How to buy your first fly rod

We are entering a time of giving. And it has come to my attention that there are several of you who don't own a fly rod.

This is OK. But it's a situation I will try my best to rectify in the right way.

There's one big mistake I want to help you avoid making when you buy your first fly rod. So, come with me on a bit of a journey. It'll be worth it when we get there, I promise.

Here's what we've got:

1. Where to buy your first fly rod
2. How to choose your first fly rod
3. Starting to fantasize about fly-fishing

Where to buy your first fly rod

Here's the mistake I want you to avoid: Don't buy your first fly rod online.

Go talk to a real human who works with fly-fishing stuff everyday, and talk to them first.

Step 1: Go to a fly shop.

A fly shop is the first—and most important—stop for a beginner to buy a fly rod.

Why?

When you buy a fly rod in a fly shop, the fly rod comes with a lifetime supply of advice from that fly shop.

You'll pay into that lifetime advice fund when you visit to stock up on flies or buy another spool of tippet or waders or cool hat.

But once you've attached yourself to a shop with a purchase like a rod, you're in. At least in an unspoken way.

"Hey, uh, you guys sold me a rod and...[insert question here]" is an passphrase to learning just about anything you want to know about fly-fishing.

It's like that covenant (which I think might be only in movies?) that if you save someone's life you're bound to look after them forever. Or is that if they save your life? I'm not much for covenants.

Anyway. In addition to great advice, accessories, and tons of other necessary goods, you will usually also reliably find two things in any good fly shop:

• hot coffee
• a scratchable dog

All around the world, fly shops are usually pleasant and necessary detours.

Fly shops are not always the easiest places to locate. I've seen them in spaces no wider the wingspan of a JV point guard. I've seen them in people's garages. Here's one in Stockholm, Sweden that took all of its 200 square meters of real estate and made sure it had a huge sign:

Thus, introducing a pre-step:

Step 0.5: Find your local fly shop

You can Google this. Big box shops will show up here. Avoid them. The $50 you save will not be worth it, in the long run. Aim for a place that looks locally-owned.

Here's yet another example of the fine service I offer to you gentle reader. If you're stuck and can't find a fly shop, or can't decide which to visit, send me a note and I'll help you find the best fly shop closest to you, wherever in the world you are. Judging fly shops is my superpower. One day, when I get an intern, we'll have a favorite shop list. Maybe this is a bass-ackwards way of starting that list.

Ideally you have found a physical location somewhat near your commercial zone where you can go to purchase fly-fishing goods and services. If not, please pursue the following sub-option:

Sub-option A: Order from a fly shop where you might fish someday

Did you go somewhere once where there was fly-fishing and want to go again? Got a cabin? A weekend place? Want a weekend place? What better means to putting down weekend roots in a slightly-more-fishy zone than you currently dwell than the aforementioned ever-flowing font of advice?

You can always just call a fly shop and buy a rod over the phone. They'll mail it to you. (After you get through Part 2, not yet!) If it's in a place where you'll fish eventually, that totally works.

I bought my first two-handed spey rod from Oregon before I lived here, and not only saved on sales tax, but eventually cashed in on the free advice.

Additionally, it's OK to have a friend or partner call and set this up covertly in the background if this is meant to be one of those contrived surprises. (Friend or partner, if you have been forwarded this page, you play an important role in this, which I will get to later.)

Just don't do this

I know what you're thinking:

Jesus, Nick, we live in the era of immediate consumptive gratification. You are here, on the internet its nexus. Why have you not just told us?

Give us the Wirecutter "Buy this one, dummy" and the link to Big River, Inc. so we can get it tomorrow or sooner, Prime Time. You could even have used some sort of referral or affiliate link and earned a few pennies on my purchase.

Well, dear friend, mostly because you would have already bought it by now, and you would not be reading this. And I would not have a chance to tell you this very important thing:

Buying your first fly rod is unlike buying anything you've ever bought before.

It is a Very Important Purchase.

Buying a fly rod is like buying a saddle for a horse. Like buying your first new boat. Hell, it's like buying an engagement ring, or your first pair of really nice shoes, or your wand in Diagon Alley (sorry, the kid's going through a Potter phase and we've read that part a hundred times).

You're buying a fun-finder. You're buying a vehicle. You're buying a portal to another dimension.

If you were a kid, in a simpler time, you would survey the market incessantly and save up and covet and save up and covet and save up and have a few setbacks along the way and maybe cut a picture out of a magazine or a catalog and look at it a while and wear out the edges and then covet some more and, finally, one day, you would get that rod.

You owe it to yourself to make it special, take your time, and suck the marrow out of the experience around buying the rod, rather than just making a couple clicks.

So, even if you buy online, don't just buy the thing. Dig around. Read the reviews. Watch the videos. Get a feel for the thing. Then, make your decision.

Another thing you don't want to do

You also don't want to buy your first fly rod at an outdoor big box retailer. Cabela's, Sportsman's Warehouse, Bass Pro Shops, etc. I mentioned this earlier those are basically Amazon warehouses where you do the picking and pulling.

While there are some exceptions (Orvis, which is more of a medium-box retailer), for the most part employees aren't particularly well-versed in fly-fishing, and aren't reliably present when you might want to stop in and get advice.

Other ways to acquire your first fly rod

There are other ways, besides going to a fly shop, to get your first rod.

This week I went and saw that short fishing film, Casting at Ghosts, that I'd mentioned in previous newsletters. The organizer held a raffle, as they frequently do at fly-fishing events. A young lady won the grand prize, a fly-fishing outfit: rod, reel, line, case, the works. From the look on her face, it was her first-ever rod. Winning one at a fly-fishing event raffle is an acceptable way to acquire your first fly rod. However, it is unpredictable.

Another acceptable way to acquire your first fly rod is by inheritance. You can have one passed down to you. However, this, too, is unpredictable.

Two challenges with inherited fly rods:

• It will probably have already bonded to another angler.
• It may have been from a previous era, and constrained by outmoded materials.

Be cautious with hand-me-downs from anywhere earlier than the '90s, where the materials used to make fly rods (mostly carbon graphite) improved significantly.

How to choose your first fly rod

OK. So you've found a fly shop, either near you, or in a place you want to go fish. Next thing you want to do is figure out what kind of rod you need.

To simplify things, if you're fishing in freshwater in the lower 48, Canada, and most of Europe, a 9' 5wt rod is a great first rod. It will do for most trout, smallmouth bass, and panfish you're going to be finding.

Just make it easy on yourself and make a 9' five weight (9' 5wt) your first fly rod.

Don't worry about what manufacturers call "rod action" yet. For most beginner rig choices, there's one action for the entire category of rods, and they're usually medium. Action doesn't matter much until you get to specialty rods and / or learn your casting style.

Horses for courses

Eventually, you're going to want to have different rods for different water and fish. Read more about the different parts of a fly-fishing rig in our post about the anatomy, but here's basically how it shakes out:

I've currently got a range of these in my quiver, because I try to fish a lot of different ways and in a lot of different places. But a 9' 5wt was my first rod, and should be yours too.

Test drives

As part of the whole seduction aspect, you should visit your chosen local fly shop at least once and cast a few rods.

This sort of thing is perfectly normal. Usually you'll go out to the parking lot, or some nearby grass, if there is any. The shop has a throwaway line used for this purpose (typically you don't want to cast a nice fly line on asphalt or concrete, the coating will get all scraped up).

As you build a relationship with a shop and are looking for other or different rods, sometimes the shop will let you take them out fishing. A while back, Hardy sold a 9' 6wt single-piece rod, a boat or house rod, one for fishing places where the rod just stays rigged, and you'd never have to break it down to travel. What's more, they put famous literary fly-fisher Tom McGuane in their ads. I was ready to drop $700, because of course the rod would help me write like McGuane, and of course one day I'd have a boat or a house where it just stayed rigged up. Luckily I had a chance to try it out first.

Later that season I was going out with a guide attached to a shop that sold Hardy rods, and I asked if I could try that specific rod out. They obliged, and it came on a float with us that day. I say it came on a float, because after about five casts I switched back to my personal rod, because the Hardy cast like a 2x4". McGuane, if you're reading this, I hope you're not stuck with a house or boat full of 'em.

So, head over to your shop one weekend afternoon and try a couple of different rods in the same size and weight from different manufacturers. You might not notice much, but having the shop person describe differences will be a good education. And they may even give you a few casting pointers.

OK, fine, here's your "just buy this one"

Here's your stinking service journalism. Three rods you'd be well-served by. Two of which I own and have fished for years.

I'm breaking them down into what you could call commitment levels. All would be great first fly rods, it's just a matter of how committed you feel to the sport right now.

I think this sport is for me!

Buy a 9' 5wt Orvis Clearwater, currently $419.

This was my first-ever fly rod, and like three decades later I still fish it regularly. Orvis makes high quality rods and reels. Its rods are warrantied for 25 years. Fly rod warranties are important, because rods are fragile, and accidents happen.

If you think this sport is something you're going to try out in earnest, get a Clearwater. You can grow into it over the years.

Orvis Clearwater outfit

• Quality build to endure hard beginner use
• Room to grow as you become a better caster
• 25 year warranty / repair policy

Buy the Orvis Clearwater outfit at Amazon

I'm not sure, so let's watch the bottom line.

Buy a 9' 5wt Echo Lift, currently $189.

Echo also has a great warranty program. Some folks in the PNW prefer Echo rods because they're based in Vancouver, Washington and that makes warranty turnaround times really fast, by industry standards. I have an Echo nymphing rod, and a new tip section was coming my way in a week after an unfortunate incident, which got the rod back into rotation faster.

This setup is more budget-minded than the Orvis. It's a good rod, but if you stick with fly fishing you'll probably reach the ceiling in this setup faster than with the Orvis. Rod hardware, specifically the area where the reel and rod join together, is a little bit less elegant and durable than the Orvis setup. And the Orvis reel is a bit better.

Give a good look at the Echo website. What Echo lacks in website design it makes up in explanation of rod action and how its different rods perform.

Echo Lift Kit outfit

• Budget-friendly pricing
• Lifetime warranty / repair policy
• Easy, local repair service to the PNW

Buy the Echo Lift Kit outfit at Amazon

This is cool, but let's keep it super simple.

Buy a Tenkara USA 12' Iwana, currently $130.

If you want to keep things as simple as possible, get a tenkara rod. Tenkara lines attach directly to the rod tip, so there's no reel to fuss with. The rod fits right into a day pack.

This is a perfect way to start out if you're a hiker or backpacker or bikepacker, and want to see if some of the streams and lakes along your route are fishy.

Or, if you're not ready to go full send on fly-fishing as a past-time yet, but want to work it into your life in a bigger way, a tenkara rod is a great option.

I've got an Iwana, and really like the convenience of being able to chuck it in a pack and use it for scouting missions, and finding new water on non-fishing outings. Tenkara USA makes a bunch of different options for different fishing situations. The skills you learn with tenkara are transferrable to fishing with a rod and reel, should you change over at a later date. Casting and landing fish are, as you might imagine, slightly different.

Tenkara USA Iwana

• Ideal for bringing along on other adventures
• Tenkara focuses fly-fishing skill development on essentials

Buy the Iwana at Amazon

Starting to fantasize about fly-fishing

OK! Well, hopefully one way or another you've got a pathway to your first fly rod. Here's one important final thought: Start to build some fantasies about where you're going fishing.

Find some media (maps, books, YouTube videos, whatever your preference) about your home waters. (Haven't found that out yet? Start here!) Is the season closed for winter? Start envisioning when you might go there. Is it still open? Try and get there. With a fly rod in your hand, the world is a new and more exciting place.

Oh, and Santa's helper, one final note for you. Gifting someone a rod isn't just the physical item, it's gifting them permission to fish, guilt-free. And they may need some of your encouragement, too, so make sure they get out there.

There are lots of great rods out there from other manufacturers. But these are the ones I like and have fished a lot. If you've got a story about your first rod, share it in the comments!