Fly fishing in Manchester, Vermont
Keeping it reel.

From the March 24, 2003 Issue of New York

My dad, 84, has been fishing almost 75 years, and I was 6 when he taught me. We’re both spin casters, but after years of listening to the fly-fishing blah-blah, we decided to see for ourselves what all the fuss was about. The Orvis Fly Fishing School, we discovered, is a great place to find out. In the Orvis classroom, instructors teach the basics of knot tying, how to “read” the water, and Trout Psych 101. Then they reveal the secrets of the fly-cast—the delicate backward-then-forward motion that sends a thin loop of line shooting through the air to deposit a tiny imitation fly gently on the water’s surface—first in the parking lot, then on the Battenkill River. After your last class on Sunday, you can head back to the Battenkill or hike up to the emerald-green Equinox Pond for “evening rise,” the time between dusk and dark when fish like to feed. You’ll almost certainly get a bite: Mine was mosquito, but Dad’s was trout.
— Julie Mautner




Details
The Orvis Fly Fishing School (from $430; 800-235-9763; orvis.com) is four and a half hours from New York; stay at the Equinox Hotel (from $195; 888-FOR-ROCK; equinoxresort.com).
 
Related Websites
Vermont Living - Local ctivities, lodging, restaurants, and maps.
American Museum of Fly Fishing - Everything you ever wanted to know...located in Manchester.

 
Photograph: Corbis