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Complete Fly Fishing Gear Setup for Beginners
I've been asked several times to put together a complete package of fly fishing equipment for a beginner, so this article should help those getting started in fly fishing with buying the right gear. It can be daunting when you first think about getting into fly fishing to select all of the gear you need. Without a good understanding of what all of the essential pieces of a fly fishing ensemble are, you don't know what you need. There are thousands of different rods, reels, waders, boots and line out there, and within those categories, you have all kinds of different specifications. The list of fly fishing equipment in this review should help the beginner get started without breaking the bank.
We'll break each piece down and explain the purpose for each situation. We'll also provide a few options for upgrades so that if you want to buy a little better rod than the cheapest/best entry, you can. Were going to make some assumptions to make this list work, but we'll also make the product selections flexible enough that if you want to fish for different fish than what we're assuming, you'll be fine. The fly fishing equipment recommendation assumes that the beginner is interested in starting out fishing for trout. The products will be geared toward someone who would be fishing in small to medium sized rivers and lakes.
The Fly Rod
We'll start out with the Fly Rod as it's probably the most essential piece of equipment. While the fly rod is obviously an essential part of the equation, it's importance is sometimes overstated. I'm of the firm belief that for a beginner, any rod with a medium action and a length of between 7'-6" for smaller streams and 9'-0" for larger rivers will work. The only important factor for the fly rod is that to start with, you want a medium action rod. For the sake of this product line up, we're going to give a few options on fly rod manufacturers, and you can decide on the length to get. It may help to review our Budget Fly Rod Comparison article and look at the differences in the $100 rod range we reviewed. For the beginner,as we determined in the budget fly rod comparison article, a St. Croix Triumph rod is a solid choice. To summarize, the Triumph rods are a decent build, come with a great warranty and are in the $100 range for cost.Fly Rod Choice:
| Length |
Pieces |
Rod Weight |
Line Weight |
Cost |
Action |
| 9'-0" | 2 | 3.5 oz |
5 | $100 | Medium-Fast |
Remember, if you're interested in fly fishing on smaller streams, you'll want a shorter rod. As a general rule, though, an 8'-6" fly rod will work well in almost all situations. You can fish an 8'-6" rod on small streams easily, then with a little more effort, an 8'-6" rod will push a decent amount of line on a larger river. A 5wt would also be the best choice for a beginner since it's a medium line weight and will work in most trout fishing situations. The higher weights are for more backbone, fighting power and casting power. Essentially, you want to match the rod weight and length for the type of fly fishing you're going to be doing. Smaller streams = shorter rod/lighter line weight.
Don't get caught up in buying the expensive stuff if you're just starting out and unsure of whether fly fishing is the right sport for you. Any rod will cast a fly line and catch fish, and we've caught some huge fish on very inexpensive gear. Remember that the reasons the expensive rods cost what they do will be difficult or impossible for a beginner to experience, and you'll eventually appreciate a better rod more after fishing with an inexpensive one for a few seasons.
The Fly Reel
The next essential piece of fly fishing equipment you'll need to buy is the fly reel. For the beginner, looking to buy their first fly reel, the most important thing to remember is that in general, the reel is simply there to hold line. On bigger fish, you will need to retrieve the line on the reel, and for that you need a reel with good bearings, and a large arbor will help too. Drag is somewhat important if you think you'll be getting into bigger fish in fast water. The drag will slow the line down as it comes off the reel, or make the reel harder to turn to let line out. The large arbor reels help in line retrieval since it takes less turns of the reel to retrieve the same amount of line as a standard arbor reel. When you're looking at your first reel, don't get caught up in all of the bells and whistles. You simply need to buy a reel that hold line and is sized for your rod.
Reels are sized by line weight just like the rods are, so if you buy an 8'-6" - 5wt rod, you'll want a 4, 5, 6 wt reel. Some reel manufacturers list reel weights differently, and in general, really only offer 3 sizes (small, medium and large) with corresponding line weight for each size. The reel, in our opinion, is the least important piece of equipment for the beginner. To be honest, any reel will work and I've caught and landed plenty of fish on very cheap Pfleuger Medalist reels.
For the sake of this article, though, we'll reference our article on budget fly reel comparisons. In that article, we reviewed several reels in the $100 range and came to the conclusion that the Orvis Battenkill disc drag reel was the best reel in the $100 range with a great warranty, build quality and feature set. We should interject here that if it matters to you, and you don't want to mix an Orvis reel with a St. Croix rod, then you could buy the Orvis Streamline rod that we reviewed for $89 along with the Battenkill disc drag fly reel to have an Orvis setup and you'd be fine.
It's worth noting that there are a lot of cheaper reels out there, and you certainly can go with a cheaper reel if your budget is tighter than what we're working with. Cheaper reels are just as capable in most cases of stripping line and retrieving line as an expensive reel. The differences between a $50 reel and a $100 reel usually aren't that big, so if you need to cut a little bit of money out of your fly fishing equipment setup, you might think on getting a cheaper reel.
The Fly Line
The importance of fly line is an arguable point in some types of fly fishing. In some situations, having the right line for the conditions makes all the difference. In other situations though, the fly line simply serves the purpose of providing a connection between the angler and the fish. For the beginner, focusing on fly fishing for trout in small to medium sized rivers, fly line is not the most important part of your gear setup as far as I'm concerned. Granted, if you're focusing on dry fly fishing as a beginner, then fly line is slightly more important than if you're going to focus on nymph fishing. Most likely though, as a beginner, you're going to want to have a line that is versatile enough to handle most situations. A line that floats high in the water without getting water logged too fast, and can work in both nymphing and dry fly fishing situations.
In general, and without getting too deep into the differences between different types of fly lines, you'll want to start out with a weight forward floating line to match your rod and reel setup. There are hundreds of fly lines to choose from on the market, and they all seem to have some claim to scientifically proven results for this or that feature. It's daunting to a beginner in fly fishing to look at all the different types of fly lines out there and decide on what to buy.
When you're looking for fly line to purchase, the most important thing to look for is the label that tells you the type of line and the weight of the line. Typically, a box of fly line will have a label attached or printed right on the box with something like: "WF-5-F" on it. These letters and numbers mean the following: "WF" stands for Weight Forward; "5" is the line weight that corresponds to your rod weight; "F" stands for Floating. If you're building a 5 weight rod/reel setup, then the line used in the example is what you want to buy. A 5 weight, weight forward floating line or WF-5-F.
So what line should you buy for your beginner package to go with the items recommended above? This really comes down to your decision on how much to spend, but to offer a suggestion as part of this list, we're going to recommend Cortland's 333 series line. It is a cheaper line at around $29.95, which is about as cheap as fly line comes. It is, however, perfectly adequate and capable fly line for the beginner.
Leaders
Leaders are something you're going to go through a lot of when you start out in fly fishing. As much as you want to go get the cheapest leaders you can buy, don't! Good leaders are going to last longer for you and the leader is one area you don't want to skimp on. It's next to the last connection to the fish for you and you don't want a cheap leader breaking on you with a big fish on the other end. Leaders will come in different sizes and lengths which adds to the confusion of buying your first fly fishing outfit. I always recommend that beginners start out with a leader length that matches your rod as a general rule. So if you bought a 9'-0" 5 WT rod, you'll want to get a 9'-0" leader. This is a very generic way of determining leader length as truthfully, the type of fish you're fishing for, the type of casting you'll be doing and a number of other factors play a role in what kind of leader you buy. For the beginner, though and sticking with our trout fishing setup, the leader length matching rod length rule is a good rule of thumb.
Aside from the length of the leader, the next thing you'll need to decide on is the tippet size (The end that connects to the fly line is the butt end and the end that connects to the tippet is the tippet end). When you go shopping for leaders, you'll see the packages labeled with tippet diameter designations like 3x, 4x, 5x etc. The "#X" stands for the diameter of the tippet of the leader and the lb test that the tippet is. In general, the higher the "#X" (ie. 8X), the lighter the tippet and the lower the breaking strength. So, for example an 8X tippet has a breaking point at about 1.75lbs and is approximately .003" in diameter. The higher the tippet X the smaller the fly you want to be fishing with that particular tippet. A tippet with a breaking point of 1.75lbs is not going to hold a very big fish. For the beginner fishing for trout in medium to small sized mountain streams, a leader with a tippet size of 5X, which has a 4.75lb breaking point and is .006" in diameter.
The other difference you'll see in leaders is their material. Essentially, you'll see two different types of products. Monofilament and flurocarbon. You can find all kinds of debates online about mono vs fluro, so I wont get into too much discussion about it here. The basic difference is that monofilament has a little more stretch and strength to it where flurocarbon has a much lower visibility (ie., it's clearer). Depending on the type of river you'll be fishing, the use of flurocarbon vs monofilament can make a huge difference. I can remember a trip where two of us were seriously outfishing the other guy in our party. We learned about half way through the day that the third man was using monofilament while we were using flurocarbon. On rivers that receive significant fishing pressure, the use of flurocarbon may be essential, while on remote streams where the trout rarely see flies, you can get away with mono.
A recommendation for leaders is a tough thing to make. There are some great leaders on the market. One of the best leader manufacturers that I've used though is Scientific Anglers.
Tippet Material
The final connection between you and the fish is the tippet (extension of the leader). Something a lot of first time fishermen don't understand is that you need to add tippet to your leader prior to tying on a fly. You can save your leader and make it last by doing this. It's also the reason I recommend using a leader as long as your rod. A 9'-0" leader is on the the medium to short side of leader length. Once you add around 24" of tippet, though, you're using an 11'-0" leader.
Tippet is easy to buy since it's determined by your leader's tippet diameter. If you're following along and using a 9'0" 5X leader, then you'll want to buy some 5X and 6X tippet material. I'd suggest buying the full range of tippet material though since it's realatively cheap, you can practically rebuild your entire leader if needed. The reason to buy at least 5x and 6x when using a 5x leader though is flexibility. By using a section of 6x tippet on the end of your 5x leader, you can fish a little lighter fly on the same leader that you're fishing a larger nymph earlier in the day. For example, you could fish with a size 14 nymph on the end of a 24" 5x tippet in the morning and then nip off your 5x and switch to a 24" or longer 6x tippet and fish a size 20 dry fly in the evening.
While this isn't technically correct, and a lot of experienced anglers actually carry several spools for their reels on the water so that switching between nymphing and dry fly fishing involves changing out the entire fly line, leader and tippet to match the conditions, the above is a great beginner lesson. Once you get to understand fly line, leaders and tippets better, you can start to better match up your gear to the conditions.
Essentially, I recommend buying tippet material by the same brand as your leaders, so for the tippet recommendation, I'd have to say to stick with Scientific Anglers.
Waders
Moving on from the rod/reel setup and on to wearable gear, we'll tackle the biggest and in some minds most important piece of equipment you'll buy, waders. There are 3 main categories of waders, neoprene, rubber and breathable waders. The breathable wader category has benefited by advances in technology for the materials used and as a result, the cost of the waders has come down and more and more manufacturers are offering them. Several of the big names in fly fishing equipment are even offering breathable waders in the $100 range these days.
When it comes to choosing your first pair of waders, there are a few things to consider. First, what area do you fish? Is it typically very cold for most of the year? Is it a mix of 6 months of warm weather followed by 6 months of cold weather? Do you plan on fishing in the winter much? Do you like standing in the stream in the cold? While all of these questions play an important role in choosing what waders to buy, it really comes down to the following question. Which waders are the most versatile and most comfortable to wear? The answer to this question is redoubtably breathable waders.
Breathable waders feel like you're wearing a pair of jeans in the summer, and with proper insulating underwear underneath them, can be as warm as neoprene in the winter. Neoprenes do have the advantage in the winter since they're a thicker material, but they're also too hot in the summer. Don't be tempted by the low price of neoprene waders! For a beginner, breathable is the only way to go.
The next consideration has to be the style of breathable waders you buy. There are pant style, hip style and full height waders available, and you should choose the waders that will work best in the situations you're most likely to encounter. As a general rule though, you should stick with buying full height waders. Once you're more experienced, and venture into fishing in other areas and under different conditions, you may want to buy a pair of pant style waders for comfort and pack-ability. You should also stick with stocking foot waders and avoid boot foot waders at all cost. Boot foot waders typically separate from the waders pretty quickly and the boots don't offer much support. More on what boots to buy in the next section below.
As far as the particular waders to buy, we'll stick with cost as the major determining factor for this article, but understand that there are many factors in buying waders to be considered. Cabela's offers several very affordable waders like their Bluestream waders for $59.00 and you'll find that Hodgeman waders are very cheap ($79) at some big box retailers like Gander mountain. Gander mountain has their own line of waders called the Guide Series waders. The biggest factor to consider when buying waders is how they fit and feel. All waders will eventually get a hole and leak, so don't worry so much about the manufacturers claims of toughness. A slip in the brier patch or kneeling down on a piece of wire are usually inevitable when fishing, so just assume that you'll eventually have to patch or replace them. As with the school of thought on buying cheaper fly rods, the same holds true for waders. I'd rather buy 8 pairs of $100 waders over the course of 20 years than spend $800 on a single pair of waders even if they have a lifetime guarantee.
For waders, we're going to list the suggestion a little differently. We're actually going to suggest 3 different waders from 3 different manufacturers.
#1 is the Cabela's River Guide Waders at $99.00. They're straight forward, no frills breathable waders.
#2 is Gander Mountain's Guide series waders since I own a pair and love them. They're around $80 but can be found cheaper and on sale occasionally.
#3 are Frogg Toggs Hellbender waders for cost and comfort.
This is by no means the only selection of waders in the budget category. A quick search on google for breathable waders will show hundreds of waders in the $100 - $200 price range. The point to be made here, again, is that you shouldn't fuss too much about which waders to buy. I would suggest buying your first waders from a store where you can try them on though. Once you know your size, you can safely buy online. Realize though, that wader sizes vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and what may fit well as a medium from one company may be too small from another.
Wading Boots
As mentioned in the Waders section above, we don't like the "boot foot" waders that some companies offer. Boot foot waders are the waders that have the boot built into the wader itself. We prefer "stocking foot" waders, which are waders that have a neoprene foot and require the purchase of wading boots. One of the main advantages of buying stocking foot waders and wading boots is that you can have several pairs of wading boots that suit different situations. For example, you can have a pair of felt bottom boots for general wading and a pair of spiked or studded wading boots for slippery conditions.
One of the biggest trends in wading boot technology is the new category of rubber bottom boots to replace felt bottoms. The reason for this is primarily disease control. Certain water born diseases like whirling disease and didymo (rock snot) are found to be transported from one waterway to another via spores clinging to the felt in felt bottom wading boots. Fishermen fish in one waterway with the disease and then move to another stream without properly disinfecting their boots, thus spreading the disease.
While sticky rubber bottom boots are the way to go these days, the cost of these boots is outside of what we would consider budget gear, or good beginner gear. For the sake of building a comprehensive list of gear for the beginner, we're going to recommend that you buy a pair of studded boots for your first pair of wading boots. The reason for this is that with the studded boots, you actually get a rubber bottom boot with the traction benefit of studs. Studded boots are also great for a beginner since keeping your footing while fly fishing is something that you have to get good at and having a boot that helps you in this area is extremely important. You're more likely to have fun and want to continue fly fishing if you aren't constantly falling in the drink! Don't skimp on the boots, you'll have a much better time out fishing if you've got something with good traction.
The boots that we'll recommend for this review article are the Orvis Clearwater Navigator boots with the rubber sole and studs. They retail for $98.00 but at the time of writing this article are on sale for $59.9. The clearwater navigator boots are everything a beginner would need in a wading boot. They're durable, they've got studs and a rubber sole for reasons discussed above, and they're within our budget range. There were initially issues with this boot since it was a redesign, but Orvis insists it has fixed the issue.
For that reason we're going to list an alternative here as well.
The alternative we're going to list is Frogg Toggs Anura Wading boot. They're a straight rubber bottom boot, so no studs, but they're very good in terms of grip, and you can always buy a stud kit and add studs to them if you're not happy with their traction. The Frogg Toggs Anura boots are cheaper than the Orvis Navigator boots as well at $79.99, but as mentioned, you don't get the studded bottom.
Vest
The last piece of equipment we'll suggest is the vest. It's hard to say that a vest isn't a necessary piece of equipment for the beginner. You'll need a place to store all your fly boxes, floatant for dry flies and tools necessary for fly fishing while you're on the stream. You'll usually want something you can put a drink or light lunch in too in some situations. While when you start out, you might not have a lot of gear, you'll have at least the essentials that we'll list below.
Vests come in all sorts of configurations these days. Everything from full size vests with a bandoleer of pockets, to mini vests that just carry a few fly boxes and even guide necklaces that are worn around your neck. There are also chest packs and fanny packs for short day trips. For the beginning fly fisherman though, a full size vest will be the best bet. Things to look for in your first vest are how comfortable does it feel, does it have ventilation and lightweight material around the shoulders, does it offer a way to spread out the weight distribution and what material is the vest made of.
There are a lot of very good vests on the market today. Some reach hundreds of dollars and some are made by hand, resembling an expensive piece of luggage. Don't get too caught up in all these vests if you're starting on your fly fishing adventure. Focus on functionality and usability of the vest and you'll be fine.
We're going to suggest two vests here so you've got some options. Both are really no frills, straight up vests with everything you need, and nothing you don't. They're not going to win you any fashion awards on stream, but please don't get caught up in how you look on stream. You're there to have fun and catch fish, not show off to the other guys.
The first is the Cabela's Willow Creek vest primarily for the fact that it comes in a sage color. The reason sage color is important is that it will help you blend in to your surroundings. I think the light tan vests are a little too bright, and as a beginner, learning to fly fish, and learning what you can and can't get away with in terms of stealth, you need every advantage you can get. The Willow Creek vest is a perfect beginner vest and has a nice arrangement of pockets for storing gear. It's durable, and it's right around $30. By spending less on a vest, we're allowed to price a little higher priced gear above, like the wading boots. OF course, you can choose to spend a little more and buy a more expensive vest. If you do, just try to get a vest in a dark green color, and avoid the chest packs for now. Chest packs make a good second pack or an occasional pack for quick trips.
The next option for a vest is the Orvis Clearwater Vest. Again, we're choosing this vest as an alternative because it comes in a green color (olive) and it costs $49. The Clearwater vest is a little more money than the Willow Creek vest, which is why we're making it an alternative to our first pick. The Clearwater vest is a basic full size vest with everything you need. The vest has been around for a long time, and if you've already been fly fishing, you probably have seen someone wearing one. They're a staple vest in the fly fishing world, and probably one of the most worn vests on the market.
Conclusion
That concludes the list of primary gear for the beginner on a budget. Our list works out to around $400 for the gear above, which is really cheap to get a full setup of gear to start fishing. There are a few other items to consider that we're not going to suggest products for. You can look through our product database for ideas, or visit any local sporting goods shop that carries fly fishing gear. Below is a list of these smaller items:
- forceps or hemostats
- nippers (clippers) for clipping leader and tippet material
- fly boxes
- leader straightener
- fly floatant
- splitshot
- strike indicators
- possibly a net
Some of these items are sold together as a "value pack" of equipment. Loon Outdoors makes a great selection of these items.
Keep in mind that the list above is simply intended to be a guide for a beginner. There are better pieces of equipment out there that might cost more money and might not. We tried to gather a list of the essentials and give a little background on each piece as a guide for the beginner. The most important thing to keep in mind while shopping for fly fishing gear is to do research on the products, read reviews and take part in discussions about the gear. Stop by our forum and post questions if you need help selecting products. We or one of our members would be glad to answer your questions.
We hope this is useful to those starting out and don't know what they need.
