Fast Action Fly Rods And The Fly Lines That make Us Love Them
Selecting the right fly line for your fast action fly rod isn’t as easy as it used to be.
I have found myself having this conversation with three different anglers this week. That’s generally a good sign that it’s time to write something on the topic. There’s plenty to write on the topic of choosing a fly line. Fly lines have become increasingly specialized and more numerous. You can buy a line for any species of fish alive, for any style of fishing, for specific destinations, and now Winston has started selling lines specifically for their rod. A strategy I’d be shocked to not see adopted by other companies.
The decision is further complicated by the action of today’s fast action rods. Some of these modern hotrods can be pretty finicky about the lines they throw. The exact fly line which works for you and your fly rod is best determined by trial and error, but I’m going to try to eliminate some of the variables and get you started in the right direction.
2 Kinds of fast.
When it comes to fast action fly rods, it’s important to understand what makes your rod fast. The term “fast” refers to the recovery rate of the rod. That’s the time it takes for the rod to return to straight from a flexed position. The less time it takes to recover from the flex, the faster the action.
Traditionally, “fast” has meant “stiff”. The way rod designers have made fly rods faster has been to throw graphite at the problem, adding material to make a stiffer rod. These rods became so stiff that many anglers struggled to load them. Line manufacturers responded by making heavier fly lines. Before long, experienced anglers started to realize that they were putting 6-weight lines on their 5-weight rods and started to ask, “why are we calling this a 5-weight, anyway?”
A fair question, and as more anglers grumbled about it, rod companies started to respond by making fly rods with more accessible actions. A new type of fast action rod started to emerge. These rods had fast recovery rates, not because they were stiff but
Read More »Grass Roots Fly Fishing – People Making A Difference
by Louis Cahill
Is it time you gave something back?
You can’t go to school for fly fishing. You can take some classes or workshops, here and there, but most folks learn to fly fish one of two ways. On their own or from a friend or family member. Either way it’s a tough learning curve. Information is pieced together from tips and suggestions, successes and failures. Some anglers hire guides or casting instructors to teach them but that’s not an option for everyone. What if there was a better way?
Well, there is. There are local clubs and groups that take on the mission of educating anglers and creating a community around our love of the sport. Some are better than others and some are great. At their best, these groups do more than share information. They share the passion, the ethics and the camaraderie of fly fishing. I’m going to tell you about one of them.
I didn’t know my life was about to change when I met Scott MacKenzie. We fished together, and hit it off right away but I had no idea what a positive influence he would be, for me and others. Scott is just one of those guys who radiates positive energy. He came along at a time when things were pretty tough at G&G world headquarters. It is not an exaggeration to say there would be no Gink and Gasoline today, if not for Scott.
He and I fished together in the Bahamas, on one of my bonefish schools. Scott had been a fly fisherman for many years but had never tied flies. I taught him to tie a bonefish fly and when he caught fish on it the next day, he was hooked. From that point forward he was all about fly tying. I’d get a couple of text messages a day with questions or photos of flies. Soon he asked me, “Would you teach me to tie?”
“Of course!” I answered.
“While you’re at it, would you mind teaching six or eight other guys?” He followed up.
I agreed and Atlanta Fly Tying was born. Scott threw down his own money and bought eight complete tying setups. Eight Regal Revolution vises, eight sets of Rising tying tools, thread and materials all in lots of eight and scheduled the first class. We met at Scott’s office. He reached out to The Atlanta Fly Fishing Club, another great organization, and they spread the word that there would be free tying classes, open to anyone.
That first night we had about six guys show up. We sat around Scott’s conference table to tie redfish flies, because Scott and I were going redfishing in a couple of weeks. I dove right in to the instruction. We were cranking along when Scott brought up G&G.
“Here comes the pitch!” One of the guys blurted out.
I was floored. “I’m sorry man,” I told him, “I don’t have a pitch. I just run a fly fishing web site, and it’s free.”
It never occurred to me that these guys were sitting around that table thinking we had something to sell them. I should have realized. That is the kind of world we live in, where any act of generosity, no matter how small, is suspect. Maybe I’m stupid for not having something to sell them. If I had a fly shop or a guide service, maybe I would, but all Scott and I had to offer was knowledge and enthusiasm. Those guys wound up
Read More »Georgia Man Catches Trout On Car Key, But Why?
By Louis Cahill
WHY IN THE HELL WOULD YOU FISH THAT? I’M GLAD YOU ASKED. TO PROVE A POINT.
For some reason this year I have run into more anglers with attitude than usual. Ranging from the dry fly purest who think they walk on the water rather than fish it, to the Bonos of fly fishing who keep a sharpie handy for a quick autograph. Here’s an example.
I was on a photo shoot a while back on the Henry’s Fork. I had a few minutes to fish and frankly, I needed a fish to photograph, so I asked the guide for a rod. He gave me a set up with a Chernobyl Ant, the fly everyone else was using to NOT catch fish. I didn’t have my gear so I ask if he had any streamers. The reply I got brought steam out of my ears. “This is the Henry’s Fork and we don’t do that here”. Rather than launch into a diatribe on what horse shit that is, I explained that this was my job and I needed a fish and may I please have a streamer. Within a few casts I had my fish. The guide was clearly irritated and insisted that it meant nothing.
I was talking, ok bitching, about this narrow view of fishing to Kent, over a few beers, when he challenged me to come up with the most f¥€ked up thing I could catch a fish on. After a few ideas we decided on a car key. I liked this because I cary a key chain with way too many keys. So I picked out a key and tied on a hook with a marabou tail. To further infuriate the purest I chose
Read More »How To Make Your Fly Rod Cast Like A Dream
What Fly Line Matches Up Best With Your Fly Rod?
It always amazes me that there’s very little talk in the industry about how important it is to match your fly rod with the appropriate fly line. My recent visit to the ITFD Fly Fishing Show in New Orleans, I witnessed on more than one occasion, fly rod company’s matching their fly rods up with what appeared to be the wrong fly lines. If you spool up the wrong fly line on your reel, that $700 fly rod you just purchased will end up feeling awkward, and won’t perform the way the fly rod designer intended it to. Below are some quick tips on how to match your fly rod with the correct fly line so it ends up casting like a dream.
Fast Action Fly Rods
Stiff, fast action fly rods require fly lines with a more aggressive head design for optimum rod loading and casting. Since fly rods are generally meant to load at 25-30′ of fly line out the end of the rod tip, anglers often find it difficult to load fast action fly rods, particularly at short distances, unless they’ve matched their rod with the appropriate fly line. Both Rio and Scientific Anglers manufacture fly lines specifically for fast action rods.
The Magic of Soft Hackles
SOFT HACKLES ARE THE SHARKS OF THE FLY BOX.
Like the shark, the soft hackle is one of the oldest of its ilk, and like those ancient predators, it has evolved very little from its inception. Like the shark, it is a deadly design that could not be improved upon. Take, for example, the Kebari flies used by tenkara anglers for hundreds of years. Basically Soft Hackles with a reverse hackle. So effective, that traditional tenkara anglers only fish one pattern. Many modern fly anglers overlook traditional Soft Hackle patterns that are as effective today as ever.
There are two primary reasons for the effectiveness of the soft hackle. For starters, it’s the ultimate impressionistic pattern. It looks like almost everything on the aquatic menu. A fish who is looking for something specific is very likely to see it in a soft hackle. The second reason is, there’s just no wrong way to fish one. If you struggle with getting a drag free drift, a soft hackle is a very forgiving pattern. As long as it is in the water, it will produce fish.
FISHING SOFT HACKLES
As I said, there is no wrong way to fish these flies, but there are some proven tactics you can employ. For starters, dead drifting the fly as a nymph is never a bad plan. The Soft Hackle is as effective in this role as any pattern. That said, the dead drift does not take advantage of some of the pattern’s unique properties.
Perhaps the most common and most productive presentation for a Soft Hackle is the swing. The hackle has a tendency to trap an air bubble making the fly a natural emerger pattern. There are tying techniques, which I will go into, that enhance this effect. When fished deep and swung to the surface, the glowing air bubble inside the hackle is more than any trout can resist. One of my favorite ways to rig this pattern is to drop it about sixteen inches behind a Wooly Bugger with some weight in front of the Bugger. Drift the team deep through a run then lift them to the surface or quarter them down and across and let then swing and hold on.
When fishing from a boat, it’s very effective to cast a Soft Hackle straight across the current and retrieve it slowly, about four inches at strip. A hand-twist retrieve works well. This is also effective when teamed with a Bugger. Even more fun,
Read More »Caring For Zip-front Waders
MODERN WATERPROOF ZIPPERS HAVE REVOLUTIONIZED THE DESIGN OF WADERS.
The ease and convenience of zip-front waders is easy to get used to. There was a time when I scoffed at the idea, but now I can’t see fishing in anything else. Especially with the durability and dependability found in the new waterproof zippers. My Simms G4Z waders are bombproof and require virtually no maintenance. Still, waders are expensive and it pays to take care of them.
Here are a few tips to keep your zip-fronts going strong.
Never pack your waders zipped
This is the most important thing I can tell you about waterproof zippers. I once spent a very cold week steelheading in open waders. Throwing a pair of waders with the zipper zipped into your duffle and driving to the river may not be the end of them, but fold those waders and put them in a bag and hand them over to an airline and you’re screwed. When your bag ends up at the bottom of a pile of luggage a lot of weight is on the fold in that zipper. As that fold is flattened, the teeth pop apart below the pull. The zipper pull will not re-mesh them and the separation will grow until the entire zipper is open. Your waders are done. Always pack your waders unzipped to avoid this problem.
Wash your zipper
It’s a good idea to wash your waders once in a while anyway. This will greatly increase the longevity of your fishing buddies. It will also keep mildew from growing. Mildew, in addition to smelling awful, will degrade the seams and cause waders to leek. While you’re at it, wash the zipper thoroughly with running water and dry your waders wrong-side-out. This will clear grit from the zipper that can jam the pull and damage the teeth.
Lubricate your zipper
Lubricating your zipper will keep it moving freely and
Read More »Faith and Steelhead
by Tim Harris
I just returned from my first real steelhead trip to the Deschutes in a couple of years.
I had to miss out all of last two summer seasons due to illness though I did manage a few days last winter where I actually hooked up several fish and landed one nice hatchery fish.
Now I’ve got the steelhead sickness again, it is time though to break out the floating line and the switch rod and begin to swing Streetwalkers across the currents. I’ll get up before dawn and head to the river in the early morning, rig up and wade out just as it begins to get light. Then begins the methodical, meditative practice of cast, mend, swing, and step until I am at the bottom of the run and I pack up and go to work. The cast is meditative too – strip, lift, swing, create the D loop, and let it rip. Mend once, maybe twice. Swing slowly. Take one to two steps down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
All the while you are keeping faith.
Read More »I Must Have Washed My Streamers On Hot
How did all of my streamer patterns get so small?
I must have left the box in a shirt pocket and thrown it in the wash on hot. It seems like just the other day that all of my buddies would look at my streamers and shake their heads, often with a look of disgust. Seriously, it was like five minutes ago, the idea of throwing a four inch long fly at a trout was considered absurd. For a minute it wasn’t, and now I’m getting looks again.
These days it seems like half the guys I fish with are heaving eight- or nine-inch feather snakes at cowering trout. Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe there is some wisdom in fishing a fly the size of the average fish in the river. I’m sure of one thing, and it’s proven to be true my entire life. When I am the voice of reason, things have gotten way the hell out of hand.
I firmly believe that there is a point of diminishing returns when it comes to fly size. A quick survey of YouTube videos under the topic “Streamer Tying for Trout” will quickly make you believe I’m in the minority. Everybody with a vise and a GoPro is in a race to see who can pile the most material onto the greatest number of hooks. Are those things really catching fish?
My feeling is this. You’ll get the occasional fish on those huge flies, but you’re asking an awful lot of a fish to attack something like that. I find I do better by
Read More »How to Stop the Dreaded Fly Fishing Birds Nest
Does this look familiar?
Just about every angler has created this tangled artwork at some point, some more than others. I’m pretty good at untangling knots because I get more practice than the average angler from my guiding, but even this one required me to break out a fresh leader and completely re-rig. If you find yourself untangling knots more than you’re fishing, try fixing the problem by following these five helpful tips.
1. Watch your forward cast and backcast when false casting.
“In the film A River Runs Through It”, Jerry Siem (one of the casting stuntmen) never watched his backcast. It’s important to note that his fly casting skill level ranks among the best in the world, which allowed him to get away without doing this. It’s also pertinent to point out he was casting a single dry fly in the movie scene, not a tandem nymph rig with split-shot and a strike indicator. Could he have made the same casts in the movie with a tandem nymph rig without tangles, of course he could, but that doesn’t mean every other angler out there should try to mimic him. The majority of the best casters in the world watch their backcast, especially when they’re fly fishing in areas where casting room is limited. Your first step to limiting the number of tangles you create on the river is to watch your forward and backcast diligently. Your timing will be better, you’ll find you won’t need to make as many false casts, and you’ll keep your flies out of the trees and bushes.
2. Cast with grace, not with power and muscle.
Many fly anglers out there cast their fly rod much harder than they need to. So hard in many cases, that they end up overloading the rod and also get a out of control sling shot effect with their flies. Let your fly rod do the work by executing a smooth pick up of the fly line starting at the 8 o’clock position (rod tip close to the water), then begin loading the rod by smoothly accelerating the fly rod between ten o’clock and 12 o’clock. Make sure you’re stopping your rod quickly for both your forward cast and backcast, not slowing down to a stop. This will have your fly rod stopping at its fastest point at the end of the casting stroke, which will transfer your power effectively from the fly rod down through your fly line. Focusing on these casting mechanics will help you cast more graceful, and you’ll find it much easier to keep your fly rod traveling in a straight line path, and that will allow you to form efficient loops. Slow down and don’t rush your cast either. Left Kreh, is one of the best fly casters in the world at demonstrating how to make a graceful cast to get the most power out of a fly rod. If you want to see what I’m talking about just search him on YouTube.
3. Make sure you’re pausing long enough in between casts.
So you’ve managed to accomplish the first two steps with ease, but as you work out more fly line that’s needed for longer presentations, you begin to feel your fly cast falling apart. Chances are, if this is happening to you, it’s because you’re not lengthening your pause between casts as you work out more fly line
Fly Fishing: Float N’ Fly Rig for the Fly Rod
This past week I wrote a fly fishing tactics post for targeting bass on reservoirs during the fall. At the tail-end of the post, I touched base on how effective a Float N’ Fly Rig (basically a nymphing rig on my fly rod) can be for catching good numbers of bass during the late fall and winter months. From late fall through winter, when water temperatures begin dipping into the mid-50s and lower, catching bass on deep reservoirs with traditional fly fishing setups can become extremely difficult for two reasons. The first reason is because bass start becoming sluggish as their metabolisms plummet from cooling lake water temperatures. With lower metabolisms, bass feed less frequently and they also move shorter distances to forage on food (in an effort to conserve energy). This is bad news for fly anglers because it drastically shrinks the size of the strike zone (the hot zone around a bass that a fly or lure needs to enter, to consistently trigger bites) and it makes it much harder for fly anglers to find, present, and retrieve fly patterns through these small strike zones. The second reason the bass fishing is tough this time of year is because a good portion of the bass on the lakes will move out of the shallow water feeding grounds of the fall and back out into the main lake deep water areas, where they’ll often suspend in the water column in 10-25′ of water.
The main problem with cold water suspended bass is that it’s really hard for fly anglers to keep their fly patterns in the strike zone throughout the entire retrieve. It’s really only in front of the bass for a small percentage of the retrieve. The first half of the retrieve an angler struggles to get the fly down to the level of the bass, and the last half of the retrieve, the fly is coming up and out of the strike zone as it gets closer to the angler and the boat on the surface. With a Float N’ Fly Rig, the suspension/floating device (strike indicator set to a preferred depth) allows you to maintain a consistent depth with your fly pattern during the entire retrieve, even when you’re working it extremely slow to entice cold water bass. That’s critical for triggering lethargic bass that often need to be coaxed into feeding. What you’re trying to do with your float n’ fly rig is make that baitfish jig pattern look injured or dying. It needs to look like an easy meal and the bass will suck it in if you get it close enough to them. The best technique is to make a cast to the bank, let your fly sink, and then slowly bring the entire rig back to you with very subtle rod tip bounces or jiggling. All you want is the strike indicator to barely be moving as you’re bringing the rig back to you. I usually stop the twitching and pause for 20-30 seconds a couple of times during each retrieve. The more windy the day is or the more chop there is on the water, the less you have to twitch the rod tip, because you’ll naturally get action on your jig from the choppy or wavy water on the surface.
Read More »