Maybe you’re someone who doesn’t know a whole lot about fly fishing or spinning fishing, or you are someone who does but is trying to explain the differences to someone you know. Most people who don’t know that much about spinning fishing or fly fishing, don’t really know what the difference is. To those of us who do, we know that they are literally worlds apart. While fishing is still fishing and both styles are there to catch fish, the differences between each style is great so below we’ll go over the differences between both spinning fishing and fly fishing.
While there are a lot of opinions on which one is better and we all have them, if this is something that you enjoy, and you are still caring for the environment while you do it, then whichever one you like is just fine. First let’s look at the type of gear you would need for fly fishing and compare it to the gear you would need for spinning fishing. As with any style of fishing, the gear you use will change depending on a lot of things. Like where you are fishing, to what type of fish you want to catch, what kind of fishing you want to do and a lot of other outside factors. This includes rods, flies, lures, lines and so on.
The rod type that is used by fly fishers should be lightweight so they can use it to cast their line by false casting, while a spinning fisher will use a spin rod which is much heavier and will have a mono-filament line with a single cast.
People who like to fly fish have to use flies which can include dry flies, nymphs, emergers, streamers, basically anything that imitates different forms of foods that fish feed on. Spin fishing, on the other hand, uses heavier lures that normally imitate other fish. The line for a fly fisher is usually a fly line, leader, tippet which we know is used to case lighter flies. The line that a spinning fisher would use would be a monofilament line or another type which would be used to cast a heavy lure but doesn’t need a heavy line to cast it.
The other differences you might find between fly fishing and spinning fishing are how they are performed in lakes or river and the presentation differences between the two. When it comes to bodies of water, fly fishing is usually done on moving water. This, of course, doesn’t exclude still water as fly fishing is still done there frequently; it mostly comes down to personal taste and what you prefer. Spinning fishing is done mostly on still water, but there are some who like to try with moving waters such as rivers as well.
When it comes down to presentation, fly fishing allows for upstream presentation and a stealthier one. As well as all of that, you can also work in tighter quarters if you are fly fishing. Spin fishing works great for imitating fish which you can do at all water depths. They are retrieved and not thrown upstream and are brought back to you. The bottom line is, one fishing style is not better than the other, ergo choose the style you like best.
