For this post I am going to touch on the gear that I think is important to have for general and specific disciplines in the world of fly fishing. This is aimed at readers who are new to the sport and could use some guidance on gear that I find important. General gear is gear that I use on every trip where specific gear is stuff I will use when fishing a particular fish or fly presentation. Lets start with general must haves in my opinion.
For any fly fishing whether it be stream or lake a vest is an extremely handy thing to have. I don't really use it to hold flies rather I use it to hold terminal tackle and tools. Some of the tools I would consider must haves are the Ty-Rite fly snare, leader straightener, forceps, a line nipper, and possibly a nail knot tool. The fly snare is probably the tool I use the most since it is nice to hold the fly when tying a knot or tying your fly on. Other things that I will keep in my vest are splitshot, leaders, tippet material, and strike indicators. The vest holds a lot of things for me so my fly boxes are put in a different storage utensil.
For my fly box storage I mentioned above I use a different article than my vest. I use a fanny pack of sorts. It holds up to 8 medium fly boxes as well as some other things. In addition to the fly boxes I will often put my cell phone and keys in the pockets as well as a bottle of water. On the belt strap of the pack is where I store my wading staff which is a handy thing to have when fishing an unfamiliar stream or when walking down icy gorges.
The three things I would consider in the specific gear would be rods, reels, and fly line. Starting off with rods they are classified into categories called weights that designate the literal weight of the line that it can handle without straining the capabilities of the rod itself. They most commonly range from 2-12 where the higher the wt number the heavier the line. So as a general guideline below is a list of fish that are commonly targeted with the different rods.
2wt: Wild Trout, Panfish
3wt: Wild Trout, Panfish
4wt: Wild Trout, Panfish, Small Bass
5wt: Wild Trout, Panfish, Bass
6wt: Bass, Lake Run Trout
7wt: Bass, Lake Run Trout
8wt: Large Bass, Lake Run Trout, Salmon
9wt: Salmon, Northern Pike
10wt: Salmon, Northern Pike, Muskellunge
11wt: Muskellunge
12wt: Muskellunge
For every rod there is a designated "action" for it. This tells an angler the stiffness of the rod. Very stiff rods have a "fast" action where floppy rods (like fiberglass rods) have a "slow" action. Fast action rods are desirable if you are not worried about surface presentation and need distance. Slow action rods are often used for delicate dry fly presentations that require a soft land on the surface but not a mile away.
As for the reels, here in NY they are most often just a glorified line holder. Very few times am I relying on the reel to slow down a running fish. The only exception to the line holder rule is when fishing for salmon in the fall or fishing the tributary mouths in the spring for steelhead and brown trout. Those are the only times where a good drag is going to be needed. So on a standard fly reel you have your fly line backing and your fly line. The backing is dacron line in 20 or 30lb classes. You can get these lines in many different colors to give a different look but they all serve the same function. Then the bulk of what goes on the reel is the fly line.
There are many many different types of fly lines but they all generally fall in one of four categories. The first line being a Weight Forward (WF) tapered line. This is the "standard" taper in the world of fly fishing. This means that the front of your line is going to be heavier in the first 30ft than the rest of the line. This helps for distance casting and casting into the wind. The weight forward also helps the fly turn over properly for the correct presentation. The next type of line is called Double Taper (DT) fly line. This line is similar to the WF line but the front taper is only 15ft and and it also has 15ft of taper on the reverse side too with the constant line in the middle. These lines can be reversed since it is symmetrical. Wild trout fisherman like these lines since the lighter front end has a "lighter touch" but the trade off is that you cannot cast into the wind nearly as well. The third type of line is Level Taper (LT). This line has a constant thickness and is all round a pretty boring line. They are cheap but they are very difficult to use since there is no real weight to the line to cast and carry your fly. I would highly recommend beginners stay away from this type of line. The three lines above are all floating lines where the last type of line is sinking. The sinking line is a line that sinks entirely. The whole thing will sink and some lines will do this at different rates depending on how fast and how deep you want to go. a fast sinking line will sink at around 9-10 inches per second where a slow sinking line will be in the 2-3 inches per second range. Another type of sinking line is a sink tip line. This gives you the best of sinking and floating lines. The first 10-15ft of the line will be a sinking line where the next 85ft will be a floating line. These lines are considered a WF line since the "heft" of the line is at the front.
I hope that beginners reading this have some new insight on what gear they might need when trying to get into the sport and comments are always appreciated. Don't be embarrassed to ask questions. everyone in fly fishing has had to start at the bottom and asked the same things. Hope to see you out on the streams! Tight lines everyone!
