Anne Woodcock organises fishing days for women. She is the Marketing Director at FishPal and has a weekly show on CVFM Radio 
Buying your first fishing rod.
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.
I have introduced a few lads to fly fishing and the first thing they ask or say is that fly fishing is too expensive.
My fly rod is a 10 foot 7# Daiwa Lochmore.
I paid £120 many years ago now and its caught me a big salmon a big sea-trout and its my reservoir rod where i fish for the wild browns on Teesdale Reservoirs.
The rivers i fish are the Tees and the Wear and i am a member of the best club in the N/E east in Bishop-Auckland and District Angling club.
I know its nice to own the best but ive learnt you dont need to be rich to enjoy fly -fishing.
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Hi Peter, as a fellow member of BAAC I totally agree with your comments. You can spend a lot of money on fishing equipment, thats why on all our ladies days there is a selection of rods available for all casting styles.
Did you know that BAAC’s junior club has 4 members in the North East Talent Pathway.
Hope to see you on the bankside…
Regards
Anne
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Anne: That’s a great post and I was especially interested to see who replied and what was said. Keep up the great work of introducing more great people to the love of flyfishing.
John Childress
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Hi John, thank you for your comments…regards Anne
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