Is Fly Fishing Hard To Learn?

It’s hard in a good way. Here’s what beginners should expect when learning to fly fish.

Finding solitude and fun on a Utah river. | Photo by Ken Baldwin

Is Fly Fishing Hard To Learn? Yes and no. Fly fishing is a certain kind of hard. It may not come easy, but there’s real pleasure in the practice and the learning.

Fly Fishing is a Learned Skill

Fly fishing doesn’t come naturally to most people. Some may pick up the skills faster, but everyone has to work at it.

There is so much to enjoy about fly fishing. | Photo by Ken Baldwin

More Than Casting

And it is not just the casting, if you look deeper into fly fishing you will see that you are stepping into a whole new world. It's a cool world, but it is a world into itself.

Does Fly Fishing Take a Lot of Skill or Athletic Ability?

It doesn’t take much skill or athletic ability to get started. Basic casts and simple techniques are enough to get you out in nature and catch your first fish. That first fish may be just enough of a drug to make you want to catch your second. Keep going down that road, and it might become a lifelong obsession. Be careful.

Guide Mason Cochran getting his client onto a big Alaskan rainbow trout. | Photo by Ken Baldwin

Ability Sets the Ceiling

Here's one thing about fly fishing: You can take it as far as your ability allows. As your aptitude grows, you can push into types of fishing that demand more timing, skill, and physical ability. You keep growing, it keeps growing.

It’s All Fly Fishing

A 15-foot cast with a popper to bluegill counts. A 30-foot dry-fly cast to rising trout counts. Launching a 70-foot cast into wind and waves at blitzing fish counts. It’s all fly fishing.

Catching wild brook trout is like finding gems in a small creek. | Photo by Ken Baldwin

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From the smallest of brook trout to extra-large striped bass, it's all fly fishing. | Photo by Geof Garth

What to Expect

You Don't Learn the Sport, Learning is the Sport

I cast my first fly rod 50 years ago, and there isn’t a day I fish when I’m not trying to learn something—about how to do it, or how to do it better.

It’s All Legit

When you first start, it might be because catching a fish intrigues you. Or maybe you’re drawn to being outdoors—rivers, water, open space. It could even be that you like the way casting a rod looks.

There is more to fly fishing than catching fish. | Photo by Ken Baldwin

Those are all good reasons to start. What you’ll eventually find is that the basket of fly fishing is deep and broad, and it holds a lot more than catching fish.

A Lot of Different Avenues in Fly Fishing

Here are a few examples of rabbit holes that are part of fly fishing. Any one of these can become full-on pursuits by themselves.

• Some anglers fall into entomology, the study of insects.
• If you don’t want to study bugs, you might want to make them instead, which leads to fly tying. 

• Distance casting is a real sport, with competitions and records. 
•. Others become skilled enough at casting that they end up becoming Casting Instructors.
•. For some, the pursuit is world record fish. 
•. There are anglers who double as artists and will paint what they experience. 
•. Some anglers collect fly reels—I’m guilty of that. 
•. Bamboo fly rods have an entire following of their own.

The joy of being outdoors. | Photo provided by Ken Baldwin

Always Learning

Any one of these pursuits, or just the simple act of standing in water trying to catch a fish, will keep you learning. It doesn’t stop until your curiosity does. And that, to me, is the big payoff of fly fishing. It keeps you curious about nature and your surroundings. That's a good way to go through life. ~ Ken Baldwin - Follow me on my X account

• If you are interested in learning how to fly fish and are wanting to take a class, here is an article that can help you find your nearest classes and instruction. Some of the offerings are free.

    "The gods do not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing.” - Herbert Hoover

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