Early spring/late autumn set up

[salar76]

Early spring, late autumn. Kinda implies (albeit not necessarily) heavy tubes fished deep.

Hardly suprising, but I was finding it really hard work using my standard 15' 10/11 rod this november in high or cold water with these tactics.

What tackle do you use in jan/feb/march & late october/november?

cheers

Lawrence

[salar76]

Cheers Graham. A 16 footer is what I was thinking about. What would be your favourite (and that question goes out to everyone)?

Funnily enough though, just spoke to the gillie and he reckoned a 15 footer with an intermediate or maybe a wet II will mostly do for early feb! Still want to get a big gun though....

[fishingd0]

I tend to stick to a 15ft rod for spring and autum. I normally couple this with a tip's line, varying the density of the tip depending on water conditions. Only on very rare occasions do I use a sinking line. They are too much like hard work to be enjoying yourself.

[williegunn]

fishingd0 said:

They are too much like hard work to be enjoying yourself.

If it is hard work you are not doing it right.
When the fly has finished fishing lift the rod slowly you cannot be too slow as long as the rod is moving by the time the rod is at the 12 o clock position the line will be near or at the surface. Now gently roll cast it downstream and start the Speycast.

The lift is important as with proper Speycasting, rather than an ignorant drag !!!!!!!!!!!

[fishingd0]

Sorry sir! Of course I am doing it wrong, how stupid of me. Are you open to any lessons?

[salar76]

Cheers guys. I would have thought there was a correlation between size/weight of fly and fly line rating (esp for turnover of a heavy 2" tube), so I was suprised that the 16' B&W was only rated 9/10. Has anyone tried the new loomis 16' 9/10 glx or the old 15'6" 11/12 glx for comparison with B&W and others?

There was an interesting comment in T&S from Crawford Little about fishing in cold conditions - he stated that he never tries to fish more than 3'-6' below the surface, irrespective of the depth of the pool, as if you do you may often be presenting the fly below the fish which often don't hug the bottom.

Before reading that I always thought that you should be aiming to bounce along the bottom in sub 40f conditions.

Any thoughts on that?

[williegunn]

fishingd0 said:

Sorry sir! Of course I am doing it wrong, how stupid of me. Are you open to any lessons?

Wester Elchies 15th January February 9.00 I'll see what I can do, will Grant need a helping hand as well?

[salmonfly]

Salar, which GLX are you talking about?
I have the 15ft 10-11 stinger and I can tell you I enjoy every cast.
Willie gunn is right if casting is hard work, you are doing something wrong.

[fishingd0]

williegunn said:

fishingd0 said:

Sorry sir! Of course I am doing it wrong, how stupid of me. Are you open to any lessons?

Wester Elchies 15th January 9.00 I'll see what I can do, will Grant need a helping hand as well?

15 of January or February? I am sure Grant will be more than delighted with some lessons. If you have time could you take u through the circle cast as I hear you have it off to a tee? ;D

Gordon

[williegunn]

Sorry Gordon what wasI thinking February.
I should be an expert on the Planet cast by then as well which planet I'm not to sure

[storlaks]

Early Spring fishing typically means getting down to where the fish are i.e. sunk lines. Time and time again this will ouscore a floater with a tip when water temps are anything between 37-45deg F....IMO. Obviously certain pools can fish better with floater/tip because of the flow and river bed etc, but I would always have a full sunk line/shooting head to hand in Springtime. Better still I have recently started using the floater with tip concept but replaced the floater with a fast intermediate and cut off 15ft of front taper and added tips. This works like the "Guideline" Power taper double density shooting heads where tip sinks first and not the belly i.e. the fly gets down to the fish first, which is what you want. It also casts and turns-over better than a floater with (for example) a type 6 tip....and it gets down further. You can use lighter flies with this rig, avoiding heavy brass of copper, which sink like a stone when outwith the main flow.

I'd have another rod set-up with a sunray shadow and full floater just for something completely different i.e. on the surface.

If temps are hovering around the 40+ mark, variation is important if nothing is obviously working.

As WG states, fishing a sunk line is no harder than fishing a floater...infact in certain wind conditions it's easier.

[salar76]

salmonfly said:

Salar, which GLX are you talking about?
I have the 15ft 10-11 stinger and I can tell you I enjoy every cast.
Willie gunn is right if casting is hard work, you are doing something wrong.

hi salmonfly - i was talking about the 15'6" glx antigravity & the 16' 9/10 greased line

maybe i am doing something wrong....maybe the tackle isn't balanced. don't know, but i do know that as soon as i go from say a 1" copper tube or 2" aluminium tube to a 1.25 - 2" copper tube life becomes pretty hard work! its not fishing a sunk line that causes the problem for me, but fishing heavy tubes

[salmonfly]

Salar have you every though about playing around with your leader maybe it is too short or the other way around, maybe it is too long, you need to spend some time on the water working these things out before you go fishing.

[storlaks]

Salar, that's why I said that you should try (as much as [possible) to get the line to sink the fly and use lighter flies. Casting a 2" copper tube on a sunk line into a wind isn't that much fun. Vary sink rates with line and tips and use Aluminium or plastic flies or small copper tubes. The overall lenght of a 1" copper can still be 2.5".

Your leader should be no more than 5' with a sunk line. Anything more is counter productive as it will lift in the water rather than staying down.

Hope this helps.

[salar76]

thanks for the answers guys

when fishing either heavy tips or sunk line i use 4 or 5 foot of 25lb seaguar at the beginning of the day, which may go down to 3 foot before i change.

there were a couple of situations this back end (upper tweed, 2 - 3 foot above summer level with cold water) when i really wanted to get down deep. due to the strength of the current i felt that my aluminium tubes just weren't getting deep enough, even with the heaviest ian gordan sinker or windcutter set up, so i felt the need to use brass/copper tubes. like i say, no problems in casting small brass tubes or big aluminium tubes, but anything heavier was pretty tough going. i was using a 15' 10/11 loomis glx, which is a great rod, but i was struggling on the heavy stuff. i guess this is why they made a 15'6" 11/12 which is reputed to have more backbone. hence my original questions about a suitable rod for dedicated sunk line/heavy tube work.

cheers

lawrence

[storlaks]

Salar, I see what you mean and I agree you need a much more robust set-up to cast these big tubes any distance. I also use a 15ft GLX for most of my fishing but if I was fishing heavy large flies on fast sinking lines then I'd opt for my 15ft 9" Guideline le Cie, which would handle it much better. To be honest I try and stay clear of brass and copper tubes over 1.5" as I don't like casting them, but I can see where they might be best utilised.

[salar76]

cheers guys - that's what i was hoping/expecting to hear.

so, apart from the b&w norway 16' and guidline le cie 15' 9", are there any other favourites? I'm sure Willie G has something to add here!!

Graham - what line do you match up with that b&w?

[salar76]

sorry to keep bleating on about this......

in my current 'armchair angling' closed season state (always seems an expensive time of the season - thank God there's less than 7 weeks left of it), i'm thinking that the 16' #11 may compliment my 15' 10/11 glx more, esp as it would only really come out for sunk line/heavy tube work with the glx being used for most of the other work. Graham - any comments on the differences between the #11 and #9/10?

fawcetts just told me they can get a norway in that spec too, just to confuse matters!

Thanks!

[williegunn]

salar76 said:

I'm sure Willie G has something to add here!!

Graham - what line do you match up with that b&w?

I would seldom disagree with Graham except when he still fishes tips,I prefer sinkers of various densities these days.

Rods B&W 16 ft I have a couple of Double Speys which are something special.

[robson]

Salar76,

Before you buy a new rod, you should try to change the line you are using. Many of my friends uses 15' 10-11 GLX "Classic" as a main rod for sinking lines too. But they use shooting heads instead of a long line.

Don't know if you use shooting heads at all, but the Guideline 4/5 Sink #11-12 cut to 10,20 m should do the trick for heavy tubes with your rod.
It casts like a rocket and sinks fast. If you cast really heavy tubes, it would help to use 12-15ft intermediate or sinking polyleader in front of the head. It makes the casting easier and has a nicer turnover at the end of the cast.