How to buy your first fly-fishing rod
There's one mistake I want to help you avoid when you buy your first fly 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:
- Where to buy your first fly rod
- How to choose your first fly rod
- Starting to fantasize about fly-fishing
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:
