Bob Riggins
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You can have all the hurricanes you want, if you can figure out a way for them to jump over Florida.
I primarily use WF floating lines and fish with either a 6wt or an 8wt. My preference is either the SA Mastry Bonefish line or Redfish line. They both hold up well to the heat. I use a 9ft tapered hard mono leader with a 25# fluorocarbon bite tippet. I don’t use a bite tippet for redfish or trout.
To get deeper, I uses a ghost tip, sink tip line with a relatively short fluorocarbon level leader (about 5 to 6 feet), with a 12# tippet and a 25# bite tippet (if necessary). I don’t use sinking lines for inshore and I don’t fly fish offshore, so I can’t help you there. In my opinion, if you are going so deep you need a sinking line, you are better off using spinning gear.
Also, for false albacore, a bonita bunny is a great fly, as is a Sar Mul Mac.
My go to color for saltwater is chartruese. It will work on about any species but cobia. I’m on the Gulf side, so it may be a little different that Ft. Pierce, but not that much. Here is a list of my favorite patterns for different fish.
Snook: chartruese and/or white clousers, decievers and gurglers. These three flies will cover the entire water column. Tie in sizes 1 to 3/0 depending on what they are feeding on. I also like Sar mul macs, but you have to like to tie them. The snook are on the beach right now and are feeding on glass minnows (at least on the Gulf side), so I would have a couple of small white flies also.
Redfish: Various colors of Prince of Tides bendbacks. I usually try to have a chartrues/white, olive/beige, and black/red. I tie them on 1/0 hooks. Crab imitations are good to sight cast to tailing reds, but you have to put it right on their nose. I don’t like clousers for redfish because the eyes catch grass and you have to get the flies down in the grass where they are feeding. Gold spoonflies are a good prospecting fly, but they are a pain to cast and invariably put a twist in your fly line.
Speckled Trout/Weakfish: Same as snook. I tend to like topwater poppers or gurglers if they are feeding on the surface. They are attracted by sound, so a deerhair fly like a muddler that moves a lot of water is good.
Cobia: Black and red conehead bunnies with long tails. 1/0 to 3/0.
Tarpon: Conehead Tarpon Bunnies on big hooks, 3/0 + depending on size. Tie it is a variety of colors, just make sure you have some red on it. Snake flies are also good.
Shark: Big bright flies with lots of flash, preverably in red or orange. Something that will piss them off. You have to get the fly right up against their eye and annoy them with it. I find tube flies with wire leaders work very well.
Jack Crevalle and ladyfish: Throw whatever you have, they will eat anything. A good way to get rid of your beat up old flies.
Marlboro cigarettes.
That sounds like an odd reason to take up fly fishing, but I owe it all to Marlboro cigarettes, or at least the Phillip Morris Company. A buddy at work had a brother that worked in marketing at Phillip Morris. They had some promotional items left over from a trade show and one of the items was a spin/fly combo. Well I ended up with one of them.
After trashing the spinning reel, I decided to turn the handle around, clamp on the plastic Pflueger click and prawl reel, and try it as a fly rod. I tried to cast it a few times. It became apparent that I needed some help. At this point, I immediately went out and purchased “Fly Fishing for Dummies” (I’m not kidding. Actually it is a pretty good book for beginners). With the help of my newly acquired reference manual, I reached the point where I could make a pretty good 50 foot cast.
I lost my cherry on a tiny perch on Lake Lucerne, Maine. From then on I was hooked. I made a deal with my wife that after the first real fish I caught on it, I could move up to a better rod. Shortly thereafter, I caught my first redfish on fly, a nice 24 incher. This earned me a Scott SAS along with all the acoutrements. I was off and running.
I couple of years ago I pulled out my old Marlboro rod, just to give it a try. It is amazing that the rod didn’t turn me off of fly fishing for life. It had all the feel of a broomstick. I fished it with a 5wt, level intermediate sink line that casts like a piece of rope. But I owe it all to this little piece of crap and keep it in an honored place in my fly rod collection.
Such a Deal! The Stronghold holds 10 people. That’s only $300/person. The Space Station holds 15, thats only $330/person. The Mountain Hardware Bunker 1 is $450 but it only holds one person. I bet the government goes for the $450 tent!
Actually, they will probably go for the $450 tent and just pay $3,000 for it.
I received my 6 wt z axis from sage a couple days ago, and its mass and deflection are the same as the rod I sent in.. I couldnt be happier… Most of the z axis i look at are 1/2 weight over in defelction (grams/inches deflection).. The 6 wt I orrigianlly bought was right on 6 weight.
The 7 wt 9 1/2 foot z axis is an eight weight in my book.. Im not sure if im going to sell it or use it for salmon/steelhead.. I never get to those (salmon steelhead) areas tho … daveI find this interesting since I like to build my own rods.
