From the Beginning

I've been mentioned here on the front page a few times, but now it is time to tell the story from my side. My idea is to share my journey from the very beginning to the World Championships in fly casting. So we might as well start from the very beginning.

The journey might have started a very long time ago, somewhere around age 4 or 5. That's when, out of nowhere, I got the idea that I wanted to start fishing. Didn't catch anything, but that never stopped me from spending hours at the water. The time it took from starting until I began catching anything can probably be measured in years. But I did some things right from the beginning—I practiced casting on the lawn with my spinning rod and somehow got my hands on a fly line and a RimFly reel. I put the fly reel on my spinning rod and stood on the lawn, waving the line back and forth a few times but never understood what to do with it. Not keeping up with the waving of the fly line was one of the things I did wrong. Getting out on the lawn is a subject I intend to revisit.

I even used small homemade flies to catch roaches when they were feeding on winged ants but still didn't get what I was missing. But I did do something that would later get a cooler name—I practiced tenkara long before it was known outside of Japan. Maybe not tenkara but a simple rod with a fixed length of line. Don't wanna upset some purists here.

Many years later, I bought a cheap ABU fly rod. I already had the line and reel. A fly line must be a fly line, right? But yet again, my aspirations to start fly fishing didn’t take off. The years went by, and fishing took up less and less time in my life. It went from an obsession to something forgotten. Once again, I had missed the window to get into the wonderful world of fly fishing and fly casting. If I had just gotten into it earlier, there are a lot of stupid things I could have avoided. With all the time and money that fly fishing would have taken, there wouldn’t have been any left for foolish pursuits!

Now we are closing in on my start in the wonderful fly fishing world. It took many years, but once again, it came from nowhere—I wanted to start fishing again. It went from zero to an obsession again within weeks. It’s easier to ramp up an obsession as an adult; more money to spend, but less time. I started getting hints from everywhere that it was time to get into fly fishing. "You're so into fishing; why don't you start fly fishing?" I heard that from a number of people. I started taking detours in the tackle shop to avoid the fly fishing section. I think I wanted to, but I made up excuses to avoid fly fishing. With all the money spent on conventional tackle, I think I knew what would happen if I got a fly rod in my hands.

But the signs just kept coming. A podcast I listened to had an episode titled: "Fly fishing—how hard can it be?" That episode was targeted directly at me! It explained how to get started in fly fishing. I think that is when I decided it was time. But I kept making excuses—I would get into it when the ocean closed for the season. During the season, I kept getting more hints; I saw a couple of fly fishermen. I knew I didn't want to be one of those who looked like they were fighting with the rod, and the line went nowhere. I wanted to be one of those who cast effortlessly and beautifully. If I couldn't do that, it might as well not be worth it. So I decided that I needed to try it before getting the equipment and some instruction to give myself a good start. I booked a slot in a beginner group session. And that is where I will start from in my next front-page entry.