Bob Riggins
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I fish primarily salt and have never been close to being spooled. Of course I fish from a kayak so I get pulled around a lot. When sizing reels, I always err on the size of bigger. They generally have larger arbor spools so the retrieve is faster. Also, consider were the ounce of extra weight is. The reel is almost at the fulcrum of the cast, not at the tip, so the extra ounce will be almost unnoticeable.
Nice report, but the food shot was conspicuously absent (unless you had some carp sushi).
So, how is Lauren’s grandpaw?
I don’t know anything about that area, however, a buddy of mine put me onto the Fly Fishing Trail site.
Looks great Zach. Did you have to add any interstitial pages? (sorry, I haven’t had the opportunity to use interstitial)
Actually, I didn’t know there was a home page.
Here are the flies I use most of the time:
Schminnows in white (for snook), in black (for cobia), in chartreuse and in copper. I tie them with either bead chain eyes or gold dumbell eyes, depending on where I want to be in the water column. Mostly tie on 1/0 ro 2/0 hooks. This is a very easy fly to tie and works for a wide variety of fish.
Kwans in both light brown and dark brown, depending on bottom color. These immitate both shrimp and crabs so sometimes I tie in rubber legs. They are fished close to the bottom, so use a weed guard. Usually tie on size 1 or 2 hooks. These are my go to redfish fly when they are tailing.
Gurglers mostly in chartreuse, but also in white. I usually tie these with a fairly long tail. The under body is a medium ice chennile with a sparce overwrap of long estaz to simulate legs. Usually tie on size 1 to 1/0 hooks. These are great speck flies.
Toads in a variety of colors, but black with some red mixed in can be a killer. I sometimes tie them in white or copper and sometimes tie in rubber legs. Depending on what I’m after, they could be on 1/0 to 3/0 hooks.
Of course there are the ussual clousers, deceivers, seaducers, etc., but the four I listed are a little different and well suited to the Tampa Bay area. I rarely fish merkins, because I don’t like casting them and they don’t work any better than kwans. I use gold spoonfly’s occasionally, but I don’t like tying them.
I tie almost everything with synthetic materials. The flies are more durable that way and saltwater fish can be tough on flies.
I rarely use a clinch knot because I use fluorocarbon tippets, but I do use the Trilene knot sometimes.
If there are no loops in the fly line, I form a loop on each end by tapering the tip, folding it back over to form the loop, super glue it in place, then tie two nail knots with 20 # backing material, one a the base of the loop and one covering the tag end. I tie a bimini twist in the backing with a loop large enough to pass the reel through, then a standard loop to loop connection. Some people double the loop with a surgeons knot, but I don’t really see the need. I never use a tippet that is over 2/3 of the strength of the backing so the backing knot should hold (if I am using 20# backing, the maximium tippet would be 13#).
I form a loop in the butt section of the leader with a perfection loop and connect the leader to the fly line with a loop to loop. All of my leader knots are Albrights. The tippet to fly is a Kreh loop. I prefer the perfection loop because it does not kink to the side like some loops. I have never had a problem with it. Since it is tied in 30# to 40# butt section, even if it looses strength it is still stronger than a 12# tippet.
I think the knot Mike is referring to is what is known around here as the Canoeman’s knot. If you look closely at this knot after it is cinched tight, you will see it is just another way of tying a bowline.
