Trout fishing newbie

[Ferret664]

First of all congratulations on your first trout ?? something you will remember for a long time. Now you will be literally hooked ????

Secondly I do believe all Stillwater trout are triploids so can't actually spawn even though hen fish will sometimes have eggs in them.  so will explain why the owner wasn't bothered by you harvesting the fish . 

[oldypigeonpopper]

hello, well done, took me 3 visits before i caught my first trout on a milbro truefly rod and reel to match with a double taper 6 line,  bit like you i fished away from other anglers, on 2 nd visit a chap noticed my casting and gave me a lesson and a fly, 3 rd visit a nice rainbow, i was hooked, that was so many years ago off tomorrow to our club lakes and meet the friday old timers gang

Edited May 3, 2018 by oldypigeonpopper

[Dave at kelton]

Well done success breeds success! Now  just go along and relax. When you start tying your own flies you will feel an even greater sense of acievement

[yates]

Well done on your first trout. Don’t take it personally the bailiff ‘Frank’ has always been a miserable old so and so but quite a decent bloke once you get to know him. Cleatham is quite difficult for a small water as the fish wise up quickly as they get caught several times becoming hook shy

[rubyred]

Very well done on your first fish we experts? still have blank days so just stick to it.

[Retsdon]

For what it's worth, here's my tip on practicing your casting. Rather than practicing 'casting', instead try working on specifically controlling your loop size - by that I mean the C shaped leading edge of the line as it rolls out in the air. And do so both on the fore and back casts. Ideally they should look like mirror images of each other. What you're aiming for is to be able to throw a long narrow loop at will. This is because -like a bicycle chain driving a wheel - the smaller the 'cog size', the faster the line's groundspeed, which in turn means more distance on the cast, better wind penetration, etc, etc. 

An exercise you can practice is to drop the rod down almost to the horizontal, stand almost sideways to the cast so you can watch both fore and back casts, work out enough line to load the rod, and play around trying to widen or narrow the loop size. The golden rule is that the line always follows the rod tip. As a result, you'll discover that NOT swinging the tip atound will give you the tightest loop. The classic analogy from Lefty Kreh is 'sliding your hand along a shelf'. The actual 'cast' part is no more than a slight tightening of the grip to put a 'dot' on a wall in front, or a tiny turn of the wrist to do the same behind. And tiny means tiny. Your thumb shouldn't 'rotate' any more than an inch at either end of the cast. Everything in between is just sliding along the shelf. If you watch video of guys like Hywel Morgan distance casting, you'll see that they make the forward 'cast' in front of their bodies, and their back casts behind them. So what you're aiming to do is to break your cast into four parts. 1) Push everthing froward along the shelf-2) tiny firm tap on the wall 3) slide everything back along the same shelf 4) tiny firm tap on the wall.

Just watch the loop size and play around with it. Don't worry about clock faces or any of that nonsense. Your loop size is your teacher. Just remember that the line always follows the rod tip so if you want a long,  narrow loop, your rod tip must of necessity follow a long, narrow (straight) path. From that, swing the rod tip more, and you'll see your loop open up, then slide rather than swing again  and your loop eill tighten up again. Being able to control the shape and size of your loop at will is the key to casting properly so it'scworth spending time on.

Good luck.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Retsdon

[Gerry78]

After you get into fly fishing its all you think about most people start off at fisheries for stocked rainbows which is good fun i did starting out But after a while starting hunting wild brown trout on Rivers Nowdays i just fish rivers the fish arnt as big but i love stalking a wild river with flies Good luck and the secret is enjoy yourself Fishing 

[oldypigeonpopper]

hello, gerry 78 is right, i have fished small streams in devon/cornwall/ wiltshire avon and nadder/ the USK, and southern ireland, MAGIC fishing, son caught his first wild brown on the WYE a nice 2llb er, even better if you catch on your own tied flies, 

[oldypigeonpopper]

On 29/04/2018 at 21:34, fieldwanderer said:

Very grateful for this, thankyou 

 

I'll admit, I'm making progress very slowly with the casting but I have a book on the way so I'm hoping to be able to jog my memory - it's certainly a lot easier with an instructor talking you through it.......

hello, if you want to see some trout fly casting, look out this film, A River Runs Through It, all though the story line comes from the USA early boot legging days and directed by robert redford i believe on his ranch in montana, what the father preacher instilled into his sons the love of fishing with the fly,  the scenery and casting will take your breath away. (for the film i am sure they had 4 weeks to learn) !!!!!!! 

Edited May 27, 2018 by oldypigeonpopper