Spend your money on permits
I get sent dozens of
tackle catalogues each year and where fly fishing tackle is concerned
I have to laugh at some of the prices quoted.
Take fly rods for example. Quite a lot of these are advertised at hundreds
of pounds each.
How I laughed when a young salesman on a tackle stand at an angling exhibition
recommended to me fly rods at £700 each and had the temerity to
say to me "May I suggest that sir buys a matching pair of rods?".
He picked the wrong person to say this to.
Though several of the most expensive fly rods are excellent they are not
all that much superior, in my opinion, to some of the cheaper ones.
You can buy a carbon fibre fly rod for as little as £25 and most
of those that I use cost between £50 and £100.
The same applies to reels and other gear especially now that the very
useful large arbour fly reels are coming down in price a lot. Fly lines
are a different matter.
I use sinking lines made into shooting heads and find the cheapest lines
quite adequate for this purpose. I do however recommend that you spend
more money on buying a decent quality floating line.
Remember though that if you only get one year's use out of a mid-price
line, you may well only get two years out of a line costing four times
the price.
My reason for writing in this manner, though it may well annoy some tackle
manufacturers and retailers, is that it is not sensible to spend so much
on tackle that you have insufficient money left to pay for what is really
important if your fly fishing is to be first rate.
I mean permits. The really good waters inevitably cost a lot if you intend
fishing reasonably often, say at least twice a week.
This particularly applies to good river fishing which usually means buying
a season permit. Expensive this, but as I pointed out recently, far cheaper
in our area than further south.
If you are one of the really poor anglers today with insufficient money
to spare for good regular trout fly fishing I recommend that some of your
outings are to waters where you can fish dry fly for chub instead of trout.
Some places on the Chesterfield and Stockwith canal are excellent for
this kind of fishing. Use a big, well-hackled dry fly such as a red tag
and you may be surprised how enjoyable this is and how little money it
costs you.