You’ve been along to a taster day, fished with friends or have decided to take up fly fishing and you now want to buy your first rod. With Christmas coming what a great present !

Scanning magazines, adverts, fishing forums, brochures and catalogues….you’ll quickly find that there is a lot of choice and jargon. Which for a beginner is bewildering !

So we thought we would ask our friends in the industry by posting a question on their Facebook pages on Saturday. Our question to everyone was….

“any ladies and juniors who are thinking of trying fishing for the first time in 2012 in the UK what rod/reel/line would you recommend….”

We only had 3 companies respond to our question….Huge thank you to the companies below….they do care about their customers…..

Orvis in the USA (they don’t have a UK FB page) were the first to reply…..5 minutes of posting to be precise !…. Hi Anne, I think you’ll get the best advice from the folks at Orvis Corbridge, who will be familiar with the waters in your area. http://www.orvis.co.uk/corbridge. So ladies/juniors visit your nearest Orvis shop.

Ant with his mum

Saturday night at 20.28hrs Glasgow Angling Centre replied (impressed as the store was closed!) The Stillwater SFX2 outfits are our bestsellers by far Anne, the 9′ and the 9’6” are very easy to handle and thousands of newcomers to the sport have larned with this kit!http://www.fishingmegastore.com/stillwater-sfx2-fly-rod~6567.html

Vicky Bell with her son Matthew

Weight ‘wt’ weight does not refer to how much the rod itself weighs but to the weight of the line the rod was designed to cast.

Action of the rod. There are 3 basic actions, or sometimes called flex.

Slow/full flex.

Medium/mid flex.

Fast/tip flex.

Slow action rods are more forgiving.