How to buy your first fly-fishing rod

We are entering a time of giving. And it has come to my attention that there are several of you who don't own a fly rod.

This is OK. But it's a situation I will try my best to rectify in the right way.

There's one big mistake I want to help you avoid making when you buy your first fly rod. So, come with me on a bit of a journey. It'll be worth it when we get there, I promise.

Here's what we've got:

1. Where to buy your first fly rod
2. How to choose your first fly rod
3. Starting to fantasize about fly-fishing
4. My favorite fly rod for kids

Where to buy your first fly rod

Here's the mistake I want you to avoid: Don't buy your first fly rod online.

Go talk to a real human who works with fly-fishing stuff everyday, and talk to them first.

Step 1: Go to a fly shop.

A fly shop is the first—and most important—stop for a beginner to buy a fly rod.

Why?

When you buy a fly rod in a fly shop, the fly rod comes with a lifetime supply of advice from that fly shop.

You'll pay into that lifetime advice fund when you visit to stock up on flies or buy another spool of tippet or waders or cool hat.

But once you've attached yourself to a shop with a purchase like a rod, you're in. At least in an unspoken way.

"Hey, uh, you guys sold me a rod and...[insert question here]" is an passphrase to learning just about anything you want to know about fly-fishing.

It's like that covenant (which I think might be only in movies?) that if you save someone's life you're bound to look after them forever. Or is that if they save your life? I'm not much for covenants.

Anyway. In addition to great advice, accessories, and tons of other necessary goods, you will usually also reliably find two things in any good fly shop:

• hot coffee
• a scratchable dog

All around the world, fly shops are usually pleasant and necessary detours.

Fly shops are not always the easiest places to locate. I've seen them in spaces no wider the wingspan of a JV point guard. I've seen them in people's garages. Here's one in Stockholm, Sweden that took all of its 200 square meters of real estate and made sure it had a huge sign:

Thus, introducing a pre-step:

Step 0.5: Find your local fly shop

You can Google this. Big box shops will show up here. Avoid them. The $50 you save will not be worth it, in the long run. Aim for a place that looks locally-owned.

Here's yet another example of the fine service I offer to you gentle reader. If you're stuck and can't find a fly shop, or can't decide which to visit, send me a note and I'll help you find the best fly shop closest to you, wherever in the world you are. Judging fly shops is my superpower. One day, when I get an intern, we'll have a favorite shop list. Maybe this is a bass-ackwards way of starting that list.

Ideally you have found a physical location somewhat near your commercial zone where you can go to purchase fly-fishing goods and services. If not, please pursue the following sub-option:

Sub-option A: Order from a fly shop where you might fish someday

Did you go somewhere once where there was fly-fishing and want to go again? Got a cabin? A weekend place? Want a weekend place? What better means to putting down weekend roots in a slightly-more-fishy zone than you currently dwell than the aforementioned ever-flowing font of advice?

You can always just call a fly shop and buy a rod over the phone. They'll mail it to you. (After you get through Part 2, not yet!) If it's in a place where you'll fish eventually, that totally works.

I bought my first two-handed spey rod from Oregon before I lived here, and not only saved on sales tax, but eventually cashed in on the free advice.

Additionally, it's OK to have a friend or partner call and set this up covertly in the background if this is meant to be one of those contrived surprises. (Friend or partner, if you have been forwarded this page, you play an important role in this, which I will get to later.)

Just don't do this

I know what you're thinking:

Jesus, Nick, we live in the era of immediate consumptive gratification. You are here, on the internet its nexus. Why have you not just told us?

Give us the Wirecutter "Buy this one, dummy" and the link to Big River, Inc. so we can get it tomorrow or sooner, Prime Time. You could even have used some sort of referral or affiliate link and earned a few pennies on my purchase.

Well, dear friend, mostly because you would have already bought it by now, and you would not be reading this. And I would not have a chance to tell you this very important thing:

Buying your first fly rod is unlike buying anything you've ever bought before.

It is a Very Important Purchase.

Buying a fly rod is like buying a saddle for a horse. Like buying your first new boat. Hell, it's like buying an engagement ring, or your first pair of really nice shoes, or your wand in Diagon Alley (sorry, the kid's going through a Potter phase and we've read that part a hundred times).

You're buying a fun-finder. You're buying a vehicle. You're buying a portal to another dimension.

If you were a kid, in a simpler time, you would survey the market incessantly and save up and covet and save up and covet and save up and have a few setbacks along the way and maybe cut a picture out of a magazine or a catalog and look at it a while and wear out the edges and then covet some more and, finally, one day, you would get that rod.

You owe it to yourself to make it special, take your time, and suck the marrow out of the experience around buying the rod, rather than just making a couple clicks.

So, even if you buy online, don't just buy the thing. Dig around. Read the reviews. Watch the videos. Get a feel for the thing. Then, make your decision.

Another thing you don't want to do

You also don't want to buy your first fly rod at an outdoor big box retailer. Cabela's, Sportsman's Warehouse, Bass Pro Shops, etc. I mentioned this earlier those are basically Amazon warehouses where you do the picking and pulling.

While there are some exceptions (Orvis, which is more of a medium-box retailer), for the most part employees aren't particularly well-versed in fly-fishing, and aren't reliably present when you might want to stop in and get advice.

Other ways to acquire your first fly rod

There are other ways, besides going to a fly shop, to get your first rod.

This week I went and saw that short fishing film, Casting at Ghosts, that I'd mentioned in previous newsletters. The organizer held a raffle, as they frequently do at fly-fishing events. A young lady won the grand prize, a fly-fishing outfit: rod, reel, line, case, the works. From the look on her face, it was her first-ever rod. Winning one at a fly-fishing event raffle is an acceptable way to acquire your first fly rod. However, it is unpredictable.

Another acceptable way to acquire your first fly rod is by inheritance. You can have one passed down to you. However, this, too, is unpredictable.

Two challenges with inherited fly rods:

• It will probably have already bonded to another angler.
• It may have been from a previous era, and constrained by outmoded materials.

Be cautious with hand-me-downs from anywhere earlier than the '90s, where the materials used to make fly rods (mostly carbon graphite) improved significantly.

How to choose your first fly rod

OK. So you've found a fly shop, either near you, or in a place you want to go fish. Next thing you want to do is figure out what kind of rod you need.