I don't know when I started fly fishing, but I stopped about 40 yr ago. And then I started again a few months ago. I bought this place and the small pond that came with it early this year. In late summer I decided to see if there were any fish in the pond. I tried a #3 Mepps with a spinning rod and quickly caught a couple small LMB. I had barbed hooks on the Mepps and since I didn't want to keep any fish, I stopped fishing with the spinning rod and tried casting a very large flatfish with no hooks. Nothing doing with that. So then I tried a wobbler with a single barbless hook in place of the treble hook and caught more LMB and a crappie. I wanted to reduce the number of, or eliminate, the crappie in the pond, so they were what I fished for in the following days, and I caught a couple dozen. I had an old fiberglass fly rod, and after a while, I gave flies a try. I caught many BG and some small LMB, but few, if any crappie on flies. I figured if the crappie were hitting, they'd hit flies, so I kept fishing with flies and catching many BG and a few LMB of less than a pound and one that weighed 2 ¼ lb. It had swallowed a small BG that had taken a fly and was still on my line. At times I caught a BG on every cast, and when that was happening I quit after a short period of time, not wanting to squander such great fishing. And I wasn't able to fully appreciate the great fight those little buggers put up on my clunky old rod. So I ordered an 8.5' 6 wt rod, before I knew much about what wt meant. When my new rod arrived with some descent line, my BG experience improved considerably. But I thought it would be better with a 3 wt, so I ordered a 7' 3 wt combo with a loaded 2/3 reel. And it may be a little better, since casting a long line isn't a factor, and if the wind is blowing too hard, I just walk back up to the house. But now I think I would like to try an 8' or and 8.5' 3 wt, or maybe an 8.5' 4 wt. Everything I've bought so far has been at the low end of the price scale, so I'm not blowing a lot of money. The rods I've bought are in the area where most of the experts say you should never venture. But I'm having a good time with my inexpensive tackle, and I'm learning what works for me on my little pond. One thing I think I've learned is that I'd be better off with a moderate (medium) action rod rather than a fast rod. And a nice reel is nice, but it doesn't do much to improve your fishing (I knew that all along), but a good line does. But my casts are so short that I don't know if the taper makes any difference.
