of big bill fish and is hardly fly fishing any more (~500 gn/ 30 ft, that's over an ounce))



It's important to note that no rod is strictly the weight written on it, let's say you have a 6 weight rod but never fish creeks more than 20 feet wide, putting 7 weight line on it will let it cast better over the short distance, or if you want to arialise more line without over loading it, you could put 5 weight line on it



Now in to lines. There are 4 distinct line types; backing double taper, weight forward, and shooting head. Let's look at each one a little closer

Weight forward (wf): wf line is the most popular because of how easily it casts, and shoots. It's body consists of a front taper, a body (25-30 feet long) a rear taper, then a running line to the end of the line



Double taper (dt): dt line is the simplest, it's a front taper running, a body the full length of the line, then a rear taper. The advantages of this is that the line can be turned around after the front gets worn, and roll casting is easier with it.



Shooting head: the shooting head is a caricature of the weight forward. It's a head 30 feet long on a running line much thinner than the head and is designed to cast far. It won't inherently cast farther, but it will cast the same distance easier, however it must be used with a stripping basket. Shooting heads are often made from weight forward lines 2 weights up from what the rod is rated for then cut to 25-32 feet until the rod is loaded properly. For running line most people use heavy mono-filament, sometimes round, sometimes oval, and sometimes with groves in it. Other people prefer heavy braid (spectra) or dacron



Backing: backing is a dacron braid of 20-30 pound breaking strength, and the back of the flyline is tied to this for two reasons.  The first is so that if a fish pulls out all the fly line you still have line to fight with, the second is just to take up space with the spool

The last thing with line to cover is sink tip, full sink, intermediate sink, and floating.

Sink tip is just what it sounds like; the first 10-15 feet sink while the rest floats which is measured in inches per second (ips) so 6 ips would mean the line sinks 6 inches every second



Full sink is similar, in that it is measured in IPS, but the whole line sinks, and intermediate doesn't really sink or float

it is important to note that floating/sinking/floating/wf/dt should not affect grain weight, the only time it should is if you are making a shooting head in which case you generally go up in grain weight/30 feet



Floating line obviously floats

Then to read a box of line, the first letters indicate what the type of line is, weight forward (wf) or double taper (dt), then the number is line weight, and the last letter(s) indicates full sink (fs), sink tip (st), intermediate (I) or floating (f). The sinking lines will often be followed by a number indicating sink rate

Now on to reels, this is a short one. There are two basic types; small arbor and large arbor.

Small arbor just has the center spool and usually doesn't have much line retrieve per crank, or much drag. Where it is good is they're usually cheap, and they're light

Large arbor is much more popular, because they have more line retrieval per crank, and a good drag. They're vital for big game species, because of the line retrieval and drag

The reel is not important for casting, if the line is in the reel it can't be casted.



For learning how to cast, look for the orvis casting guides on YouTube




Now let's look at leaders and tippets; a leader can be either tapered or tied. A tied leader can be made at home for a fraction of the cost, but a tapered leader is convenient, and 9 feet is standard length but can be as long as 15 or as short as 4

If you do buy tapered leaders it's still wise to invest in tippet rungs and tippet material

Tippet material is measured with an X rating because when fly fishing line diameter is more important than strength, because the taper is what's important
I recommend buying a "leader tying kit" because it will pay off quickly while learning. (When a leader costs 3 dollars a piece and you'll be tying 2 in knots per day while learning, it's easy to justify 30 dollars and a few minutes to tie your own)



Lastly flies. There are 5 basic types to look at, the nymph, the streamer, the dry fly, terrestrial, and ones that are hard to classify



Nymphs are what you'll be using for trout and panfish 80% of the time. The basic nymphs to have are pheasant tails, hares ears, eggs, stoneflies, midge larvae, and caddisfly larvae

Streamers will do 90% of work for anything predatory, but will also cover trout and bluegill during the right times of year
The common streamers will be the clouser minnow, the deciever, the zonker, countless sculpin patterns, and many others

Terrestrials are vital in the summer- ants, beetles, hoppers, and spiders are all important and good for indicator patterns. To do that select a large terrestrial and tie it to the end of the line, then tie enough line to the hook to bounce bottom with a nymph

Dries are important when hugs are hatching. The big ones you'll want are the elk hair caddis, a stimulator (stonefly pattern), the Adams; parachute or standard(mayfly) the rusty spinner(mayfly), Matt's gnat/ Griffiths that, and some cripples are good too

Lastly are the weird flies


These would be most saltwater flies (crabs and shrimp) and poppers, they're important. But most important is the wooly bugger. No freshwater fly box is complete without them; they don't mimic anything; but they mimic everything. They're a leech, they're a minnow, they're a nymph, and they can be stripped in, swing, or dead drifted.


as for fishing techniques, lets cover some of each of them

nymphing is very straight forward, you're just trying to bounce the fly on the bottom. the primary method is just a nymph under an indicator, but in faster or deeper water you may need a double nymph rig or a splitshot, and the fly size indicates the X rating needed, the higher the number of the hook/pattern, the higher number of the tippet. for a size 22 zeebra midge to look natural, you will need 6x or 7x, possibly even 8x tippet, but for a size 8 stonefly you could easily get away with 2x or 3x, and for streamers, 9 times out of 10, you can use 1x or heavier


the basic indicator rig is simply something boyant, a foam pinch on indicator, yarn indicator, large floating fly, "thingamabobber" or even a 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch cheap red and white bobber to name a few, this will be placed on the leader so that the fly will bounce just along the bottom of the hole and can be adjusted as necessary. if you're fishing a fast, deep run, you may need to add a splitshot or switch to a beadhead nymph.


the next step from that is the double fly rig, this goes much like the first, but uses a larger, heavier fly in front as a weight, often referred to as an "attractor" pattern, and is usually a very heavy fly- large  beadhead stonefly nymphs, large "sno cones" in green and zeebra midges, and copper johns are popular, and usually sink very well. then to the bend of the hook of your attractor pattern, 12 to 18 inches of tippet is added and your trailer pattern on to that- usually hares ears, pheasant tails, glo bugs, and similar. both should bounce bottom, and your trailer should more specifically match the hatch than the attractor pattern.

the trailer pattern will have most of the fish but now and then they'll take the attractor

highsticking is the other main nymphing technique, and is a little trickier
it works by having a lot of splitshot and keeping your line out of the water, it will usually only be done with one fly

lastly is dragging. this is usually done in still water, and is very simple, you need a particularly long leader, and floating line
you simply cast out, and let your fly sink to the bottom. then drag it slowly right on the bottom, painfully slowly, using your line as a 30 foot strike indicator. if the tip of the line goes under, a fish probably picked up your fly, or you're snagged and should get ready to re tie

for streamers, its pretty simple, they can either be swung or stripped in.
swinging means casting at a 45 degree across the river or stream, then letting the fly swing across. its usually used to cover a lot of new water fast, and is fairly simple, when you feel something weird or see the line do something strange like hesitate, set the hook, its probably a bite

stripping just means pulling the line to make the fly move, and there are countless ways to do it. just play around and watch videos
in still water, this is your only option

for poppers, its very simple, cast, let it land, once it lands, let the rings clear. give it one pop, let the rings clear, then proceed with whatever "cadence" (pattern of popping and pausing) the fish seem to like. experiment, and pay attention to see what they are keying in on, try one cadence for 5 minutes, then change until you find what they like

for terrestrials and dries the techniques are same: drifting, or skittering

drifting means exactly that; letting the fly drift along the water

skittering means giving it a strip so it looks like an insect about to take off or struggling on the water. its not rocket science.

there is one special technique for terrestrials, drowning them. sinking them in the water and soaking them so they sink slowly, then let it drift across rocks and  brush, or any fishy areas

lastly, is saltwater. the two main techniques for saltwater is stripping, and dragging
strip streamers, drag crabs, and try both with shrimp. crabs can also be stripped if you want to play with it too- for presentation there are very few rules, have fun with it- tha's the whole point of fishing, have fun, and experiment.

if you have trouble finding fishy areas, there are a few simple rules: foam, rocks, wood, shade, and holes
fish want to feel safe, and have food available. rocks and trees provide shelter from current and and predators. fish will be as likely to be in front of them as behind them foam indicates areas where stuff generally tends to flow, including food. fish will be more likely holding on the rock near the foam than the rock 10 feet away from it. lastly shade; that gives them temperature control, and makes them feel safe, as do holes. cast 5-10 feet ahead of where you want to fish, so your fly has time to sink

and to wrap it up; mending. if you cast out, and let your line drift, you'll see the current isn't flowing at exactly the same pace. a mend is just a flick to compensate for this, allowing th e line to straighten out, rather than bend out of shape with the drift. its also best to get mending done right away, and not do many mid drift, to preserve the natural presentation on the nymph.  there should be many videos of this online