For me, about 99% of them fall into one of three cagtergories. 1) “Where do you fly-fish around here (i.e. Oklahoma)?” Or 2) “Yeah, by Grandpa used to like to catch bluegills too.” Or my personal favorite 3) “Sounds like fun, but I fish for bass.” It drives me nuts. Like one poster on this board likes to say, “If it swims and eats, it will eat a fly.” When I tell them I’ll catch as many different species of fish on a flly rod as they will on conventional gear and probably just as big, I don’t think they believe me. (Thats why I take pictures of my fish lying next to my fly-rod) What are some comments you hear?
“UH, i didn’t know there were trout around here.” Area-Northwest Alabama Sure are plenty of bass though. Not to mention sunfishes and crappie. I won’t mention all the species I have caught on a fly-rod in my splashing waters.
Tell them to go down to the tailwater on Smith Lake, Alabamaistan has trout now. But what can you do more fun than catch a smalljaw on a flyrod? I never have but I was lucky enough to catch a few on my ultra light spinning rod when I was a youngster in my 30’s. Man it has been waaaaaaay too long since I been on Pickwick and Wilson Lakes.
poke flyfisher good to hear another Okie lander on here! I’m down here in Louisiana and you should have heard these folks when I said I was going to fish for reds with a flyrod I got some real strange looks and a couple of “What’s a flyrod”
So what part of the great state of Oklahoma ya from?
Later,
Kirk
I’ve gotten similar comments as well because Central Ohio is certainly not a place often associated with fly fishing. Like many of you other warm water fly anglers it seems I’ve caught everything BUT trout. Several species of sunfish. warmouth bass, smallmouth, largemouth even a saugeye in one of the bigger state park lakes around here. I was at a small municipal pond a few weeks ago when I caught my first trout in 10 years with a flyrod. (ok it was a stocked DNR fish but still a nice trout). There were 2 kids, about 12 years old maybe, that came up to me and asked what kind of ‘pole’ I was using and then “what ya using for bait mister?” I swear it was like a re-incarnation of Opie Taylor! There was one guy in his 80’s just out walking around the path that morning and stopped to watch for several minutes before politely interrupting (my less than graceful casting) to ask “I always wondered how a fly rod worked”. We talked for about 20 minutes on the fishing history of this particular pond for the last 75 years.
Between the 2 kids, the chat with the old man and my first trout, I don’t know which was the best part. I do know I never had such a great day fishing though.
try living in Brooklyn, New York. some are surprised that there are fish in the lakes!
There’s fish in New York?!?
I’m sorry Bill, I couldn’t resist. 
I’m always asked, “where do you go to do that?” and when I tell them the creeks around here I get asked, “You mean the fish around here will eat flies?” And one lady wanted to know why did I fish FOR flies? lol
My favorite… “what’s fly fishing?”
‘‘There aren’t any trout in here.’’ ‘‘That’s ok, I’m swatting mosquitos’’ Actually, I seldom catch one of the winter stocked trout on a fly. They seen to like minnows better, or power bait. I do catch a lot of gills and some bass though.
Mostly, people are curious and ask questions about it. I have had the “no trout around here” comments but for the most part, people want to know more about it. I’ve let other fishermen cast my rods and try to spread the word about fly fishing.
Sometimes, I get a lot of questions about the fish in a particular stream or lake and how to fish for them. It seems around here, there are very few fly fishermen and some folks seem to think because I’m using fly fishing gear that makes me some kind of expert fisherman.
However, most of the comments are arouund “isn’t that really hard to do.” For some reason, a lot of people seem intimidated by the prospect of fly fishing like there is some great mystery that only practitioners of the black arts can master. I did make one convert last summer though. A guy who I let cast my rod and fish a little bit asked a lot of questions. A couple weeks later, I saw the guy at the same lake with a brand new TFO 5wt fly rod. We talked a while. He asked for some tips about the casting and equipment. I gave him a few flies I had tied that worked well in that particular lake. Since then, I’ve seen the guy with his fly rod a number of times and his casting and catching have gotten much better.
Jeff
" Daddy, what’s he doing?"
" Hes fly fishing!"
“What’s fly fishing?”
“that’s how you fish for trout!”
yeah… I turned and added " and bluegill, bass, catfish, crappie, anyhting you could want to fish for. Even sharks…"
hat got the conversation going.
Most th time it’s simply explaining that yeah, I’nmnot fishingfor trout. I’m aiming for something else that’s actuallyin teh Urban ponds.
The one I get the most is “I always wanted to try that… is it very hard?” Seems like most people think it’s difficult, and you just catch small fish.
Some will come over and ask if I ever catch much “with that thing”. I LOVE being able to pull up a basket of big bluegills or a stringer of crappie to show them…
Fessing up to being a fly fisherman has its rewards sometimes. Some people, especially those who saw The Movie, get that look of awe as if they are looking at a living saint. On the other hand, when I fess up to tying flies, a goon will remark,“I tried that, but I was never any good at catching them.” Normally I get a look that says,“Wow, who would have thought? You look just like a normal white caucasian.” It is like I admitted being half Maori Warrior. That is a distinction I would like to claim by the way, though, unfortunately, I cannot.
Before spinning gear became popular, c. 1950, fly gear was a lot more popular. Today that has changed. I have seen an estimate that said about 10% of fishermen are flyfishermen. I think that is high unless you count the myriad of fly rods gathering dust next to exercise machings in the basements and garages of America. I plan to try exercising some day too. Since I grew up in a fly fishing family, I never realized I was in a minority. I wish my father would have told me.
Unless I’m at work, where it’s part of my job to, I’ve quit defending flyfishing. I figure if they want to believe it won’t work in warmwater or for fish other than trout, then that leaves that much more water and that many more uneducated fish for me!
Living in the middle of the best trout waters in the world I don’t hear too many comments questioning what kind of fishing I do. Most questions and conversations take it for granted that you fly fish and not some other type. The questions I often hear are, what fly were you using? or, sinking or floating line? It’s good to live where I do :mrgreen:
Kelly.
haven’t fished that much in kansas. no comments here. in idaho the question of the day was “WHERE?” and the answer was “NOTELLUMCREEK”. one fly fisher of good repute once said “Steelhead can’t be caught on the surface.” he and i went round and round with this for years but he would never fish with me.
I was surprised that you had lakes.
When I got moved to the deep armpit of the deep south in Southeastern Alabama, I walked into the largest “outdoors” store in town and asked (without a local accent) if they carried any fly tying gear. The one -person- gave me a confused fight-or-flight kind of look, and the other one snorted and said, “Boy, there ain’t no trout 'round here!!” and they both had a good laugh.
Later I met a nice guy who’s family owned a few ponds and he gave me permission to fish them- mostly because there was no way I could catch any bass on a “Fly Pole” and he thought it was a great joke. I tied him a box full of huge nasty rabbit strip and rubber legs creatures that weighed about an ounce-and-a-half when wet and he caught some of the biggest bass ever from those ponds, casting them with his winch and broomstick gear. His opinion was changed by the time I left.
Tsk tsk Kevin. Even a kid from Ohio knows NY has 50+ miles of Lake Erie Shore line and 200+ miles of Lake Ontario shoreline? Not to mention the famous Finger Lakes? Where do you think they dump all the bodies from “down state”?
I thought that was what NJ was there for.
I have had a lot of people ask about fly fishing over the years but even back in my home state of Mississippi, which probably has the lowest population density in the SE, fly fishing was not that usual. It was mostly for bream in folks minds, but I am sure the bass, catfish, etc., got caught also. I will have to admit Bill’s fishing within NYC has been a surprise to me. I have been told many times “I wouldn’t eat a catfish, they live in the East River.” So I knew they had fish around NYC, just never thought about anyone flyfishing in ponds and lakes there.