Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Confessions Of A Sin Fisherman

I have to make a confession or two. I catch a lot of fish and a lot of folks have assumed I was fly fishing. Well the truth is I don't know much about fly fishing. One of my best friends and hard core fly fisherman calls my spin fishing "sin fishing". I fish with a lot of guys that love to fly fish, and with the exception of only a couple of times, I usually out fish them. However, on a recent trip to southern Utah my partner absolutely destroyed me while fishing for trout on Minnersville Reservoir. I only landed two trout while he was yarding them out with his fly rod. He offered to let my try his fly rod out, but I didn't have a clue how to cast it, and didn't feel like embarrassing myself that day. However, I did decide that I needed to get more serious about learning to fly fish. So the very next day after I got home from Utah, I took an Orvis beginners fly fishing class. Mostly what I wanted to learn, and did learn, was how to cast. I figured the fly selection and reading the water I already had a pretty good handle on, but not so much the casting. By the end of the class I was doing pretty good though. I wanted to go try my hand at fly fishing that very afternoon, but Mother Nature decided to rain heavily on my parade. I decided to stay home and dry, which was a good thing, as we got a LOT of rain that evening. However, the next day (yesterday) was a new day, and I decided to run up the mountain, after working in the yard all day.

On my third cast I was lucky enough to land this chunky little rainbow using an elk hair caddis.


I fished for another half hour without a bite. So I decided to change locations and try another area that I knew held some big brown trout. I'd rather fish for them any day, anydangway. Upon arrival I missed a really nice fish with my first cast, and it stirred up the area. I proceed to fish for another half hour, but not a single fish rose. Then all of the sudden a few fish started to surface again. One of the fish looked exceptional, and I have to admit, I got a little too excited. I had a hard time concentrating on my form as I was casting and kept screwing up. This resulted in me spending a lot of time untangling my line, cursing my lack of casting ability, and thoroughly entertaining my wife. I looked like a hyper 5 year old on Christmas morning because I wanted that fish so bad. FINALLY, everything came together and I landed a perfect cast, with a just right presentation. About 30 seconds after my fly rested on the water, my heart nearly jumped through my throat when I saw the fish take it. The battle was fantastic and I worried he would come off at any second. It's been a while since I was this excited over a fish. My reward was my first brown trout on a fly rod, and I got to say I'm more than a little happy about it. It's one of the biggest brown's I've caught on any gear, let alone a fly rod. So sometimes lady-luck even smiles on guys like me despite me doing just about everything wrong...in this case patience and persistence did pay off.

Looks like you are off to a great start with the fly rod! No worries either way, though, as time spent on the water with either spin or fly gear is time well spent. I would say there are benefits at different times in different situations for having the gear and knowing how to do both. Thanks for sharing the pictures and best wishes for more memorable trips.

Sin fisherman is funny. Many years ago, I wrote a little article about fishing flies with a spinning rod, and used much the same term.

By the way, the techniques works well. A nymph or two or a weighted streamer with a split shot above it casts well on an ultralight rod, and solves the problem of brushy banks. For dries, you have to add a casting bubble, but that works, too.

RR, I've done that for years, and you are right it does work well. I will not be retiring my spin cast any time soon, I will give this whole fly rod thing and honest effort.

I got out for my first spinning trip this season today. Caught fish that looked like yours...only smaller!

What a nice fish!

Been a fisherman all my life. But, at 71, I am about to try to catch my first fish on a fly. Will be visiting with a friend in Vernal, Utah next week.

Dude, that's your first fly fishing trip? Everything about that is wrong.

No envy here. Nope.

Those fish are excellent!