in time comes confidence when wading. i was the same way when i started out fly fishing. now i wade in some stuff that i shouldnt, but sometimes u have to inorder to get to the perfect spot. just take your time and soon enough u will be moving around on those rocks like a monkey swinging through the trees. wading staffs are nice, they do help out, u can feel the bottom that is in front of u, and it does give u something to push against when traveling across fast water. i personally would never buy one, i would rather make my own.

-- Edited by brian clemens on Thursday 28th of January 2010 01:26:32 PM

you dont have to wade, unless you have to. My tip for you would be, dont bother trying to cast for in a creek or river, especially putah, since you dont have much a lot of backspace.

When you are nymphing, you do not need much line out. A mistake I made when i was learning, was havnig too much line out. it is useless. Also, when you nymph, in my opinion, you should only have like 20 feet of line total out. If your leader is 7 feet, then aroudn 13 ft of line should be out, because if you do not mend, when the nymph flows downstream, the line will end up all curvy like a fat S. In addition, if you somehow amazingly get a strike when that happens, you most likely will not be able to hook it.

My tip for you is this. YOUTUBE lots. There is enough information on there to teach you. I learned from youtube, and asking questiosn on forums. These guys on these forums are what i call, "ELITE" lol. Remember, MEND your line. It is very important that you do. If anyone else has any other tips that can fix any errors i mentioned here, please do so. I am still a noob lol..

Wade at your own pace and most of all ability. The river isn't going anywhere. I once took a gnarly fall, The head cracking open kind. Now I'm a slow wader.

Its all good , I think some of you already know that I am a self taught flyfisherman and yes it was acheiveable and fun yet sometimes a little frustrating in the process!! I was fortunate because our ranch is a 2 minute walk from access#5 so I was out there practicing almost every day of the week,something most people are not able to do. I always tell people that hiring a good patient guide is a great thing to do (if the pocket book allows,mine did not) this will definately shorten the learning curve,keeps you from developing any bad habits make things less frustrating and as a result makes it more enjoyable. One of the things for me that has been really nice about guiding (besides meeting some very interesting people) is I still learn things from some of the people when were on the water, and THAT is the beauty of flyfishing!! So bottom line if time and patience allow do your own thing and have fun doing it or.......hire me!!! lol.   Oh by the way count me in on helping with another class on behalf of Putah Creek Trout.

Yeah its definately the challenge that keeps me coming back to,and never getting bored of flyfishing. I kind of compare it to playing an instrument. I myself am a self taught drummer and it to me is alot like flyfishing simply because no matter how long you've fished or played there is always pleanty of room for improvement, so that keeps me interested. By the way I grew up on old school punk rock,so therefore thats all I can play so in otherwords I suck...but I still have fun doing it so I guess thats all that matters!   Bono

I think Black Cloud posted a picture of Yellow Creek in the rants and raves section.