Very good for those who can afford these high price articles! but the ordinary Joe cannot pull out $1,000 from their family budget to practice their favorite sport. We estimate that 75% of people have just enough money to make ends meet and to aquire the basic essentials.

Way back then, when I started this passion of mine, we did not have all those gadgets that exist today on the market. We did our own stuff; fly fishing was ours and we caught a lot of fish. Rods were made of fiber glass and the expensive reel was a Medalist from Plfueger A complete fly fishing kit which included boots, rod and reel and all the attachments cost me $35-40. My first fly rod and reel cost me $15. I used it many years with great success and sometimes I still take it out fishing just to relive the good old days when things were simple and inexpensive.

These last years, fly fishing has become very popular and the marketing has taken over. Today's rod can go as high as $1000.00 which cast the fly lines practicly by themselves, reels of $500 that has ABS brakes, boots that breathes and fly lines that floats, with sinking tips in a multitude of colours and different densities, a shooting head or not. Leaders are either braided, furled, tapered wtht or whitout knots.
Excellent marketing strategy for the store owner, but not very good for Joe's budget. Sadly, people are taken by these new expensive marketing strategies. You will not be a better fly fisherman, but you will look good in the river! "Look how nice I look" will you say to your fishing partner. You are human and this is human nature, it's like that! But at the end, look in the buttom of the creel and you will find that the only difference between the $50 rod and the $500 is in the wallet!

This beautiful and tranquil sport has developed into a sport of competition, a way to show that you have kept up with the Jones's. Some Joe's are shy to take their old fly rod to the river, in case others make fun of them.

You enter large fly shops that you call specialized! Get ready to take a second mortgage on your house, it will cost you an arm and a leg.
If you are new at this sport and that you have no idea what you need, the clerk that has only the cash register in mind will succeed in taking close to $1,000 from your wallet. A good vest with 32 pockets will cost you over $100. The fly fishers gadgets will run you $75, the breathable wading boots are at $500, the ABS reels and fly line will set you back $300. You dont beleive me, go check it out!

Pride is a powerful vice, and the desire to have better than your neighbour make the store owner very happy. I assure you that you dont need all this expensive equipment to have a great day on the river, unless your goal is to have better equipment than everbody else...

If you see a fly fisher that is fully equiped and looks like a top model, say to yourself that he/she does not have an advantage over you.
Granted! expensive rods do cast better than the low end of the line rods, but the diffrence in quality does not excuse the price.

I am sure that you look at those fishing programs on TV and you see all the experts with very high cost equipment. They dont pay for those expensive items, they are supplied by the manufacturers. But your subconcious has been attack and you feel that all these things are a must to be a good fly fisherman. I say, bullshit!

I have an anecdote that will prove it to you. This is not a fishing story, but...
At a time in my life, I was co-owner of a trap shooting club. We had people of all walks of life. We had a guy that came with an old CIL 12 gauge,single shell shotgun. We also had a business man that had a Browning evaluated at $2,000, so he said! The guy with the old CIL nearly always shot 100% of his clay birds. The other guy with the expensive gun never shot more than 50% of his, but he looked good with his high price shotgun! The equipement had nothing to do with the results as you can see. Maybe the CIL guy knew his sport and is gun. Briefly, the success did not depend on the cost of the equipement.

Even if your rod and reel did not cost you a fortune, learn to use it properly. Fly fishing is a noble and beautiful sport and you dont need to get yourself in debt to do it.
You can purchase a very good fly fishing equipment including rod, reel, fly line and leaders for under $150. Granted you will not have a super-sonic rod with an ABS reel, but you will have some fish in the buttom of your creel. A good pair of boots can be purchased at any good store for under $75.00. A vest will set you back about $50 and maybe a bit less. With this simple but adequate equipment you will have the pleasure of starting your fly fishing passion, and with time you can always add those fancy items that you read about and this within your budget!

I wish you a good day on the river, at a reasonable price!
(To come: the flies...)

Le Moucheux"