Can’t say I remember my first fly caught trout specifically… but I started fly fishing bass n bluegill… I do have many trout experiences since but it’s the pike, pickrel and carp that really standout in my mind… and my largest Brookie taken on a favorite central pa stream few have ever heard of that I’ll never name here because it holds all of the species I just mentioned… that brookie was bright n beautiful n wild as they come as that stream doesn’t get brook trout stockings… n at 18 in… I doubt I’ll ever see another of that size!
With over 60 years of fishing they all start to blend together and the large majority of my early trout were on worms, crawlers, spawn bags. However, one trout that really hooked me on fly fishing and rivers was about a 15" wild rainbow where I’d cast a wet Royal Coachman into a flats rolling curve with undercut bank. While I was trying to see if I could see my fly that trout drifted out from the undercut, took a feeding lane ate my fly. That fish stands out among so many and I think I was old enough to have driven to creek myself. Since then I’ve caught a lot of fish of all kinds on flies but never one to stand out in memory as that one. Little Sioux River, WI.
I believe it was a wee trout on a cane pole in Yellowstone park, circa 1959.
Summer vacation one year when I was younger then I am now lol before I moved to North Carolina
First trout, a littlle put-and-take stocker. On a fly I tied. Don’t pay attention to the datestamp, I didn’t have it set correctly. I didn’t start flyfishing untill the Summer of 2011. I caught many bluegill, crappie and a couple of bass before I was able to catch this fella nearly a year later. The story: /bb/showthread.php?45549-First-Trout!
He ate well, but my Lab got hold of his entrails and rolled in them. It took two baths the next day to get the fish liver smell off of old Angus. He was a great dog, but he loved a good stink. I haven’t killed a trout since.
Going on A GUIDED trip with the west Laramie fly Shop in May. My first attempt at fly fishing
I have to confess my first trout was caught out of season, but then quickly (and guiltily) released. It was 1967 or 1968 and in Spinner1’s neck of the woods. I was going to school at Univ of Wisconsin - Platteville and there was this creek outside Plattevile where I went to practice casting. The rod was a Montgomery Wards fiberglass 8 footer which I still have and had a nondescript reel with a level 6wt, I think the fly was a “Mosquito”.
I started fly fishing for bluegill and now fish much less than I would like to.
Mike
It was May 1985 using my first deer hair popper on my first custom built rod that I had made. I’ll never forget how the fish came from no where and ate that fly, but after the fish was released I quickly realized that I’d better perfect my hair spinning skills so I don’t continue littering the lakes with deer hair after each fish caught…ha!
What I will never forget though, was the personal HIGH of accomplishment by tying a fly, building a rod and catching a fish on that combination. I was truly hooked early that Saturday morning!
Garmich 1959 on my honeymoon with a fly rod package from Japan that cost $10.00 sent by a friend in the Navy.
I saw a trout in a little creek flowing into a lake. Couldn’t resist, set the rod up, one cast and had it hooked and released before anyone caught me.
I’m hard pressed to remember the first trout. Like others here I started on bluegills & L/M bass, and that was using poppers. I sort of graduated from there - learned how to cast with the poppers and catching (especially) bluegills, all at once we were planning a trout fishing trip. The first time I did poorly, confused as to what to use in the fly department, AND how to use it. The next trip I did so much better. An old timer took pity on me and had me stand sideways to the current (wide river), and cast to my left (upstream), using a black nosed dace, let the current carry it down stream and then I would retrieve it, and cast it again. Don’t remember how many I caught but it was a few. Important thing is that outing opened a whole new world to me!
Interesting that you mentioned a fly rod from Japan. I think it was around 1951-52, my oldest brother was in the air force in Japan and brought me a bamboo rod set home. He knew I loved to fish with a cane poles, and decided that this would be a good present. I’ll never forget that it came in a balsam wood case with two tips and some rudimentary Japanese (very colorful) flies. Didn’t take long for me to break the first tip in a willow tree, but I caught many bluegills in the farm pond close to home. As for trout, I think it was around 1972 in the South Platte River in Colorado while stationed at Fort Carson. That was the first time I laid eyes on a trout. I’m a southern boy by birth.
12" stocked rainbow on the Patapsco River. Spring of 03 or 04. Had bought an outfit from the local Bass Pro. Can’t recall the fly - I know I stuck it on a hat as a memorial. Think the son took the hat when he moved out…
Lord no, I don’t remember. It was well over 60 years ago.
Hatchery trout from Piru Creek So California about 40 years ago. LOl funny to remember that fish.
I caught a rainbow on the duck river with Jack Hise for a guide. The profile pic is me holding the rainbow. I only had that little guy hooked for a few minutes, but he hooked me for life. Been trying to fly fish ever since. Thanks Jack
My first fly rod trout, or any trout for that matter, was a stocker caught in a local municipal lake and I think I caught it on a black wooly bugger. I caught that fish the first year the Iowa DNR stocked that lake with rainbows and have caught many, many stocker trout since then.
i do remember, but only because it involved blood. First trout hooked on my own, stocker, local over-fished nearly-a-spring-creek in Pennsylvania. i was in such a hurry to release it that i stuck my fingers in its mouth to get the fly out…nobody had told me that TROUT HAVE TEETH! man, i was startled, bleeding, and fearful that the fish would expire right there in my hands. remembered the hemostats, got the hook out, and fish swam away. then i debated for several minutes whether i would come down with something dreadful if i put the bleeding thumb in my mouth. apparently not…
I do, and it was a beauty. I was 14 and out learning how to with my uncle. I was fishing a dry on a little stream near my house. My first fly rod fish, a 15? brown and a very big fish for that stream, was in a small pool and thankfully stayed there after sipping in my dry fly. I remember yelling to my uncle who was 100 yards upstream to bring the net, bring the net. I somehow managed to keep from breaking him off until my uncle arrived and scooped him up in his net. Back then we ate what we caught and that fish was dinner for sure. I vividly remember periodically checking inside my wicker basket creel throughout the morning seeing that fish lying in a handful of wet ferns and admiring how beautiful it was. After that day, I was destined to be a fly fisher for life. I still have that creel, my uncle gave it to me a few years later. It hangs on the wall in my ?man room? as a lasting reminder.