Fly fishing lines

[andyco]

I fancy giving fly fishing a go, so have started getting some gear together, so far I've got a 9ft 5 weight rod and a 5/6 reel.

Im looking for lines now, but there's millions! I often buy from angling active so I've picked a few lines from there, this is what I'm thinking about ordering:

Airflo No Frills backing 100m £3.99
Greys GRXi floating line WF6 £22.99
Airflo 10ft Trout Polyleader floating £5.99
Fulling Mill Flourocarbon tippet 6lb 100m £9.95

Would these be a good buy? Any I should stay away from? Or any other recommendations?

[SteveG]

All depends were you planning to fish and what you planning to fish for?

Gear your talking about sounds ok for river fishing for trout and grayling or small ponds but i would go for double taper line for better presentation of dry fly if thats what you planning to do.

I tend to use a lot of different rods with different weight lines depending what i plan to fish for, size of flies and wind conditions

Cheers
Steve

[andyco]

Thanks steve,

Im planning on fishing rivers for trout - Northumberland, the dales, lake district. I'll probably try some of the stocked lakes in the north east first though to learn to cast and get used to the sport. I'd like to try some of the mountain tarns in the lakes as well.

[SteveG]

Ive helped quite a few people learn to cast a single handed fly rod over the years and best bit of advice i can give is learn on a field with no wind at first no fly on the end if you tie a small piece of wool onto your leader at first that will do to get it turning over, once you can do that ( believe me it aint easy as it can be made to look ) put down a hoola hoop or mark out a circle, casting into this then keep moving back once you think youve got it nailed make the circle smaller, aim is to eventualy replace circle with a soup bowl. More time spent perfecting the cast on the field the more fish you will catch and the less flies you will lose, nothing worse than loosing a good fish to a wind knot.

Always wear a cap and eye protection

I could go on and on beware fluff chucking is highly adictive especialy sea trout fishing in the dark!!

Cheers

Steve

[bigtel]

My advice would be buy cheap until your sure its for you,river fishin nearly finished now so stillwater is where you will learn,buy a mill end floater around £6
Tippet 6lb fine, backing 3,99 is fine slow sinker again around £6 few flies and your ready to fish,always wear glasses,

[markgg]

Backing £3.99 we just use wool or old heavy pound sea line, I would go canny with the expensive gear as someone said earlier its all about displaying the fly or lure onto or into the water as natural as possible. A good line is important but you wont or shouldn't need to use your backing. Your reel is only a device that holds your line because you play the fish by stripping in line by hand.

[andyco]

Thanks for the replies.

I've got plenty of sea fishing line, I'll just use that for backing; and I'll go for a mill end fly line.

I think I'll have plenty more questions to come!

[zentao]

No need for a floating polyleader on the end of a floating fly line. I will sometimes use intermediate or sinking polyleaders for different presentations but if you are just starting out stick with a floating fly line, attach either level leader material (7lb fluoro straight through) or a tapered leader to the fly line and then some finer tippet material to that. River season is over till April so you will be looking at stillwater for rainbows.