Below are 10 of my favorite flies. Check them out and let me know which ones you like best.

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10. Fishing Fly Name: Java Scimitar

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9. Fishing Fly Name: Double Rainbow

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8. Fishing Fly Name: Josephina

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7. Fishing Fly Name: Una

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6. Fishing Fly Name: Angelfish

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5. Fishing Fly Name: Evening Star

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4. Fishing Fly Name: Gitana

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3. Fishing Fly Name: Colonel Bates

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2. Fishing Fly Name: Bronze Monarch

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1. Fishing Fly Name: Lange Syne (My Single Favorite)

                          

Fishing hooks are sharp. So it’s best to be careful not to get impaled. The reason I’m talking about this is – that’s exactly what happened this weekend. My brother and his wife were fishing. When they were about to leave, my brother’s wife decided to make one final cast.

WHIP! CRACK! POP! CRUNCH! OUCH! After all the dust cleared, the fishing rod was laying on the ground in a few pieces and my brother was standing there with a spinner dangling from his schnoz. The whole hook point up to the bend was stuck in his nose. Good thing the barbs were bent down or he would’ve needed a minor surgery to remove the hook. I used some pliers and gave a little yank to get the hook out.

With all this still fresh in my mind, I decided to put together some rules to prevent getting stabbed by fishing hooks.

1. Don’t stand in the cast zone. If there are lures flying, it’s best to stand back. Don’t follow this rule, and you might learn the hard way. Impalement!

2. Watch your cast. While people shouldn’t stand in your cast zone, you should still watch your cast. Who needs the trouble of stabbing someone with your lure? No One!

3. Don’t pull/jerk your rod too hard. Just take a look at the video above. Bill Dance pulled his rod until the lure came loose and hooked him in the nose. Yep, that could ruin a fishing trip. *Note: If you really need to pull out a snag or something, you should at least turn your face away.

4. Don’t leave your fishing rod or line on the ground when handling attached fishing hooks. If someone trips over your rod/line, they can pull the hook deep into your finger or hand. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be too fun!

5. When moving from one location to another with your fishing rod in hand, make sure to keep the hook on the hook keeper. It’s the little metal loop that’s meant to hold your hook when not fishing. This will prevent you from hooking anything (including humans) when moving. I know from experience. I got stabbed near the eye by a hook that was left hanging from the rod tip.

Anyway, I hope you ALL follow these rules, so you don’t have to learn the hard way. Like this guy here.

                          

What are the benefits of fly fishing? What are the disadvantages of fly fishing? Those questions where whirling around in my head so I decided to make a list of the pros and cons of fly fishing in comparison to spin fishing. Here it is:

Pros of fly fishing:

(1) You can cast a super lightweight fly long distances. Instead of using the weight of the lure to cast, with fly fishing you use the weight of the fly line. This makes it possible to cast out microscopic flies, like midges, great distances.

(2) You can present the fly more delicately and quietly than you can a lure with a spinning outfit. If you know how to cast well, you can drop the fly right on top of the fish without spooking them. With spin fishing, it’s almost impossible to not make some sort of noise/splash when the lure hits the water.

(3) Flies are usually cheaper to buy than lures. You can get some quality flies for about $1 each. Cheap crappy lures, on the other hand, will cost you at least double or triple that price.

Cons of fly fishing:

(1) You need alot of room to cast out your fly. This was one of the first things I learned when I started fly fishing. I spent more time getting my flies out of the trees than I did fishing. Yes, it was frustrating.

(2) Casting takes more skill and practice to perfect. I learned how to cast a spinning outfit, perfectly, in about a day. With fly fishing, I still don’t feel like I have my casting skills perfected, even though I have been fly fishing for quite a few years.

(3) Not the ideal method of fishing for certain situations. When you need to fish deep, spin fishing is the most practical choice. Not everyone will agree. I just think it’s a pain in the butt to constantly retrieve almost all the fly line and then recast, wait for it to sink, then repeat. It’s just to much work.

(4) Fly fishing is more expensive than spin fishing. True, flies are cheaper than lures, but that’s about the only thing. Everything else is more expensive. You need to drop at least $40-$50 for some decent line. Then you have the rod, reel, backing, leaders, tippets, strike indicators, waders, net etc. $$$-$$$$

                          

Have you ever seen anglers using lures that are over sized for the fish species they are targeting? I have. They seem to think that the larger the lure they use the larger the fish they will catch. Is this true? My Answer: Yes and No…

Why I say Yes: Smaller fish will usually not strike an over-sized lure because they are frightened and/or the lure won’t fit in their mouth. The larger fish may be the only ones interested in a larger lure simply because they are not afraid of it. You may not get as many bites, but the ones that do will most likely be larger fish.

Why I say No: When I catch fish to eat. I always look inside their stomachs when gutting them. The food/prey that I find inside is about the same size in both smaller and larger fish. This simply means that they are feeding on the same food source. Sometimes I find larger prey in the stomach of the larger fish, but this is quite rare. Yes, the larger fish have a higher chance of eating larger prey, but in most cases they eat whatever is most abundant and available. They eat whatever food they come across and are able to catch.

Conclusion: While fishing with an over sized lure may help you keep the smaller fish from biting, it will not necessarily *improve* your chance to catch a larger  fish.

What I Recommend: The key is to match the size of the fish’s natural prey. If you are catching too many small ones go up one size at a time until you are no longer hooking unwanted fish.