Your Start to Fly Fishing!

Fly fishing is a very fun and effective way to fish for a whole range of species, whether you're fishing for bass, trout, salmon, bonefish, tarpon, carp, musky, or really anything else you can think of! Fly fishing relies on us casting a weighted line which in turn carries a lightweight fly (lure) to the fish.

At Drift, we're here to help make your adventures a success, that's why we put together this breakdown of some of the basics you'll want to consider when starting your fly fishing journey!

The Rod

Fly rods come in many different lengths and weights (strengths). The average single hand fly rod is 9' long, with some rods being slighter longer or shorter. Shorter rods can be handy in very tight quarters, however longer rods usually perform better if at all possible. Rods a touch longer, around 10', can be good for river fishing as they provide more line control, however they can be slightly heavier, making the 9' option most popular for most anglers.

Fly rods are rated in "line weights", usually marked as "wt" on the rod. These weights indicate how heavy a line they are meant to cast, as well as how powerful they are when fighting a fish. A good starting point for someone looking to fish smaller trout, bass and panfish would be a line weight somewhere between 4-6. For the angler looking to target larger fish like bass, pike, steelhead, and salmon, an 8wt rod may be more appropriate.

For most new fly anglers, we recommend looking at a kit as this includes most things you need ready to go our of the box and they tend to be the most affordable route. Of course many more options are available if looking at components individually, we'll be happy to walk you through options if you come by the shop or drop us a line!

Shop all fly rod/reel kits here

Echo Lift Kit - What we use in class!	Redington Original - Another awesome value kit!

Leaders & Tippet

Leaders will vary depending on what size of fly you're fishing and what species you're targeting. A good starting point for smaller trout would be a 9' 4x leader, and for larger fish like bass and steelhead a stronger 9' 10lb salmon style leader will work well.

You'll want some tippet as well so you aren't burning through leaders too frequently. To keep things simple, we'd recommend grabbing a spool of tippet in a matching size to your leader (ie: 4x tippet on 4x leader, 10lb tippet on 10lb leader).

Shop all Leaders & Tippet here

SA Absolute Trout Leaders	SA Salmon/Steelhead Leaders (also good for bass)
SA Absolute Trout Tippet	SA Absolute Tippet

Tools

There are just a couple of tools that you'll need to fly fish, some you might already have! Essentially all you need is a pair of plier or forceps to remove hooks with and a pair of nippers to cut line with.

Shop all tools here

Loon Classic Nippers	Loon Rogue Forceps

Flies

Of course it would be hard to fly fish without some flies! Getting going, a great option is to check out our custom fly kits! Just tell us what you want to fish for and we'll select what we would fish ourselves for you, taking all the guess work out of it!

Shop all flies here

Custom Fly Kits

The above list of gear should have you well set for almost all of your fly fishing needs! If you need any assistance in getting going, please get in touch and we'll be happy to go over your needs with you!