Help for a salwater fly rookie

[captcl]

I've got a 10wt. lamiglass (two peice) with an albright reel that i'm doing ok with(in fact i'm starting to enjoy this)! I purchased a Colton reel 7-9 for a merry christmas to me gift on here during foulhook's special. Now I need a rod. my 10wt. is 2peice I have found others in 2-peice and plan to buy a 2-peice rod and set it up as an 8wt. intermediate with sinking line on the spare spool. What gives with rods costing $300-$800 in 4,5, and 6 peices?Or are they for fly gurus that don't fish from a boat? i'm going to spend $220 max. and am seriously thinking about an okuma 2-peice for around $100. lay it on me guys, i'd rahter get it from you then a fly shop trying to make a sale.Thanks

[wauwinet]

Most guys are nowhere near good enough casters to even notice the difference between a good rod and a great one. Plus, once you're good enough to notice, you're alos good enough to cast a decent rod as far as you need to.

The lower priced LL Bean rods are a great bargain as well as St. Croix, Orvis and the Sage beginners series.

Become a good caster, and you will catch regardless of the rod. Good casters catch fish, not poor casters with great rods.

P.S. A good fly line will improve your casting way more than a good rod.

[captcl]

thanks wauwinet

[GALAZIO]

I do a little fly fishing offshore (not too many Texans understand this concept)... anyway, having used fly equipment my entire life on streams and lakes, I have found out a few things...

As mentioned above, the correct line will help big time. For instance, how many spare spools do you have and carry with you with floating, sinking, weight forward, shooting, etc etc line types? I always have at least two while offshore (setups, sinking and shooting/weight forward floating). The WIND and direction of the wind determines which line will work (70%) and the action of the rod (30%). Since you can't carry or afford to carry all the different rods, actions, lines, etc, etc... you have to find one or two that work the majority of the time. (and learning different techniques help too). I use the TiCr X on my 8 wt & 12 wt. It is a rod that wants the coals poured to it on the cast and will handle the fish in battle. Put it in wind, add a fly with a little weight and don't be scared to fire it. But call Bob at Colton...he has rods and worth a look!!!

You want "artistic" casts and flowing lines? Go to a wind protected stream in Montana, but when it comes to getting a fly out and out quick... you need a rod that can handle aggression. I can count twice in three years that I had dead calm winds and glass smooth water to fish... and most traditionalist would have a heart attack with my style, but put them in a heavy wind and they will quickly ask how this spinning equipment works.

I do catch alot of mahi and cobia on fly rods (and prefer to)... but with these guys, it's a quick roll cast or one false cast to get the fly in the target zone. For sight casting redfish tailing along a bank, I'm sure Lee can add some of his experience (and I plan on doing a little more inshore stuff this year)... but for the bigger game like Tarpon, mahi, cobia, etc).

Best of luck and enjoy it! Nothing quite like a 20lb mahi going nutz attached to a fly outfit.

Get a spare spool... load it with either floating weight forward or a sinking line (opposite of what you currently have) and try both. I'm wanting to talk with FoulHook about his 10-12 wt reels. They look great!

[GALAZIO]

HERE'S A GOOD ARTICLE FROM CHICO... he knows his stuff!

The most important aspect of sight-casting is to match the proper fly line to the conditions you find out on the flat.

Sight-casting to redfish may be similar to fishing for bones on the flats, but if you try to get double duty out of a single fly line in multiple environments, your accuracy will inevitably suffer.
IT'S BEEN SAID THAT a fly fisherman can buy his way around the world to find any game fish, but he always has to cover the last 50 feet on his own — meaning the cast. This salty aphorism is never more true than when sight-fishing in the flats, where an angler's skill and tackle must work in perfect unison.

As big and plentiful as deep-water fish can be, saltwater fly fishing is really at its most exciting and demanding on the flats. Here you are hunting a fellow predator that has braved its way into uncomfortably shallow water to feed. He is constantly looking for food, searching left and right and making for a difficult, moving target. As if this is not hard enough, the skinny water makes these fish forever nervous. Whether we're talking bonefish in the Bahamas, big Yucatan permit, giant Florida tarpon, Nantucket flats stripers, or backwater redfish, shallow-water sight-casting demands the ultimate fly-fishing skill. Clean presentation is the key to every catch; therefore, no single bit of tackle is more important than the proper fly line.

In most sight-casting situations, your average shot will probably be from 15 to 65 feet. Redfish in off-color water dictate shorter distances, while finicky permit on crystalline flats represent the longer side. The basic shape of a good fly line for sight-casting is usually similar for all these species. But the varying temperatures and salinities you will encounter from species to species call for different fly lines if you want to maximize your casting efforts.

Flats Fly-Line Design
Ideally, you want a weight-forward fly line with a head short enough that, within the first couple of false casts, most of the weight is out and the rod loads quickly. But the head should be long enough that you do not have to shoot too much line and lose accuracy. For example, with a 30-foot head, you'd probably have to shoot too much line to reach 60 feet and still be accurate. (The head of a fly line is comprise the front taper, belly, and rear taper.)


Today's fly lines may seem expensive, but since many anglers fish for multiple flats species, it pays to invest in at least two sight-casting tapers, one for cool weather and another for the tropics.
Since most sight-casts fall around 35 to 60 feet, a head of roughly 40 feet with a 10-foot leader makes a good general-purpose combination. If you are false-casting to a fish 60 feet away, and you have a combined head-and-leader length of 50 feet, you'll have to shoot only 10 more feet to reach the fish. When you have to shoot a lot of line, accuracy suffers. If, say, you are making a presentation 50 feet away, you want to false-cast 45 feet and, on the last cast, shoot only five feet. You can be very accurate this way.

Why not false-cast the whole 50 feet to a fish that is 50 feet away? Because fish in shallow water do not like anything flying over their heads. False-casting directly over a fish will spook it. Get used to shooting just a few feet at the last moment.

Nowadays, most fly lines sold for sight-casting have a head length of around 40 feet. Lately, there have been some sight-casting tapers with heads as short as 30 feet, mainly for reds in poor visibility or muddy water. If you fish in stained water for reds, snook, or baby tarpon, then the shorter heads may work very well for you.

The Temperature Factor
When line manufacturers first tried to create fly lines specifically for the tropics, the first problems they encountered were extreme heat and humidity. Throw in the harmful admix of bug repellent and sunscreen, and those old lines took a beating. They were super soft, hung on the rod like wet linguine, and stuck to the guides. Excessive line dressing did help, but not much.


Braided multifilament (top left) and monofilament (top right) cores yield different performances on the flats. Multifilament cores are hollow, float higher, and remain supple in cool weather. But they wilt in the tropics. Braided monofilaments produce a stiffer line that tolerates heat better but will be too stiff in cooler weather. Single monofilament cores (not shown) are often used with clear-tip sinking or intermediate lines and and also have sight-casting applications.
Illustrations Courtesy of Scientific Anglers
To overcome the heat, you need a stiff line that resists becoming overly supple throughout the day. To that end, manufacturers now offer tropical lines with harder, tougher coatings that will shoot well through the guides. But the factor that makes these lines truly different is the core. Instead of the soft-braided, multifilament nylon core of most fly lines, today's hot-weather lines have either a fat, single-monofilament core or a braided monofilament core of many strands. Both types make for a stiff fly line with good shooting capabilities.

However, the price of a stiff line — and the great performance that comes with it — is high memory coming off a reel. These tropical lines need a good stretching at the beginning of the day, and often again around midday if you are fishing for tropical species in cooler weather. For this reason, I prefer braided-monofilament cores. They stretch easier and straighten very well.

However, what happens if you are redfishing with these same tropical lines during the winter in Texas, Louisiana, or South Carolina, or for Nantucket flats stripers early or late in the season? Or even on a cold day in South Florida? The stiffness factor becomes a liability, and the line will come out of the reel looking like a tempered steel spring. Here you need to go back to a fly line with the same 40-foot head, but now but with a softer braided-nylon core.

The Salinity Factor
All these fish that we commonly sight-cast to don't live in waters of the same salinity. While bonefish and permit need maximum salinity, many tarpon, redfish, and snook cruise backwaters with very low salt content. I've taken plenty of snook, small tarpon, and even redfish mixed with black bass in pure fresh water.



A proper sight-casting line typically has a total head length of about 40 feet. With shorter heads you end up having to shoot more running line to make longer casts, and that's when accuracy suffers.
Illustrations Courtesy of Scientific Anglers
But this presents a problem for many tropical fly lines. Since buoyancy is a function of water density, and saltwater is denser than fresh, fly lines made to fish the flats in pure salt water do not need as much flotation, which is created by small air pockets trapped in the line coating. The minimal air keeps the diameter of these lines as small as possible so you have a line that floats well enough and cuts through the wind like magic.

Take one of these lines from the bonefish world to fish for redfish in the brackish backwaters of northern Florida, however, and you'll have a line with too much memory that takes constant stretching, and that will not float well. It just does not belong there. In this situation you need a softer line with the more common braided-nylon core to minimize memory and enhance flotation. A line with plenty of air in the coating will float higher in sweet water. In fact, bass-bug tapers often work as well as anything.

There are some rigging limitations when you choose a tropical line. Because the braided monofilament and monocores used to make the line stiff are not hollow — unlike all-braided-nylon-core fly lines — you cannot use a needle knot or any other connection in which you need to insert the butt of the leader inside the core. You typically rig these lines with a plain six- to eight-turn nail knot or a loop-to-loop connection. But this is a minor detail.

So, lines made for the salty, warm temperatures, with their smaller diameters and tough finishes, are capable of casting a loop into a strong wind and turning a fly over at the end of the cast. They are great performers. On the other hand, in its element, the softer, fatter, braided-nylon core lines are more subtle, perhaps even more elegant, while still shooting line pretty well. And their slower loop provides better accuracy. Presentation is a bit more delicate, and picking a lot of line off the water to make another cast is easier, producing less noise than the high-performance warm-water lines.

I do know many anglers who manage to fish both the cold and hot flats with one type of fly line. Me? I switch as conditions dictate. Let's face it, a fly line costs about what you'd tip a guide these days. And the life of a fly line, if properly maintained, is many years. As far as I'm concerned, fly lines are relatively cheap. Accurately casting in the wind to a spooky fish in the flats is hard enough, so I'll take all the help I can get. I politely suggest you do the same.

[captcl]

Thanks Galazio, got spare spools and going to get them loaded. Going to be a learning experience. It all started when i was running a bigger boat up on the Chesapeake and had some guys on that brought their fly rods to use while we were chumming they had ablast and i decided that i better learn to do this so i can better serve ny customers/passengers. Still learning!

[GALAZIO]

See if you can find the Titanium Predator leaders for those Bluefish... they would be a fun easy target, but you'll need something tooth-proof. Here's what Airflo makes:

A tough leader for mean fish - this super tough clear PolyLeader has an incredible, almost indestructible Titanium wire insert that just keeps going fish after fish. In our field tests,as many as fifty fish were landed on a single leader. Each leader is complete with swivel to eliminate leader twist and snap link for ease of use.

Suitable for toothy predators in fresh and saltwater.

And I REALLY like the rods Colton is doing. We will be giving them hell this year along with his reels. Get his 8wt (nothing lighter, and that might be too light for a pulling fish like stripers) or 9-10wt and don't look back! The reel will handle the heavier line and the drags will be more than you need, you just need a rod with some ballz to turn a determined "digger" like stripers and reds. Acrobatic fish, like smaller mahi, the softer rod will be fine. We catch "chicken" mahi on our 8wt most the time. Bonita (and you have Albies) are "diggers"... get the heavier rod otherwise you'll be fighting it with the reel, not the rod.

[Sweet Caroline]

The Reddington rods are also pretty nice and not that expensive. Get something basic and inexpensive to start and see how you like it and how often you get to do it. Unless you are jetty or back bay fishing the saltwater fly fishn' is little tough and takes time to put it all together. I take guys out a few times a year and I have always been able to put them on fish but it is a lot of work. Once the Summer rolls around keep me in mind and I will take you out with some real good fly fisherman. I learn something new each time I take these guys out. We have lots of fun with the dolphin and I am going to work on the tuna and shark for this year.

[jemche]

hey check out the salisbury fly shop. i would def reccomend it. will get you hooked up w/ everything you need and he does not try to rip you off. i would not sugest going to gander mtn. do not have that much stuff their.

[captcl]

That's right jemeche he spooled up my 10 wt. Ok galazio I'll set my "Colton" on a 9wt.Thanks guys!