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I will be guiding for Salmon this summer at a fishing lodge up the coast, and will get a chance to spend a considerable amount of time fly fishing on my spare time (what little I get). I was wondering if anybody could recommend some fly patterns / techniques for saltwater flyfishing. I've only done a very little amount of experimentation in casting to fish from the beach, and I know that being on a floating platform is a completely different situation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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Depends what you intend to target and what kind of rods you've got. I'll assume you are going to try for coho and cutts as they are more available to the fly that the chinooks. You'll need a box full of green decievers, epoxy minnows, bucktail type flies, some pink shrimp patterns, and have a variety of wing colours on the streamer patterns- chartreuse, hot pink, green, blue, etc. For the cutts you'll want a variety of rolled muddlers, tied down minnows in gold and silver bodies and again with a variety of different coloured "wings"/top colours. The salmon flies would be tied on size 2-4-6 ranges of long shank hooks and the cutt flies would be tied on sizes 8-10-12 long shank hooks. You'll be needing an 8 wt. or better rod for the salmon and the cutts can be lots of fun on a 5 or 6 wt. rod. You will also need a selection of full sink tips for your fly lines, with lengths up to 20-25 feet to get down along some of the kelp banks. If you wanna be radical, have some full sink lines along to get down to where the chinook hang out 30-40 feet and deeper, but I hope you have a good stout rod! Some of the "bottom fish" can be fun to target too, on the same flies. Black bass or kelp bass are eager to take the fly and are quite good eating as well. See if you can get some back issues of BC Outdoors magazine and check out some of the articles, and I think there is an article in this months issue on saltwater fly fishing. Cheers.
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Oh yeah: make sure the salmon flies and some of the cutthroat flies are tied in weighted patterns, with dumbell bead heads or lead wire wraps in the underbody to get them down to "the zone". The salmon flies with the dumbell beadheads tend to work very well, with a jigging motion on the retrieve. And casting from a boat is very easy as you can get all the backcast room you need. Make sure you take some carpet or something in the bottom of the boat to protect your flyline when you step on the loose loops coiled on the bottom! Try to keep all the loose gear stowed and make sure you have all the little snags, cleats, and other things that fly line likes to hang up on out of the way and stowed. Nothing like getting a nice coho on and the loose flyline catches on an oarlock as it hisses through the guides...Cheers.
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Geof lose a fish to those little snags and a person tends to do his house work. Murphy's law, if it can it will and it does.
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Yep, only had to happen to me a couple times before I started to pay a bit more attention to how the boat was rigged and where my line was going as I stripped in the fly. One of those silly looking belly buckets to strip the line into is probably a very good solution as well, hell who's going to see you out alone in the boat with a basin hung around your gut? It may look a bit silly, but they sure would solve some possible problems! Cheers.
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Geoff, You're better off staying on this board. Your informative postings aren't appreciated on that other board. Know what I mean? :)Prof.
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Geoff, Great advice! I have decided on buying a 9' 9wt Scott fly rod, matched with a Lamson litespeed 4 reel. I know exactly what you mean about the importance of having a stout rod! I was fishing the Nitinat river here on Vancouver Island in '98 and hooked 7 chinook in the 15-20lb range. Just about too much on my 7wt rod. I will be tying up a bunch of flies this month (to keep me from going stir-crazy studying for exams), and I appreciate all the patterns you've suggested. As far as the line weight is concerned, I'd like to use a variable tip system with different weights, but that might push the cost a bit too high. Thanks again, Cheers, Mark
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Mark, You can save money before buying this big sink tip system with change tips that the retailers will sell you by making your own sink tips. You can custom make them with any combo you want and you can make like 20 of them and save big coin and have the versataility to cover any water situation thrown in front of you. What you can do, is buy a few full sinking lines, in line ratings 3, 4, and 5. Then go out and buy some Lead Core. Now, you can take some Dacron, or even 50 or 60 pound Mono and use that as the brige between your fly line and your shooting head. YOu use albright knots, or nail knots to tie your heads on (which will be the sink tip lines which you have butchered). For Example, you have a floating line. Cut the line just before the Belly. Now, you make this a tip. Now, you want to connect on a toop connector, or if you want, there are several knots that will do the job and probably be just as durable, although the amount of line you use and going through the guides is a problem. Now after this, you will have your dacron or your mono, a good length, say 7 or 8 feet or so, then albright on, or whatever knot you prfer, a shooting head, which will be part of the full sink lines you have butchered. So say up to 8 or so feet of whatever head you want. Keep in mind that each rod weight can only hold so much of a head before it overloads, the more sink rate, obviously, the less length. Attach your head (parts of your butchered sinking lines), and then nail knot on your leader, or whatever knot you prefer, and go from there. Does this make sense to you? If it doesn't, maybe I can explain it a little more, but this is the cheaper way of having your own sink tips to cover a variety of situations. BAsically its fly line, dacron or mono mid section, and then your head, which is a length of a sinking line, and then your leader. Scott
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John(Prof): Yah, I hear you, but sometimes I just can't leave well enough alone when I see the arrogant, self centered legends in their own minds going at it as their precious steelhead runs disappear beneath their waders. So many people have their heads stuck in so much sand... Anyway. Scott, good post, and that is pretty well the setup I have for my 10 foot 9 wt rod-floating line with a loop end connector and a selection of tips in various lengths to suit the application. I've even done the same with a spare spool of 6 wt. line for my trout gear.
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