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A+ tips. I'm gonna have to bust off some fly casting rust when this 5wt is finishes this week, I'd better refresh myself on the basics as well.
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Aug 20, 2020 00:11
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mastershakeman posted:Christ this is complicated, I feel like I hit myself half the time with the line Take my comments with some caution, I am not a great fly caster. But here are some things that might help you with the mechanics of it and that helped me. Try starting out with like 20’ of fly line out straight on the ground in front of you, leading away. Point the rod straight at the horizon with a straight but not too stiff arm. In one smooth motion, not too fast but fast enough that it bends under the weight of the line, pick the rod up all the way back to 2:00. Stop there and let the line just fall wherever it does. Reset and repeat. Doing that exercise a bunch helped me feel what it likes to have the rod load up. Once you’ve got it smooth over and over, don’t stop at 2:00, but pause there, turn your head, and watch the line fill out the backcast. When the line is about half finished unfurling (1-1.5 seconds maybe?), reverse that smooth motion back to 10:00 and stop, letting the line just fall straight out in front of you. Do that over and over until you have the backcast and forward cast paired up. You’ll know you have it when you feel the rod load up smoothly in each direction. Don’t strip out any more line, but hold onto it with your line tending hand. The more line you have out, the slower this process is, and the easier it is. After you have the feel of loading up the rod down, then start with a pile of line stripped out at your feet and a longer series of back and forward casts to get the line out. Adding more line to your cast is most complex at the very beginning of the cast because the frequency of the cast is a lot higher and faster. That is, you’re whipping the rod back and forth a lot faster when you have a short length of line out than you do with a lot of line out because the weight of 8 feet of line loads the rod up much less than 25 feet does. HenryJLittlefinger fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Aug 20, 2020 |
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Aug 20, 2020 01:18
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I live in the southeast and I haven't really done any freshwater fishing in like 20 or more years and none at all really since the kiddo came long 4 years ago. My adult life has been saltwater and brack bottom fishing and surf casting and I've got a couple Penn Sargus 4000s and need some recommendations for a lighter action rod (maybe even a reel if the 4000 is too big and it might be) and maybe some starting tackle to target some of the bass in my local freshwater ponds. Any particularly good SA approved online resources floating around for technique, lure selection, etc? I did a good bit of bass fishing with my dad as a kiddo but thats been a long time and poo poo has really changed.
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Aug 20, 2020 01:27
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Thanks everyone. Put a fly on since I was feeling confident and promprlty tanngled the poo poo out of my line over and over Dispirited, I clipped the line on the spinning reel I had that was on a snagged lure . Put on something random and threw it at the rise. Caught a 12" bass. gently caress it, it's not a keeper but at least I got one fish in two weeks Then I immediately snagged again on the same spot at the other lure and gave up
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Aug 20, 2020 02:02
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LeeMajors posted:I live in the southeast and I haven't really done any freshwater fishing in like 20 or more years and none at all really since the kiddo came long 4 years ago. My adult life has been saltwater and brack bottom fishing and surf casting and I've got a couple Penn Sargus 4000s and need some recommendations for a lighter action rod (maybe even a reel if the 4000 is too big and it might be) and maybe some starting tackle to target some of the bass in my local freshwater ponds. Tactical bassin is a good source for techniques and stuff to use to target bass at different times of the year, just ignore most of their recommendations of specific brands and units. They tend to the pricier end on alot of their stuff. A better idea of where in the southeast could help since it varies depending on if you're in like the carolinas vs florida. Elmnt80 fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Aug 20, 2020 |
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Aug 20, 2020 02:24
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:Take my comments with some caution, I am not a great fly caster. But here are some things that might help you with the mechanics of it and that helped me.
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Aug 20, 2020 02:31
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Dik Hz posted:I mean this in the nicest way possible.... Explaining how to flyfish is a fool's errand. It either takes a 10-minute in-person lesson from someone who knows how to cast, or 2 years of self-discovery. There is no middle ground. Oh I know. That’s why the bulk of my  are on learning how to load the rod. I remember when I finally felt that fall into place on both the back and forward casts, everything got easier. I spent way too much time trying to do all of it at the same time from the beginning.
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Aug 20, 2020 03:05
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If you have an Orvis store nearby they do free intro lessons which include learning to cast. Your local fly shop may be a good resource too, especially if you're willing to spend a few bucks to support them.
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Aug 20, 2020 03:20
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I went to an orvis store to learn how to cast. My then girlfriend (now wife) bought me a TFO rod kit for my birthday for like $200, and i went to the orvis store and asked the guy to help me pick out a box full of basic flies. I spent ~$150 on flies, leaders, a fly box, strike indicators, tippet and so on, but the upside was that the guy grabbed like an $800 rod and took me into the parking lot and taught me the basics about how to cast. The only thing he asked was 'please don't bash the tip of the rod into the ground' and i may or may not have accidentally done that a couple of times while i was trying to figure stuff out. It turns out he said my cast was fine, and that he didn't have anything to teach me that experience and practice couldn't do on their own. So, my advice it to watch the Orvis casting videos, the ones where the guy is casting from a grassy area into a still pond, and pay attention to your back cast when you start practicing. That's all i watched before i started to practice casting, and even now i catch myself loving up all the time when i don't put the effort into watching my back cast. I'm working on my spey cast now and everybody in the whole state confirms that i'm an idiot for doing it, so i'll let you know how that goes once the fly shop finally gets my shooting line in. It's only been three weeks, fingers crossed it'll show up sooner or later!
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Aug 20, 2020 04:48
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I’ve spent the last few days building a new tip section for my fly rod that I had built for me a few years ago. I broke the tip off a couple weeks back and my friend who built it still has the spare tip section and loaned me all his rod building equipment. It went pretty well in that it’s functional with a “stand back and squint” appearance, so now I’m thinking about building a 2 wt from a kit.    Also I tied a handful of flies I’m calling Wu Tang Killer Bees for late summer sunfish. 
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Aug 20, 2020 05:04
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mastershakeman posted:Thanks everyone. Put a fly on since I was feeling confident and promprlty tanngled the poo poo out of my line over and over If you wanna bass, and keep snagging lures, might I suggest soft plastics texas-rigged? drat near snag proof.
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Aug 20, 2020 07:06
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Just watched Roland Martin YouTube videos for an hour on a bike trainer and now I’m going fishing even though I hadn’t planned to this morning
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Aug 20, 2020 10:41
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I don't know if orvis still does it, but their lifetime warranty used to be phenomenal. I iced up a tip once without noticing and it went flying. They replaced the whole rod no questions asked. I also sent in my grandfather's (now mine) battenkill and they replaced the handle and wraps plus tracked its lineage down to the month/year/maker for the price of shipping. I was stunned.
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Aug 20, 2020 14:15
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King of Bees posted:I don't know if orvis still does it, but their lifetime warranty used to be phenomenal. I iced up a tip once without noticing and it went flying. They replaced the whole rod no questions asked. I also sent in my grandfather's (now mine) battenkill and they replaced the handle and wraps plus tracked its lineage down to the month/year/maker for the price of shipping. I was stunned. New rods get a 25 year warranty with a $60 service charge for any repair. I believe this is pretty much standard these days. NB: Some fly shops will cover the first repair charge if you buy from them.
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Aug 20, 2020 14:25
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Elmnt80 posted:Tactical bassin is a good source for techniques and stuff to use to target bass at different times of the year, just ignore most of their recommendations of specific brands and units. They tend to the pricier end on alot of their stuff. A better idea of where in the southeast could help since it varies depending on if you're in like the carolinas vs florida. Thanks! South Carolina.
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Aug 20, 2020 16:24
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I also think that one of the easiest ways to learn is to just do a single cast at a time over water. Rip some line out and then whip it back feel the load and cast it forward. Now you can strip out some more line, no hook flying through the air, just watching your fly. See how straight, or not, the last cast was and try again. This is good for a lot of reasons. You aren't managing the line simultaneously as you feel the rod load, you get to see how each cast was finished, you can focus on what o'clock you were at and how that affected the line. You also work the water in generally the correct way, starting close and working further out, covering a lot of area. The other thing that is nice is you get to feel how the friction of the water helps load the line as you break the surface tension. You will use this type of casting a lot and it slows down a lot of the moving parts of winging that son of a bitch back and forth a ton of times while simultaneously managing line and trying not to hit yourself in the face with a hook. Also, remove your barbs, it makes it way easier to take the hook out of your back.
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Aug 20, 2020 17:56
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LeeMajors posted:Thanks! South Carolina. Brian latimer also has a bunch of bank fishing videos with him and his son on his youtube channel. He is also in south carolina iirc, but you'll find videos with him all over since he's a pro angler and tours a bunch. He's also refreshingly goofy and owns it which is nice. For summer time, I'd really stick with the basics like a texas rig with a worm or brush hawg/creature bait, a stick bait (senko, dinger/etc), and possibly a top water bait like a frog. The saltwater gear will probably be a bit heavy. A mh rod with a 3000 size reel or a medium rod with a 2000/2500 size reel will work much better for throwing freshwater baits. Someone else can comment on light stuff like neds and similar.
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Aug 21, 2020 02:22
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i feel like an idiot for agreeing to show a couple friends my unmolested bass hole tomorrow
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Aug 22, 2020 18:56
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rap music posted:i feel like an idiot for agreeing to show a couple friends my unmolested bass hole tomorrow Take em somewhere else and if fishing is poo poo, say “welp, guess they’re off today.”
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Aug 22, 2020 19:01
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if I had a dollar for every time some stranger molested my bass hole...
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Aug 22, 2020 20:29
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Nah if theyre friends show em the good poo poo. Too much weird secrecy in fishing, everybody can find water on the map and nowhere will be secret for long term so might as well enjoy the good times with friends.
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Aug 22, 2020 20:31
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DeesGrandpa posted:Nah if theyre friends show em the good poo poo. Too much weird secrecy in fishing, everybody can find water on the map and nowhere will be secret for long term so might as well enjoy the good times with friends. This is actually the right answer. You can also politely request they keep it between you so you can enjoy it together in the future without too much traffic.
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Aug 22, 2020 20:47
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:This is actually the right answer. You can also politely request they keep it between you so you can enjoy it together in the future without too much traffic. I have one friend who is a fishing fool (to the detriment of career and relationships) who showed a primo steelhead spot to a dude. Said dude showed it to his brother, who is a trout-salmon guide, and my buddy arrived at his gnarly hole to find the guide with clients tromping about. Another friend has pledged to show me the greatest brook trout lake ever... once his father dies, and not before. The way I see it, there's less fishing pressure than ever and the more you can do to get people on fish the better. Keeping people interested and engaged in keeping the water protected and able to be fished will be priceless. Hell of a lot of good your prized hole will be when access is closed off and the fish gone. That said, if I show someone a spot and it is suddenly populated with idiots, I just won't show that person a spot again. At least not a good one.
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Aug 22, 2020 21:09
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Show your friends the goods. That’s why they’re your friends. But… Yooper posted:The way I see it, there's less fishing pressure than ever This has not been my experience.
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Aug 22, 2020 21:55
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I just picked up a 40lb bag of 32% protein floating game and catfish food for $14 which is a way better deal than what I was getting. There's people fishing my pond 3-4 days out of the week, some of them regulars. Biggest Bluegill I know about was 8" and biggest Bullhead 10". After 3 years of feeding i'm finally making some solid visible progress. They'll probably get 80lb more before winter hits and then next year I think i'm ready to stock some Bass. I'm pretty excited. Indiana has some pretty neat baitfish too but I need to go through and see which is the most suitable. As long as the money comes out of my pocket and I don't gently caress it up I can add whatever to the pond and I love it. Come fish my dumb little retention pond if you really enjoy the part of fishing where you catch a Bluegill and toss it back. Only an hour from Chicago!
Desert Bus fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Aug 22, 2020 |
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Aug 22, 2020 21:56
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Yooper posted:I have one friend who is a fishing fool (to the detriment of career and relationships) who showed a primo steelhead spot to a dude. Said dude showed it to his brother, who is a trout-salmon guide, and my buddy arrived at his gnarly hole to find the guide with clients tromping about. This is kind of a slippery slope fallacy and I don’t think it’s accurate here. You’re right that license sales are declining, but it’s not because people are keeping their favorite holes private, it’s because they’re not introducing people to fishing at all. I’ll always take someone fishing, and their friends and those friends’ friends too, and always to somewhere I think they’ll catch fish. I’ve been working in fisheries management on public waters for about 15 years and fishing public water for a lot longer than that, and I can say I’ve never seen a water closed from lack of activity, but very frequently see reaches of river or shoreline closed for riparian vegetation restoration because of overuse. Repeated use by more than a handful of people creates social trails that funnel even more people in to a spot, and then you get trash, abandoned line, human poo poo, etc. So I don’t have some kind of illusion that too many people knowing my favorite spot will result in all the fish being taken out. I do know for a fact that a good spot will get hosed up in a lot of other ways before the fish are affected though. HenryJLittlefinger fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Aug 23, 2020 |
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Aug 22, 2020 22:29
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Dangerllama posted:Show your friends the goods. That’s why they’re your friends. Depends on where you are. In growing metro regions (Denver, Atlanta, PNW), pressure grows on public waters because the population is growing fast. But nationwide, license sales for hunting and fishing are declining pretty hard. Maybe not since covid, but in a long term look back, they are.
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Aug 22, 2020 22:35
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My observation has always been, overfishing isn't the problem. The problem is, humans are garbage and won't take care of the land around good fishing holes. I used to know a good farm pond in western OK, the farmer kept it stocked and let people come fish it, just clean up your mess and don't come out while his cattle were grazing around it. Word got around about it, and the next thing you know it's a teenage party spot, beer bottles everywhere and burn scars from camp fires and people loving with his cows, and then my little brother and I get confronted with an angry farmer holding a shotgun on what we thought was an innocent Saturday morning spent fishing. By the time I graduated high school, there was multiple barbed wire fences blocking access to a pond the farmer quit stocking.
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Aug 22, 2020 23:40
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Some kid caught a 4lb Largemouth in my pond today, so I guess that answers the "are there still Bass in this pond? question. I guess it's good for more than just panfish and I don't have to put them there myself.
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Aug 23, 2020 00:12
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:Depends on where you are. In growing metro regions (Denver, Atlanta, PNW), pressure grows on public waters because the population is growing fast. But nationwide, license sales for hunting and fishing are declining pretty hard. Maybe not since covid, but in a long term look back, they are. I've seen a definite drop in pressure in the past 20 years in my area. My main point was to introduce people and keep them engaged in the sport. Other than a few spots it's rare I run into people when I'm fishing. If more engagement can keep the DNR on top of management, site protection, and stocking, then I'm happy. As it is most of the lakes I like to fish no longer have DNR maintained access so instead we have rutted hills and tore up trails to drag in a kayak.
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Aug 23, 2020 00:28
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I have a couple tiers of spots. I know enough good water to take someone out on that I'll know they'll catch fish. But only family and the guy who taught me how flyfish get taken to my true honey holes. And, honestly, my honey holes have worse fishing than the mid-range spots. They're just fantastically pristine spots with great fishing. My favorite flyfishing spot I fished on the January 1st opener in Minnesota. When I went back in March, I could still see my old footprints in the snow and nobody else's. That's what I want to see.
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Aug 23, 2020 03:00
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where do you guys live that you have these holes? every piece of water near me is either very well known or private.
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Aug 23, 2020 03:50
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prom candy posted:where do you guys live that you have these holes? every piece of water near me is either very well known or private. I live in front range Colorado, where nearly every bit of public water is heavily fished. Even the spots that I think of as honey holes get fished a bunch, maybe just not quite as much as some of the others. A buddy of mine showed me one of his secret spots recently and there was evidence of other people fishing there but not nearly as much as some of the nearby spots accessed by the same trailhead and parking lot. I used to live in Arkansas, where there is always fishable water within 10 minutes of you, so I could get pretty choosy. I only had a couple “secret” holes that I only ever showed to family and close friends, but they were also clearly other peoples secret holes too. I mean they were on public lakes or rivers, adjacent to plenty of other good spots, but they were special to me because I could always paddle in in a kayak and never get waked or partied near.
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Aug 23, 2020 04:28
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prom candy posted:where do you guys live that you have these holes? every piece of water near me is either very well known or private. One hour west of DC in the Shenandoah Valley, I've caught many trout out of a place a fishing guide told me didn't hold trout. I know several places like that in that area. Where I live now in NC, I know several places that require an hour hike that don't get fished hardly ever. Most people don't leave sight of their car. Fewer still hike a mile upstream. Cover the water, find the spots. Ignore the conventional wisdom. Fish are everywhere.
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Aug 23, 2020 04:32
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There’s never been more people fishing in Florida, a lot of it is COVID, but even before saltwater fishing is bananas popular almost year round. But definitely introduce people fo fishing. I don’t hold any spots back from friends or good neighbors. I wouldn’t post them on a fishing forum though.
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Aug 23, 2020 04:48
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Dik Hz posted:
tesilential posted:
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Aug 23, 2020 05:14
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HenryJLittlefinger posted:I live in front range Colorado, where nearly every bit of public water is heavily fished. Even the spots that I think of as honey holes get fished a bunch, maybe just not quite as much as some of the others. A buddy of mine showed me one of his secret spots recently and there was evidence of other people fishing there but not nearly as much as some of the nearby spots accessed by the same trailhead and parking lot. I live right by a state park in the front range area, and while I see a ton of people hiking/climbing, less so on the fishing front. It is a SP though, so there are a bunch of people waltzing in with live bait and spinners nowadays. 
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Aug 23, 2020 05:30
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I’m in a pretty populous area but I find my best spots on google earth. Generally I want places that are somewhat inaccessible since most people are too lazy for anything that isn’t 5’ from where they parked.
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Aug 23, 2020 15:14
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Did a trip to swan lake up near Caroline Alberta a couple weeks back. Took my fishin canoe and my brother in law out for a day on the lake. Lake has Brown trout, Pike, and Lake trout.  It's not a very big lake, but it has some very big fish in it. All fed by a healthy population of freshwater shrimp. And dragonfly nymphs.  It's set in a gorgeous spot in the forest, not many people come here but it's my #1 favourite lake.  We were out for pike, I caught one and landed it, but it was too small to keep so I let the little guy go. He hooked himself bad, I had to cut the tip of my hook off so I could release him without tearing his jaw apart. Hooks are cheap, and fish are friends.  (I generally use barbless hooks, but this was one of those integrated hooks that's hard to change out, I have since fixed it with a barbless.) The weather is super variable up here, it was gorgeous most of the day but we had two thunderstorms chase us off the water. The first one was actually pretty nice, we were able to find shelter at a campsite that was dry, we made our lunch there and got back out. The one at the end of the afternoon was bigger, it caught us way up the lake and we took a long time getting back to the launch, my trolling motor is 30# thrust, which is pretty good in a canoe along with us paddling, but it was still not fast enough and we got totally soaked, so we called it a day. Still a fun time out.
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Aug 23, 2020 18:34
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Guess I am going to the bank tonight to see what a post-hurricane bite is like. I am guessing pretty ugly. Probably take some small plastics and go real slow and see what happens
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Aug 27, 2020 20:51
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