Home Forums Fishing Flyfishing What happened to fly fishing?

Over the early years I've owned pfluegers, Martins, South Bends, and Wright & McGill fly reels. Somewhere around here I still have a few of them. In the mid 1970s a local sporting goods distributor filed for bankruptcy. My friend (who owns a small fishing shop) and I ended up purchasing all the Hardy reels they had in their inventory for pennies on the dollar. I kept a few for myself and he kept the rest.

Nice MC! I'm fixing to go hit the local creek for just a while before all the good football games. I've got a good selection of graphite rods, but today I'm using my Eagle Claw 8.5' 5wt with the Hardy made SA Reel. You got some jewels there!

A lot of the nicer old-school stuff can still be had on eBay for fairly reasonable prices by today’s standards. I picked up a couple Lamson LP-1 and LP-1.5 reels recently. They are tremendously nice reels(like new condition!) …that actually balance out a rod the way they’re supposed to. Many of the new large arbor reels are just silly looking and too heavy to properly balance out a rod in my opinion. They look like a big tinker toy when mounted on a rod!😁

Also, there are still some very nice rods to be had for $100-$150 dollars….no need to buy a Sage($450+) rod. St Croix, TFO still make great rods that won’t break the bank and come with great warranties if you should ever need them.

Reel fly rod.com is a great company to buy from and they often have sales and closeouts on really nice stuff! And their customer service is excellent!

I too was dumbfounded by line selections when shopping recently. I just wanted a decent DT floater to throw a few small dries and an occasional nymph or two with a strike indicator.🙂

There are still a couple companies that make great lines like those of yesteryear. Barrio Fly Lines(UK) comes to mind. Their Mallard DT lines are straight forward and simple, float high and easily cast a fly a good long ways….simple is good.😁
Even with shipping from across the pond Barrio lines are a bargain, IMO, compared to some of the newfangled lines of today that seem to require an advanced degree to decipher if they’ll work for you or not.

Leftybolt

Nice bunch of reels, Mick! My newest Hardy is now 30 years old, the oldest is a St. George from circa 1910 (talk about buttery smooth).

My last couple lines I bought were Wulff Triangle Tapers (which admittedly weren't very many). Anybody else here liking them? They suit my techniques nicely.

I worked for Wright & McGill Co. for almost 45 years. I wore many hats for them over those years. About 30 years ago (been retired for 5 years now) I had the pleasure of digging out all the historical archived rods they and Grainger made over the years, long before I hired on. My job was to inspect them, made sure they were in fact what was written on the tube cap, inventory them and seal them in new boxes. 95% (over 100) where bambo rods taken from the assembly line and placed in the safe. The others were the founders personal rods. Opening the tubes and looking at those beauties and smelling the tung oil that was as strong as the day it was made, was a joy.

gnoahhh,

Yes, Wulff triangle taper…great lines!

Unfortunately, prices are getting steep on those too.🥴

Leftybolt

I was never a fan, especially for short work as I much prefer a DT.

For small flies no doubt but a Wulff Taper does a great job with bulky flies even at short distances. A 3 weight tossing hoppers really works better with it.

Not in my experience

And thusly we have now answered the question of why there are so many types of lines these days.

You got me there!

I think if I overlined by one weight the TT would have been better. To be fair, it's been 15 years since I fished one of those so things may well be different today. Both line and me.

I just spooled up 2 reels with double taper line and fished one over the weekend. You couldn't have given me a double taper line 15 years ago.

That's some interesting history, my first fly rod (1965) was an old Wirght & McGill glass rod, The only one in town had been sitting in the store for who knows how many years. Took me some time to find a correct line and a Medalist reel but I caught my first rainbow on a steelhead fly I tied using chenille (I think it was an Atomic Bomb).

I think sometimes we get hung up on the gear and lose track of the fish. I know I've been guilty of that. The best dammed fly rod man I knew could suck trout out of water that was confirmed to be barren by the rest of us, and he did it with a nondescript old fiberglass rod with half the line guides missing and the rest held on with electricians tape. His reel was a shot to schit old Pflueger Medalist and most of his flies were rusty ones he pried out of streamside foliage. RIP Barry Tosten, I hope they outfitted you with some good tackle in Valhalla.

Yes I believe most people are hooked on the gear and not the fish or fishing. I have three boys that have all learned to fly fish on second hand gear from yard sales and they don't even know they make reels and rods that cost more then some rifles. Spend what you want on gear but remember there is more important reasons for fly fishing. Sights sounds and usually the piece and quiet.

Youre right! My take on it is that flyfishing gear has gone the way of hunting gear where camo is now more like "designer" clothes and if you dont wear the latest and greatest high priced youre outdated.

If you really want to find out what has changed in fly fishing, you need to see what hasn’t changed. Marketing is as big in fly fishing gear as it is with firearms.

With the effort to make something look innovative and new, all you need to do is look for a Sage LL (light line) or a Winston TMF (Tom Morgan Favorite) rod and you will see these rods selling for way more than they did when they were new.

Finding improvement in the casting quality of these rods isn’t going to happen. Putting a fly in front of a fish with a Sage LL and a double taper line can’t be improved upon with new gear.

You can buy the new stuff, but it’s like buying a 6.5 Creedmoor, totally unnecessary with no improvement, yet people still buy it, proving that is made to sell not to fish.

It's an interesting thread. I suspect that most of us don't get to spend as much time as we'd like outside fishing and hunting and it results in a lot more reading, discussing and dreaming than doing. I hope to change that next year with retirement.

Before the CF I had just a couple centerfire rifles (A P64 M70 fwt in 243 and a M70 in .338 WM) and I had shot every deer I'd killed with it for 20+ years using it and hunted elk with the other (but never killed one with it) with no issues. Somehow I now have a bunch of rifles that don't do that any better than the M70 but they bring me enjoyment.

Sort of the same with fly rods. I have good coverage from 3 weight to 10 weight but mostly fish the 3-6 weights for trout and smallmouth these days. In fact, I fish the 9' 4 weight helios more than any others. But, if it's dry flies I do enjoy the one bamboo I have and if the stream and fish are small the 3 weight gets the nod. The 9 and 10 weights has not been out of their tubes in 20 years except for a trip fishing for Stripers on the Chesapeake quite a while ago.

There have been innovations over the years that have made fishing better or more fun.

Flies - CDC and Synthetic materials delivered much more successful flies especially in nitch situations like emergers and streamers, much stronger hooks, and barbless from the start.

Lines - Remember the "memory" of the 333/666 lines and how, especially in cold water, they just stayed in coils and you enjoyed that abrupt halt as the knot you missed hit the guide. New lines don't do that.

Leaders/tippets- Sure I still tie up my own leaders, or more often take a knotless and rebuild them when they get broken but the materials, mono is so much better these days - thinner, stronger, more flexible. We also have fluorocarbon that in the right time and place is really amazing stuff.

Waders - heavy rubber waders and neoprene that were either cold or hot and it didn't matter in either case because you'd be sweating inside them? Give me modern breathables.

Rods - Here, I have to admit, I got nothing. Rods are such a personal thing and used for such a wide variety of places and styles. I used to Salmon and Steelhead a lot in the Pac NW and my Powell North Umpqua was perfect then. I suspect if I was fishing there now I'd be all over the new longer spey rods.

So while a lot of outdoors stuff is designed to separate us from our money, reality is there have been improvements and sometimes we bite and get fooled and sometimes it really is better. If you haven't bought anything in 20 years you may be missing out.

And in reality, I'd trade ALL of this new developments in gear for the shoulders I had as a teenager!

Guys:

Just loving this thread and agreeing with everyone.

I always thought as a hobbyist rodbuilder I was ahead of, maybe even WAY ahead of, the technology of the day, but rod technology is getting so much better that I am just in the pack now..... Well mebbe just a little ahead.

As to fly reels, yeah I actually use the old martin tuna can reels, and the Medalists, and Hardy's as well as the newer CNC machined aluminum reels.

But my some of my heirloom flies date back over 100 years, and poppers over 70. I still fish them all, with never a thought about old age: just appreciation for those before me, my ancestors.

Anyway glad to see there are a lotta folks out there that love this sport in the way we do.

I picked up a Heddon 320 reel, an Allcock (JW Young) Gilmour 3 1/4" and a 371 Airex in the past 2 weeks, along with 2 fiberglass rods.

Life is good