A tuxedo with sensible shoes.

If you're fly fishing for trout, you'll need $600 waders, $300 wading boots with interchangeable soles, some kind of fishing shirt in an obnoxious color with a bunch of pockets, a vest with a bunch more pockets, a hat (not a cap, Tilleys seem to be popular among the Chicago FIB's who come up here to WI to despoil our trout waters), super-expensive sunglasses and fourteen thousand little pieces of gear that dangle off your upper body.

If you're fishing with worms you need a Harley-Davidson t-shirt, a baseball cap from a feed store and dungarees.  Shoes and teeth are optional.

Spike Island Whitefish

Last edited by TheExpandingMan (2013-08-26 12:10:03)

One Roach, two Perch.

Nearly pulled my bloody arm off they did. Little bastards.

In the freezer for now. Tomorrow I'll get a bloke to prepare them for the table.

bish - I'll pay that - add cargo pants?

A lot of American fly-fishermen are gear heads. They think they need to spend a ton of money to enjoy the sport. They don't.

For fly-fishing in summer I usually wear shorts and a fishing shirt in a drab color — khaki or olive, the better to blend into the background. These are made of a quick-drying material. Essentially the same stuff as swim trunks. Lightweight wading shoes with felt soles on my feet. Hat of some kind. Chest pack and a black nylon messenger bag to hold water, sandwich, a couple extra fly boxes (also serves as a creel if I am in killing mode). I don't like to carry a lot of stuff.

In colder weather I wear breathable chest waders, wading boots with a studded rubber sole (the studs are basically sheet metal screws), old grubby chinos, heavier fishing shirt. Rain gear, sweaters, thermals as needed.

It's not complicated.

For doodads, I carry a pair of fingernail clippers on a retracting gizmo, clipped to the chest pack. A hemostat for getting flies out of fishes mouths, clamped to the chest pack. In the pack I have a small pair of needlenose pliers for flattening the barbs on hooks. I also carry a small bottle of silicon floatant and things of split shot in a couple of sizes. I have a buck knife in the messenger bag, and Ziplock bags in case I do keep a fish; it's best to clean them on the spot and put them in the bags, in water. Get them into a cooler as soon as possible.

You don't want to go cheap on waders, though — there is nothing more discouraging than that first trickle of frigid water.

I had a feeling you might wade into this discussion.

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Puns like this raise my hackles.

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Pretty fly for a white guy