The first Time I picked up a fly fishing Rod...

[tcorfey]

For me it was summer of 69 took my older brothers 5wt out and caught blue gills and perch. Then graduated from there to building my own rod and started fishing trout, after that I left the lake to fish the small streams that were within bike riding distance. In those days anything over 10" would go home for dinner I would get my pants wet and stuff the trout in my pocket then ride home with the tail sticking out. Boy I miss those days...

[ladalske]

I have been fly fishing for 25 years. The drive started when my uncle told stories about my grandfathers love for fly fishing in the truckee and sierras. I have a picture of my uncle at age 7 fishing next to my grandfather on the truckee river.

[wineslob]

Around 1981 a buddy of mine showed me fly fishing on a...........................ditch. He must have caught a full limit out of one "pool" (just an exit from a tunnel). I was hooked. Went out and bought a Berkley "kit". Kinda like the Courtand ones you get today. He taught me how to cast, I've not stopped since.

Oh ya, he also brought me this guys shop, Bill I think was his name. The shop was near/next to Bob's Toy Land in the Town and Country Village shopping center. There he got into tying flies...........

[Frank Alessio]

I started fly Fishing 60 years ago at the age of 8....The first time out was with my Grandfather, My Dad and My Uncle...I was fishing in Castella.. After I caught my second fish in about that many casts I turned around for some approval and all three of my instructors were gone....Some things you just never forget....

[TonyMuljat]

I started as a youngster in Pleasanton, CA of all places. I had been bait fishing as a kid to the local lakes, Del Valle, Shadow Cliffs, etc. When I was in 8th grade, at Wells Middle School, we had a class called "creative fishing tackle". Yes, that is correct. I was very good a winding rods, and graphite was just coming into favor. I got a special dispensation and was allowed to take the class both semesters. The second semester my teacher arranged for me and another classmate to tour the Weir and Sons bamboo rod factory in Los Gatos. We bought bamboo blanks, which ended up being defective.... Nonetheless, my folks got me a fly outfit for Christmas and I would spend hours in our court learning to cast. I could cast a county mile. One of my earliest fly fishing memories was being at Shadow Cliffs. There was sort of a "back lake", almost a swamp, not the main lake. I was fishing an ant pattern and just casting it way out there. I had no idea I had about a 4" bluegill on the other end until I backcasted the poor sucker out of the lake and over my head, almost hitting my buddy in the face...

[Mike McKenzie]

It was a metal telescoping rod and I never flang a fly with it but I caught a lot of trout usin' garden hackle! The next year I got a Shakespeare fiberglass "HDH".. (for you old farts!) Caught my first trout on it fishin' the Middle fork of the Stanislaus at Kennedy Meadows...Here's a picture....

I graduated to a Monkey Ward "genuine Tonkin Cane" 8 foot fly rod in 1949 after my Dad decided I wouldn't destroy a "real" rod..... I still have it to this day!

Giving away my age. I first tried fly fishing at Boy Scout camp (Wolfeboro) in 1953. Loved it. Caught a couple of 5"ers on a Royal Coachman. Been a fly fisher ever since.

Happy New Year,
Harlan

Harlan,
We spent a lot of time in the early 50's campin' outside the gate at Wolfeboro right next to the river. Caught a lot of hatchery trout at that old log layin' crossways in the river where they dumped the fish! As I got older I got to "go with the men" after real trout over on Highland Creek and fishin' "the Rock Slide" with no fear. I doubt I could or would do that today!

Mike

[dpentoney]

My Dad started me fishing with a fly rod strip casting worms on Buckeye Creek in Bridgeport Meadows in 1961. I fished that way on Buckeye, the East Walker, and the Owens River in the early '60s. In 1965 he moved us from SoCal to Eureka, in large part due to the fishing. That summer I fished the same way for half-pounders on the Klamath River. That Fall my Dad saw the fly-fishermen on the lower Eel and wanted to fish that way. He was one of the founding members of the North Coast Fly Fishermen and in the late '60s they put on casting clinics where I was lucky enough to receive casting instruction from and come to know guys like Lloyd Silvius, Art Dedini, Nelson Rossig, and some other old time Eel River Fly-fishermen. Some of those guys started fly-fishing steelhead on the Eel River over a hundred years ago. I was lucky enough to get in on the North Coast fishing in the late '60s and early '70s before steelhead became the "fish of a thousand casts". Things really started happening for me once I got my driver's license in 1971. I pounded the Eel, Van Duzen, Mad, Klamath, and Smith Rivers until I left the area in 1981, usually putting in over 100 days a year on the water. One of my most prized possessions is a Fenwick FF858 I bought from Lloyd Silvius used for $20.00 in 1971. It was his personal rod until he decided the ones he wrapped were better. I don't know how many fish he took on the rod but I know that I caught and almost always released over a thousand steelhead and salmon on that rod.

[Loomis 1]

Seven years ago I am washing my boat when a guy (Tony Buzolich) walks up and introduces himself as my new neighbor. He said " I here you are the guy to go fishing with". He then asks "Do you fly fish?". Being a gear guy I replied "Nope". I won't print what I was actually thinking about this Fly Guy standing in front of my house. A few days later I go to the local Bait and Tackle Shop to get some sturgeon bait, and here is Tony working there. He starts showing me pics of stripers he had gotten in the delta. My only question was "On a fly rod???????????". A few days later I sat down with Tony and asked if I wanted to buy "One rod" for stripers what would he suggest. Now I have been to La Paz a half dozen times, Florida, New Orleans, Ascension Bay in Cancun, San Diego several times, Brazil, and I spent a month this last October at Sugar Barge Marina, where I parked my R.V. next to Dan Blanton and absorbed his knowledge. I now own stock in GLoomis, Redington, TFO, Ross, Tiber and Abel, Dynaking, Puglisi, among others.

I have since converted several family and friends to the fly rod. My disclaimer is always "Warning, once you start it is more addicting than heroin" I only wish is that I had met Tony 30 years ago.