One of the best experiences I ever had to take my wife fly fishing with me was on a trip to go bluegill fishing in the spring. Like most men getting my wife to go fishing was interesting to say the least. She had been with me on several trips going trout fishing but she ended up watching rather than fishing...which seemed boring to me.
One reason was, she said was she didn't catch a lot of fish. I had taken her trout fishing several times to try and see if she liked it, but she always ended up watching me fish after 30 minutes of not catching a fish. She loved being outdoors and so she was fine with tagging along for the trips. That all changed when I got her to try fishing for bluegills. I told her of a small stream I had often fished near by where she could catch 50-60 fish per day. She thought I was crazy but said she would try it and to make sure I wasn't telling long tales.
The first time she went I took along some spinning gear just to appease her in case she got frustrated trying to cast the fly rod and tying on her flies. So I grabbed 40lbs of gear and took the 40 minute drive to my spot. We ended up parking by a bridge above the stream and began unpacking all the stuff we had hoisted into my van. We looked more like 2 motley people about to swim in the river rather than fine fly fisherman. We were suited up in raggedy old T-shirts, cut-off jeans, boonie hats and suntan lotion that looked more like we were going into war with face paint on. Once I pumped up the raft we use for carrying all our gear through the water and got all the rods/water bottles/food/flies/sunglasses/cameras rigged up and situated we proceeded to climb down a path that led to the stream. After about a 5 minute walk we finally got down to the stream, after sounding like a herd of cattle with bells on in a hurricane. Upon our arrival to the put-in area I proceeded to put all out gear into our raft and tie it off to my waist and slowly get into the stream. Wet wading in the summer is the only way to go on a warm water stream. My wife commented how good the water felt as I prepared her spinning rod with a nice small mepps spinner. I demonstrated how to cast the old dusty Zebco 33 and how to retrieve it back and making sure the spinner was spinning. She said she understood and headed into the water where she proceeded to make her first cast straight up into the trees....we went over the casting lessons again.
Once she got her casting down after 5-6 tries and I tied the correct tippet on my line with a nice brown Beadhead Woolly Bugger tied to the end of it, we proceeded to fish. She threw about 4 times and got another fish on and we hadn't walked 10 feet into the stream yet. She was so excited to say the least. She pulled in a nice looking Redbreast Sunfish that looked more like a tropical fish than it does a fresh water fish. She was amazed by how beautiful the fish was and how strong it pulled. She finally got the fish off her mepps spinner and proceeded to cast again. The spinner no sooner hit the water and she had another fish on...she was ecstatic at this point and could not believe she caught 2 fishing in less than 2 minutes. Needless to say she was hooked from there on.
It's been 10 years since I first took my wife there and now loves to fish because she can catch fish thanks to Mr. Redbreast Sunfish. We take our son with us when we go too, but it was never hard to convince him to want to go fishing. It was the best thing I ever did to get my family into fishing.
One of the easiest things to do in fly fishing to get you started and hooked, not frustrated, is to start with warm water fish like the Bluegills and other Sunfish. You don't need to travel far or have lots of expensive equipment. You can get a starter package for about $20-$40. It's easier for them to change spinners and easy to to catch fish with 3 hooks rather than 1. There are plenty of fish to be had and they are only minutes from your house. With spring coming up there is no better time to get everyone in your family started and hooked on fishing.