How old was you when you started flyfishing?

[William Fitzgerald]

Lets see---I started at five years old and Im now 86

[DaleW]

I don't remember the exact time. Vacations with my parents was to travel to different state park or county campgrounds, staying in an old timey canvas wall tent. Dad always made it a high adventure and fishing was always a part of it. About the best I can recall was that I was maybe five years of age. The first fishing poles were a limber tree limb, then graduated to a cane pole and soon I had worked my way up to a casting rod. Also, these camping vacations were a family affair and would include uncles and aunts and cousins. My favorite uncle who had just returned from WWII showed up with a Wright & McGill spit bamboo fly rod and I thought that was the neatest thing I had ever laid eyes upon! By the following season I had saved up enough to buy a used bamboo rod (I think it cost five bucks!) and that was 1949. Went off to the military in the early 50's and that put a stop to ANY fishing. After I returned home I bought a brand new True Temper fiberglass fly rod (over 50 years ago) and on that rod is where I really cut my eye teeth fly fishing.

[Gigmaster]

In my early 20s. I was in the Marines, and I was going though the last part of Recon School in Dothan, Alabama (Ft. Rucker, for parachute training...the Marines had no jump school back then). I had the weekend off, I was by myself and I wanted to go fishing. A local store (I think it was a KMart) in Enterprise, AL. (the nearest store) had a South Bend Fly Rod outfit on sale, complete with flies, for around $15.00. I bought it, and a book on fly fishing, and went to the Choctahatchie River (behind the base) and self-taught myself how to fly fish. I caught a sunfish on my 5th or 6th sloppy cast, and I was hooked for life. From then, on, I have had a fly rod handy in the car, bicycle or motorcycle, wherever I go.

I have never had any formal instruction, and jet skiers follow me around to "jump the wake" when I cast (tongue-in-cheek....they don't have a smiley for that...), but I still catch fish.

I still have the South Bend Rod and Reel, 40 years later.

[comanche]

around-9-10-not real sure-about 1947-48-grand-father bamboo fly rod i think they were bought at montgomery ward-dont know name of rods-he bought every-thing there in them days-even a boat and shot-guns??wow what a long time ago & now days lucky i remember yesterday?

[EPuffer]

So, how old was you? 24

What kind of rod did you have? Some kind of cortland

Where did you go? AKA Puffers Pond Vernon, VT

Who with? My self,Would you go with some one learning?

What was the first fish you caught? L.M. Bass

[SquatchHunter]

So, how old was you? 25

What kind of rod did you have? 9 foot, two-piece Cortland cheapie

Where did you go? Gallatin River in the valley

Who with? buddy who was also just learning.

What was the first fish you caught? 8-inch brown trout on a rubber-legged stonefly nymph.

[Sawkill]

It was the spring of 1954, I was 15 and a soph. in high school. I had a cheap cane rod I had purchased with my paper route money at the local hardware store. I fished in the Rahway River in Cranford, N.J. The fly I used was a Scarlet Ibis wet, and after fishing for about fifteen minutes, I caught a 10 inch stocker Rainbow. That started a wonderful association with the long rod that continues today.

[brandonl]

So, how old was you? 31 (32 now)

What kind of rod did you have? Orvis Streamline 8.5' 5 wt

Where did you go? Oak Creek, AZ

Who with? Just me fishing, but my dad was there watching and snapped a couple pics of the first fish.

What was the first fish you caught? 9" stocked rainbow

[GrayGhost]

I was 11 years old, some 40 years ago. Got my first rod form money earned bucking hay in the hay field a berkley fly rod I bought at the five and dime store, with an old auto reel I got at a yard sell.
Ghost

[Martin McFly]

27 - 28ish, I'm 35 (almost 36) now. I started with a setup from Walie's and a level line, man, the guy at the sporting goods dept. told me to use a swivel to attach the fly to the fly line...imagine me trying to cast that fly...