Fly-fishing enjoys growing popularity in region

Fishing in Colorado means fly-fishing.
Oh, there’s still the regular type of fishing in Colorado, where you sit in a boat and drift along or troll while dragging lines baited with worms or artificial lures behind the boat as the motor runs – Frank Praznik, owner of St. Peter’s Fly Shop in Fort Collins, calls it bait-casting – but for the most part, when you’re talking fishing in Colorado, you’re talking fly-fishing.
Every part of the country is different, says Julie Ray, the owner of Bob’s Fly Shop in Loveland. They all have their own style of fishing and species of fish they go after. The No. 1 target fish in this country, according to demographic data collected by the American Sportfishing Association, is bass. Most are caught either by bait-casting or spinning.
The ASA picture of the average angler is a well-educated, married white man between 42 and 46 years old. He spends a little more than $1,300 annually on fishing. Altogether, the average annual amount of money spent on fishing equipment in the region that includes Colorado is around $5 million.
Fly-fishing is definitely in the minority. Praznik and others in fly-fishing businesses have no solid numbers, but based on what they have experience fishing around the country, they would separate fishermen as 60 percent bait-casters and 40 percent fly-fishermen.
There are two reasons why fly-fishing comes out on the short end of that split. One is the idea that fly-fishing is hard, and the second is that it’s expensive. Praznik says both of these notions are totally untrue.
“Bait-casting with a conventional rod is probably just as hard as fly-fishing,” he said
Don Davis, owner of Great Western Fly-Fishing Company in Loveland, agrees. He said the mechanics of bait-casting can be tricky, just like in fly-fishing. Davis said the thing to remember is that fly-fishing and bait-casting are two very different pursuits even though both have the same object of catching fish.
In a nutshell, the difference is that in bait-casting almost all the weight is taken up by the lure. In fly-fishing, it is the line that has the weight and the lure is almost weightless. In bait-casting parlance, line is referred to by the amount of weight it can hold before breaking, thus a ’20-pound test.’
“You have to get all of that out of your mind,” Davis said. Fly-fishing line, he notes, is totally different. If you compare the two side-by-side, the difference will be immediately apparent. Fly-fishing line is more complex, starting out heavier and then tapering down to an almost invisible width the closer it gets to the lure. Also, what’s important is that the rod is made to handle a certain kind of line. A consideration like that is almost foreign to bait-casting.
Fly-fishing looks harder than bait-casting, so if you’re interested in taking it up you might want to consider taking a lesson or two. More information on lessons is available at almost any fly shop.
“Women actually pick up fly-casting faster than the men,” Davis said. “They don’t have to unlearn anything like the men do. I think it’s a macho thing. A lot of the men think they can just pick up a rod and cast a couple of times and they’ll have it figured out easy.”
Davis said the lessons he offers run over 10 days with about a half-hour of practice each day. The hour-long lessons also cover tackle, reading the water, presentation of a fly and a guided trip on a trout stream.
But don’t expect to come away from the experience an expert. “I have been making a living in this business (as a guide or owning his own fly shop) for 38 years and I am learning something all the time,” Davis said.
And that’s really the attraction of the sport. “You never master it,” Praznik said. “Every time you think you’ve mastered it, you suddenly can’t catch anything.”
“What happens is that fishermen branch out into all kinds of areas,” Ray said. “Some get involved in equipment, some excel in reading the river, some get involved in bugs.”
Then there’s the notion that fly-fishing is pricey. The ASA puts the average annual expenditure per angler at just under $1,200. Fly-fishing can beat that. “Fly-fishing is one of the cheapest types of fishing that there is,” Praznik said. ‘You don’t need to spend $3,000 on a bass boat. You can spend less than $500 and you’re doing it.”
Blair Lampe, head of the fishing department with Garretson’s Sports Center in Greeley, says that if you are taking up fly-fishing, your biggest expenditure should be the rod. “The rod is the most important thing there is,” he said. “People should buy the best one that they can afford. It shortens the learning curve.”
When Lampe talks about rods, he is not talking about the ones you can pick up in a big box discount store. Those are OK, at best. The problem is that they will not serve you well when you are trying to learn how to cast and they simply will not last.
“A cheap rod will only hinder you,” Davis said. “You can get in for about $100, $150 would be even better.”
Of secondary importance is the fly line. Lampe puts that between $40 and $60. That’s important because it is the line that provides the weight for the fly and presents it to the fish, rather that a heavy lure. “Anything left over you can spend on the reel,” Lempe said, who regards it as just a device for taking up the line.
There are some other expenses, such as flies (Lampe says there are 10 patterns that he never goes anywhere without) but the accessory mentioned the most is a good pair of sunglasses. In fact, Ray calls it almost essential in Colorado. There are others, such as waders, a hat and some sunscreen, but it is the sunglasses that people in Lampe’s line of work mention most often.
The hobby is one that can absorb you before you know it. People can build boxes and boxes of flies the same way bait-casters can build immense tackle boxes. And there is ample opportunity to do so, because Ray estimates the number of fly patterns in the millions.
“There are two kinds of fly-fishermen,” she said. “There are the kind that go out with almost nothing and then there are the kind who take everything. Those vests have a lot of pockets in them. I’m in the last category. I put my vest down with a thunk when I was home and I was thinking, ‘It’s a good thing I didn’t fall down fishing. I would’ve sunk like a stone.”

Rendezvous

Garretson’s Sports Center, Greeley
St. Peter’s Fly Shop, Fort Collins
Bob’s Fly Shop, Loveland
Great Western Fly-Fishing Company, Loveland

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