Welcome to the RWFF Forum. While this is a virtual flyfishing forum many of us here are "real" flyfisherman as well. Here I will try to answer some of your questions re: tricks of flyfishing.
1)The first thing you will need to learn to fly fish with any success is fly casting. In spinning fishing you are casting the spinning lure, or plug which has some weight. In flyfishing you are actually casting the fly line with a small fly attached to the end of it. This is quite a different technique and it is not too hard to learn with a little practice and the correct equipment.
2)The average trout flyrod will be around 6-7 weight, 8 1/2 feet long with a floating flyline and a 8 foot tapered leader. The tippet size for most trout fishing will be around 4-6X. Trout usually live in very clean and clear water and a small tippet will be needed to catch the fish as they spook quite easily.
3)The trout fly that you would use would be something that imitates the food (insect or minnows) that the trout are feeding on. Trout usually feed on mayflies,grass hoppers, caddis flies, ants, beetles,dragon flies and whatever flies that are available to your particular location. This is call matching the hatch.
4)Trout also feed on small minnows, snails, nymphs, fresh water shrimps, or whatever available to your particular piece of water.
5)If you go to your lake and see trout dimpling the surface they are feeding on insects floating on top of the surface film and a dry fly would be effective here.
6)If no fish are showing on top, e.g. eating the floating insects you might be able to entice them into striking something that imitates a small fish, or hatching insect under the surface, this is call a wet fly.
7)It is possible to use your favorite fishing tackle, to most people this will be a spinning rod, to catch trout on a fly. You will need to have a small plastic float that has a bit of weight to it so you can cast it some distance with your spinning rod. Some finer leader than your regular spinning line. 4-5X will be good here. You would attach a swivel to the end of your regular line. Attach a small plastic float to the end of it, then attach the fine leader to the small swivel. The leader should be about 4-6 feet long. Then you attach a dry, or wet fly to the small leader.
Unless the trout are very well educated, you will have best chance of success with some kind of attractor dry or wet fly. For dry fly you would use something that looks like a small insect floating on top of the water. A good fly pattern will be the "Renegade" or an "Adams" in size 12-14. For wet fly you will need to get a strange looking fly called "Wooly Bugger" in size 6-8.9)The dry fly is usually fished motionless and you would allow it to float naturally with the water movement. The wet fly, on the other hand, should be fished with a little twitching motion so the fly appears to be alive and swimming under the water.
Fly fishing is a lot of fun and does minimal damage to the hooked fish as most fish will be hooked in the lips rather than in the gut. It does take a bit of experience and practice to become good at it though.I hope this answered some of your questions about how to catch a trout on a fly.
Good luck and let us know if you have any success.
Regards,
Stanley
