How to Fly Fish without a Fly Rod

   Fishing with a fly rod, fly reel, fly line and the lure, or flies - is different than fishing with a traditional spinning rod and reel.
   In fly fishing, the lure - the fly - weighs mere grams. Light as a feather, literally. The fly line is the weight. Momentum and the physics of a "loop" propagating along the line is what carries the fly to it's destination and target.

   With a spinning rod - the weight on the end of the line is hurled to the target. There may be a lead weight, or a heavy lure, or the weight of bait that allows the line to be cast long distances.

    It is very difficult to cast a heavy lure with a fly rod. And very difficult to cast a light fly with a spinning rod. Neither is practical.

    But it is possible to rig a spinning rod to be able to fly fish. When I was a young boy and had not mastered the art of fly casting or managing a rod that can be nine feet long, my dad helped me rig a spinning rod and reel to fly fish.

    A couple of feet up from the end of the line he attached a split shot. Then he slid a clear, egg shaped bobber onto the line. It was the kind of bobber that can be filled with water. We'd fill the bobber, and then attached a second split shot below the bobber. That way, the bobber was "trapped" between two split shot.

      We then tied a fly to the end of the line, about 18 inches or so below the bobber and two split shot.

  You can easily cast up stream due to the weight of the split shot and the watter-filled bobber. You just let it drift downstream, through any particular "hole" you wanted to target. 

   Once the fly had drifted as far downstream as it could go, simply reel it up, and cast upstream again.