First Fly Rod, Reel and line Questions??

"Erratic Grouse" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hello,

I recently purchased my first fly rod, a 5wt 4 piece. Now I need to
find a reasonably priced reel to go with it. Most of my fishing will be
for trout on small to medium sized streams in the Pacific Northwest.
There will also be the occasional lake and pond fishing for trout and
bass.

My questions a

1.) What is a good reel for a college student on very limited budget?
I'd like to keep the price of the reel under $50. I see alot of
pflueger reels priced inexpensively($30). I've also seen A redington
in my price range. I plan on upgrading at some point, so I can have a
back up rod or one for friends to use. My main concern is to be able to
some serious fishing from now until winter.

You are bound to have some decent flyshops in your area. I'd drop-in on one
of them and look at some of the reels. Or simply Google reels and view
hundreds, if not thousands. I have nothing against Pflueger (sp?), but the
old ones I have are quite heavy and much to heavy for the rods I use to fish
for trout, on small NC streams.

2) Do I need a large arbor reel? Would you mind explaining what that
is?

Not for any trout I could catch on my small to medium streams, but someone
is likely to say otherwise. Large arbors are primarily used for big fish
fishin', as they will take in more line in one turn of the spool than your
standard reels, I believe.

3) I've read that a good quality line is more important than the reel,
is this true?

Yes, IMMHO! You need to know how you plan to fish: dry fly, nymph,
streamers... I primaily use double tapered floating lines of good to
excellent quality, for my dry fly fishin. Some folks like to use a
weight-forward line. If you are nymphing in deep waters or lake fishin',
you may want a sinking line. Sinkin; lines come in varying degrees of sink,
so you really need to know just how you plan to fish. You could do as I do
and by an extra spool for the reel you purchase and line one with floating
line and the other with sinking line.

What would be a good line? I can probably drop another 40-50 bucks on
this.

Cortland is a reputable dealer, as is Orvis. I'm sure others will have many
good suggestions, as well.

4) Which type of line would you reccomend? Weight Forward or a double
taper.

Personally, I'd start with DT, as I think it is more forgiving for the
beginner. It worked for me!

Buy some books on casting, flyfishing, and any other aspects that you might
think will be helpful. See if your local flyshop rents theie videos.
Search the WEB for knot tying sites, fly patterns, casting
instructions...there is a world of good on the internet!

This is a favorite site of many: http://www.sexyloops.com/

If you Google "Flyfishing" you will get approx. 31,000,000 hits, so start
your search early and stay up late!

Op

Thanks for reading all of this and thanks in Advance for any responses,

Dwayne