View Full Version : Q & A on flyfishing
Okay, I have been seeing a lot of interest oin flyfishing for Coarse fish... anyone want any advice or questions post them here and I will answer all the ones I can.... This goes for fishing artificial, bait, imitations for game, coarse or sea fish.
Tony
Hi tony,
what sort of rods and reels do you need for fly fishing for carp on the surface?
thanks
sam
<font color=red>S</font color=red><font color=blue>A</font color=blue><font color=green>M</font color=green>
You will need a heavy flyfishing rod for carp... not only because of the power of the fish but if you are using bait it is not easy to cast.
I use an 8 - 10 rated fast taper rod that was designed to fish the large deep reservoirs from the bank. As for a reel... a largish reel that holds a full weight forward 8 line and 100m of braided backing.
Tony
thanks tony i might give it a go this year.
<font color=red>S</font color=red><font color=blue>A</font color=blue><font color=green>M</font color=green>
CarponlineEditor
02-05-2001, 20:29
I am well up for it too, but as usual i will have to save for a while before i can start to join in as i have no fly tackle whatsoever. I will be back lol
Andy
Ian.... a 5-6 rated rod will do for the blue pool just don't hook a 20... you will have to use light floaters such as cat bicuits, pellet or seeds but it will be powerful enough.
When buying a reel it should quote the line and backing it will hold. A reel for flyfishing is just a storage device so you don't need to pay a fortune on it. Leeda Concept if they still do them, the rimflys are a good bet. Get one that holds a full no.5 flyline with 75yds of backing.
The rod you have would be an excellent rod for fishing the margins for trout Ian so keep hold of it.
For general trout/coarse fly fishing I would go for a 7-9 rod, a bit on the heavy side but will easily hold a good double carp or even a double trout. The choice is so large that to name one would be difficult. Don't go for a stiff one to start with as they are a lot more difficult to learn with..... your first rod will become your second one when you get into it.
By the way.... I have had carp over 20 on the fly rod and a few of them... the experience is absolutely overwealming.... your arm will ache for a week.
Tony
To start go for a scientific anglers no.5 or 6 weight forward floater...... basically you will need 3 lines Ian... a floater, an intermediate and a fast sinker...... all the others can be mimicked with a bit of help......... degreasing... etc...
I will go into that later... but to start go for a floating line as you can do a lot with them and I mainly use a floater for all my fishing. As for backing go for a good one.. there is a hollow braid type which is excellent stuf... as for tippets/leaders I use Berkley Big game in 8 - 10lb for the carp and 3 - 6lb for the trout.
Tony
PeterHudd
02-05-2001, 21:01
top info scorpio keep up the good work. I think i have just been convinced to go and try for carp of the top with fly fishin gear
P.Hudd
If any of you flyfishermen out there want a good tip here's one...... to attach a mixer to a hook so it won't come off you need a bait drill.... I use a pilot metal drill bit glued into a cork. If you use the side of the drill and score a groove into the mixer then get your super glue and stick the biscuit onto the shank of the hook it will never come off.... lasts about half an hour.... I usually do say 10 at home and take them with me. You can do the same for casters, maggots etc superglue them to the hook.
One other thing that I found worked was to hollow a mixer out and place a plastizote ball in it... fiddly but the bait sits up better and looks the biz....... I have found when using this method with the fly rod the Carp will take your bait before the freebies sometimes.... /images/forum/icons/smile.gif.
Tony
CB1_chig
02-05-2001, 21:27
Tony how much would a good set up cost ??
It's difficult to say.... as you will need 2 rods eventially I would say go for an average set up to start with.... a rod about 60 - 100, a reel 20 - 50, line 30, flies 30..... so between £170 and £300 I suppose in all.
Tony
I'm trying to sell just the type of rod being discussed.Check out my post in the tackle exchange.
Rocky
Okuma reels look like very good value and are rumoured to be very good quality. I have ordered an aluminium one as a spare from Sportfish for £ 40. They also do a light carbon one with a drag for £ 20 which would be a good first reel.
Matt (DOC)
Doc, I have just bought one of the plastic, large arbor Okuma reels (Airstream ?) for my "pike on fly" project. It seems well made and good value for £20. Haven't used it in anger yet but will let you know. I just think care will need to be taken with the big screw that attaches the spool if changing lines during a fishing day. Bit like our old friend the Bob Church Lineshooter in that respect.
I bought my Okuma for fly fishing for pike too ! The Airstream is made of very light carbon and so probably feels like plastic. The aluminium ones are a bit smoother but do cost twice as much.
Best of luck,
Matt (DOC)
Where have you/will you flyfish for pike, Doc ? Ian W kindly pointed me at Frimley #4, plus there is a day ticket predator fishery in the Cotswolds that offers boat fishing as well. I think these two fisheries will do for my first attempts.
This season is my first after pike with the fly. The Kennet is going to be the place I start in June. Frimley 4 certainly has room to cast and seems as good a place as any to start. The trouble with RMC waters is you can't do it until October..and by then I'm reaching for my herrings. Perhaps Tony knows of somewhere good to try it in the summer and early autumn. That Cotswolds place sounds nice.
Matt (DOC)
I made the October start assumption as well - but Ian advised that as spinning is onside from June 16 on RMC waters, he saw no reason why fly fishing should not be as well. Can I suggest you have a look at my post entitled "Fly fishing for pike" - last post 16 March. (Change the date to "look at posts active in the last 3 months).
If you get hold of a copy of the last Improve Your Coarse Fishing there is a feature about the Cotswold water - Bob James wobbling deadbaits there. But the Cotswold water does have the October start.
I always fish the Thames for pike.... choose any stretch, I caught 7 in a day up to 11lb from Walton last year..... loads of Perch too. I usually fish one swim for 5 to 10 minutes and move on.
Tony
I have found tube flys very good with a size 8 treble, barbless of course..... I use green & white with tinsel in it....
Tony
During a pretty productive day's trout fishing at Sutton Bingham last Friday I spooned some of the fish and noticed they'd been eating buzzer shucks, ie the pupa skin left behind after the insect has hatched and flown off. By no means the first time I've found this, and various writers have commented on the same feeding habit, in books and magazines.
Anyone got any ideas why the trout take the shucks ? It looks as if they deliberately select them...are they specially nutritious, or just easy pickings ?
I have noticed this as well, there are a few explanations, the shucks of the buzzers remain on the surface and from below look an exact match almost to the buzzer itself, another is the digestion process of the trout, these shucks are undoubtedly more difficult to digest. When the fish are feeding in this manor only a suspender buzzer and a tiny one at that will take, nowt bigger than a size 16. Well thats what I have found anyway.
A good bet now the weather has warmed up is a black & orange hopper fished in the surface film.... try it when the fish are topping, works wonders. I will explain a lot about fly selection, conditions, wind temperature when we all meet up.
Tony
While not the world's greatest stillwater dry fly fisherman, I've caught quite a few this way when conditions are right, and I have also found that hoppers or Shipmans' buzzers in either all orange or orange in parts are by far the most effective flies. I have seen a macro photo of a real hatching buzzer in one of Bob Church's books, and orange and silver are the key colours, apparently due to haemoglobin which is the same stuff that makes our own blood red.
At the risk of sounding like a smart arse, I have to correct this mistake in insect biology !
Insect blood or hemolymph, contains no hemoglobin and is not red. It is a yellowish or greenish liquid (as seen on car windscreens all summer !). The pigments of the hemolymph are due to plant pigments that they eat (with the exception of mosquitos which might contain human blood of course).
Insect exoskeletal colours are another matter, and are necessary both for mating purposes and protection from predators (warning and camouflage), with almost enless variation.
All you have to do is "match the hatch" and you can't fail...
...and if you believe that you'll believe anything !
DOC
It's a wonder we catch any on fly at all.
Seriously though folks...it strikes me that a lot of the entomology that anglers read is written by amateurs not pros. Some input from the latter is welcome - do you think what you said supports the "orange" point Doc ?
There is no doubt that the orange is important in this case, because experienced fly fisherman have found it to be so.There is quite a lot of scientific evidence for "colour responses" in both feeding and aggressive responses in fish. This means that it's a small amount of a certain colour that triggers a fish to take rather than the fly shape actually imitating the food shape (not taking into account the way you move it). This could be why small orange flies often work well when the fish are feeding on daphnia for example - you would have a job tying a daphnia imitation ! It's probably the same with hatching flies, where colour is also as important as shape.
You can get too scientific about all this. But it's not necessary at all, and anyone can catch trout very successfully without being able to tell the difference between a gnat and a daddy long legs ! However, one of the most satisfying aspects of fly fishing is when you manage to imitate a food source (in whatever way you want, be it colour, shape or movement) and catch this way. Tragically, however, and more often than not in stillwaters, an orange booby works better....sometimes you can know too much !
"Sometimes no sense makes sense" Charles Manson, 1971
Thanks for the back-up Ian,
Perhaps we could form the Scientific Anglers Group. This group would never actually catch any fish, but would be able to supply many superb theses detailing in minute scientific detail the reasons for its failure...
DOC
Colour is very important when using submerged flies but when it comes to dries and also emergers on the surface it is not. The trout will see mainly a sillouette and this is where shape and the underside colour is most important.
Orange is an excellent colour to use, but on a different day it will be olive and on another black. Different lakes respond to different colours even at the same venue. For instant, where i fish orange is the colour in one lake and black in the other. Okay sometimes you will catch with other colours. I have had a dozen or so doubles from one lake and every single one has been on a black coloured fly, in the other lake about 7 doubles including a land locked salmon and these were all on orange. I can only put this down to DOC's theory on the actual food source the pupa are feeding on in the different lakes.
Movement of the fly is just as important. I am a good mover so I have been told. I can bring life into most artificials including wobbling sprats and fishing lures. Variety is the key, depth is another. You see too many trout anglers doing the same monotonous thing cast after cast, catching nowt and all they need do is count the fly down and search the different depths. A cloud passing the sun can bring the trout up in the water instantly as can a ripple from the wind. If you can master all these changes and the fish's reactions to them you will be sucessful.
Think like a fish I say /images/forum/icons/smile.gif
Tony
I agree Tony,
I only have about 20 dry flies at the most, and I've probably only used half of them. This is because if you match the size and approximate shape of the flies being taken on the surface, then a black one will often do. Not always of course, and as a result I'm not totally convinced that all they see is a silhouette. I suppose, as you say, some of the thorax is beneath the surface sometimes. You still don't need that many imitations, although row upon regimented row of them in a fly box does look the business !
With buzzers on the other hand, a number of colour variations are much more useful. The right colour is often far more important than matching the exact shape. In fact a caricature is often better than the real thing. An analogy being that a caricature cartoon picture of a person is instantly recognisable whereas a detailed portrait often takes a second glance ! It's that instantly recognised colour signal again. The same theory also applies to shape though : a good example here are the killer mayfly imitations that have huge exagerated wings.
I remember when I was a young coarse fisher (and dinosaurs roamed the earth and there was only a single track railway north of Watford, OK OK) there was a little book published called "Better Angling With Simple Science". Anyone remember it or read it ? Would a semi-permanent post here along the same lines be of interest to anyone ? I certainly feel more confident when I have made tactical decisions based on logic and knowledge rather than blind faith or lucky dip.
This is a review of said book, by Mary M Pratt no less and published in 1975, culled from the web;
"There are many aspects of the sciences of fish biology and freshwater ecology which are of direct importance to anglers. This book provides, in an absorbing and amusing fashion, insight into the operation of natural processes in fresh water and an understanding of the interaction of living things with each other and their environment.
Liberally punctuated with tales and tips culled from angling students and friends, it will inspire both old hands and beginners to gain greater satisfaction and success in their sport by knowing more about the fish they seek, its food, life, senses and reactions."
Apparently Coch Y Bonddu books have it in stock.
I have a few more dry flies than that but to be honest will only ever use flies which match size and lesser so the shape of the fly hatching and 20 or so will cover this. My all time favourite dries are the shipmans buzzer and the hopper, always catch on those. And it does not matter in the slightest what colour they are either.
Tony
Nightwing
17-05-2001, 01:47
Hi Guys, I am new to the site, but just had to chime in here. I fly fish for Carp, as well as a number of other species(trout, salmon, pike, and so on...)
Having taken many carp in the 30lb+ range, and 2 over 40lbs(best at slighty over 43lbs), I can attest they are supreme sport on fly gear. I use a 10wt, with a large arbour disc drag reel for big game (carp, pike, salmon and steelhead). Scorpio mentiond the need for 3 basic line types, and I agree. I have gone to a Cortland Multi-Tip, which consists of a wt. forward primary line, and tapered floating, intermediate sinking, and 450gr. fast sinking tips. With this system, I have all 3 line types needed, without the additonal hassle of changing spools, or the additional bulk of carying said extra spools. It's a very good system, with little hinging in the cast, and very good quality.
CarpManic
18-05-2001, 17:52
When you can see fish jumping on the surface would you recommend using wet or dry flies?
CM
In my experience to be honest when the fish are actually jumping clear of the water they are not necessarily feeding. When fish are rising I normally find out what they are actually feeding on and imitate it. If you catch one you can spoon it and see what they are feeding on. Normally it's some form of buzzer in the summer month but I have found 3" roach in a trout before. If you can discover what they are feeding on then bingo.
As for dry flies I have caught trout before when there isn't any surface activity, it's just varying you fishing style untill you find what works.
Tony
Swan_Vesta
20-05-2001, 09:22
Scorpio
With so much interest is it about time we organised an unofficial fish-inn within the next month.
I am going out with Doc in the near future and on another date with Richard (JGRW).
Swan Vesta
Where are you thinking of going?
Tony
vBulletin® v3.6.3, Copyright ©2000-2012, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.