Balloons as Strike Indicators
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This is a straight up informative commentary, but some of you may want to try it.
Apparently this idea got started on the Green River in Utah. I have experimented with it only briefly, so my comments are subject to change.
For the last year or so I have been looking for an unbreakable, unsoakable strike indicator for my spey rod. Spey fishing is especially damn effective when using a horizontal indicator rig (which I describe in my upcoming American Angler feature on midge nymphing in winter). The trouble with indicator fishing on the spey rod is that so many of the spey casts rely on water tension in order to work.
I typically drift 80-100′ of line, collecting it in a shooting basket, downriver approximately 30 horizontal feet across from my position. With a 13′ rod it is easy to make constant upstream mends that keep the fly in the lane that far out, and the advantages of not being immediately on top of overpressured fish in East Tennessee trout streams should be abundantly obvious. Moreover, a lot of these streams are not configured to allow the Czech-style nymphing so popular in Arkansas and out West.
The search for unbreakable indicators started with my all around preference- yarn. Unfortunately yarn soaks water in easily, although I heard a tip recently about presoaking indicator yarn in 3M water repellant – anyone tried this?
Next I tried Palsa stick on indicators, which split with the force of the spey cast coming off the water. Likewise for all the hard foam and toothpick football arrays.
Finally I tried the balloon. I think this has potential. I selected an orange child’s water-balloon, and inflated it just enough that it contained air, without stretching the latex in any way. I probably even overinflated. I tied it off and looped it into my leader with a half-hitch. After a few casts, it was clear that the balloon’s mouthpiece was causing it to pinwheel in the air, so I cautiously cut it off. As I expected, the half-hitch maintained the balloon’s air pressure seal and I continued fishing.
Now this seems to be the answer to my prayers, but there are a few drawbacks:
1) Dunkability is a plus in an indicator rig, especially when it is 60′ away and the light is bright. This inflated balloon necessarily is not going to stay under.
2) It is still too large. I am searching now for a source of even more minute balloons, although this size might have applications as I will discuss shortly.
3) Casting could be a problem for inexpert casters. An indicator rig is my usual setup and I never experience turnover problems, but these balloons are necessarily quite air resistant.
4) These balloons are very environmentally unfriendly and you must take care to collect and dispose of all balloons and balloon parts.
On the plus side:
1) The balloon has a natural taper, and when the balloon suddenly rocks erect and stays there, you know there is pressure on the other end of the line. In this sense it is a good indicator of light strikes, although reading it will no doubt take time.
2) These things are very, very durable.
3) They are also very easy to see, even in fog and low light situations.
Ok, here’s a tangential discussion. It seems to me that these would be great for one of my favorite unusual techniques, dead drifting streamers on a float downriver. Streamers actually take a lot of fish without being streamed. Remember, the wooly bugger started out as a nymph! My EP Fathead or a common unweighted Lefty’s Deceiver are excellent imitations of stunned or dead shad, and this technique would seem to be deadly in a shad kill or stripers-sharing-the-river situation. I would love to overhead cast two handed rods out of jon boats below Bull Shoals Dam on the White River in Arkansas during the winter shad kill, dead drifting large white streamers or Arkansas beadheads (a kind of silver-headed white jog) under one of these balloons. Strikes in that situation are powerful and who cares if the balloon is extra bouyant.
I’d like your guys’ thoughts on this concept. I will be writing about it soon and I’d like to know what you think the pluses and minuses of this are. If any of you have tried it I’d like to compare experiences as well.
Thanks,
Zach
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