Zach Matthews
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That is an example of a light with a lot of bait on it — indeed possibly too much. Those are tons of fun to see and you will likely catch a fish or two on it, but you’ll need to be a little more crafty about working the edges and using a strip-strip-settle retrieve. You can pretty much count on the fish being stuffed unless they are new arrivals. These lights are worth returning to later in the evening though, as sometimes these baitballs will get smashed to bits and the fish will still be looking for more.
I used cheap LED light strips to fit out the Gheenoe with safety lights. They work great and apply just like tape. I recommend getting some of the clip connectors to attach to the ends of the tape – they are stronger than soldering.
That Amazon page has the clips in the frequently bought together column. Waterproof LED strips have a layer of soft plastic, like a swimbait, to protect them. You can cut that with a sharp knife and easily scrape it off to expose the connection point. There’s a new connector every foot or so, so if you screw up you have more options. This tape had gotten unbelievably cheap – $8 for 16 feet or $0.50 per foot.
I think the legitimate average schoolie size for most landlocked striper fisheries in the U.S. is 5-7 lbs. That’s kind of the no-BS real size of most stripers. For that size, giving you the ability not to get waxed by a bigger fish, I think an 8 weight is the best all around rod.
Me personally, I choose to fish a ten weight single-hander for stripers, but when I was full on Spey fishing for them, I did use a 7 weight. Spey and switch rods have a lot more lower blank space (aka “ass”) and thus you can move fish with them which are a class or two above what you would consider the top end feasible range of a single hand fly rod.
Good luck.
Zach
Clay they really sort of self-divide into categories.
The Drake and Flyfish Journal are both lifestyle magazines skewing younger. They have robust page counts, typically avoid rehash articles, and are generally healthy based on ad content. Flyfish Journal is a little more esoteric with more short pieces that read like poetry and a slightly more artistic bent.
American Angler, Fly Fisherman, and Fly Rod & Reel focus on general purpose readership. All have gotten shorter in recent years as they tend to have a lot of overlap with the kinds of things you can find on the internet. Each has a little bit of its own identity: American Angler does more instructional or how-to stuff, Fly Fisherman is very destination-heavy (with a very repetitive cast of characters), and Fly Rod & Reel has a literary and environmental element that I personally enjoy. American Angler and Fly Rod & Reel continue to be printed on good quality paper with great photography. Fly Fisherman’s physical quality has really taken a hit in recent years.
Fly Tyer is a specialty magazine but a good one. Grey’s Sporting Journal, Sporting Classics, and a number of other high end magazines feature heavy page stock, perfect binding, high-end product review and typically target a very posh demographic. I tend to buy these on the newsstand if they interest me.
At some point or another I have published in all of these. I don’t subscribe per se to any of them. The ones I personally pick up most often, for what it’s worth, are The Drake, Fly Rod & Reel and Flyfish Journal. Keep in mind I’ve been fly fishing almost 20 years and I’m familiar with almost all the instructional stuff at this point; that is nothing to sniff at though if you are still learning about new fisheries and ways to fly fish.
Zach
Eric it’s probably the Bighorn. I think you also need to consider potential water flows; the Madison has had a number of drought years in the last decade or so, whereas the Bighorn is a tailwater.
If you’re specifically looking to break 2 feet though you might give some thought to Pyramid Lake. That’s a trip I want to do myself.
Zach
It’s coming. I have three episodes recorded presently and three more pending. As soon as I have 6-8 laid back, I’ll begin releasing them. This is to allow for them to be released close enough together to constitute a season.
That’s a bad deal Brian, no mistake. We had a similar experience to some extent when we booked guides out of New Orleans for my bachelor’s party. Local guides, poor quality boats, kept reassuring us that the area was fishing until we actually got there, when they admitted that they had actually talked us into booking on the very edge of their offseason. We scrapped the first day we had booked and should have scrapped the second. Four boats full of good anglers and one fish landed.
My point is, guides–especially in areas that don’t rely on repeat customers–have a perverse incentive to try to maximize whatever they have right now versus targeting a longer-term profit. Most guides understand that word gets around and they can only burn so many people, and of course fishing is fishing, so thankfully this kind of conduct is the exception, not the norm.
This to me, though, doesn’t sound like a fishing problem. It sounds more like a guide’s convenience thing. I suspect the other rivers outside of town took more gas to get to and the guide didn’t feel like doing that for a 1/2 day trip.
My suggestion would be to make your feelings known to the shop owner, because you may not be the first guy this has happened to. Tell him you understand the economics and there’s a possibility you were asking for more than you realized (1/2 day with lots of driving), but that as an out-of-towner you need the shop owner to be big enough to explain the situation to you up front rather than trying to steer you into an experience you never wanted to begin with.
Zach
Sammy, absolutely. The Predator is basically the same as an Adipose but may be a little less expensive. (Little less polished looking too, but a good boat). The Shawnee and Supremes are their own completely different animal. Those are huge, versatile boats. The only thing they don’t do well is twists and turns.
Zach
There’s a good shop in Blue Ridge called Blue Ridge Fly Fishing — http://www.blueridgeflyfishing.com/
Hit those guys up and be sure to visit Bill Oyster’s awesome shop next door.
Zach
Switch rods aren’t exactly the same thing as Spey rods, but if you want to play with them a little bit, I recommend a Skagit line. I also recommend Simon Gawesworth’s book, “Spey Casting.”
Zach
Sammy, one possibility no one has mentioned yet is a Supreme or Shawnee outfitted with both rowing oars and a jet outboard. That’s a more expensive option but it does have excellent cross-purpose applicability.
Kelly I have seen an absolute ton of stand up boards being used in the last two or three years, and they pretty much all look to be stable enough for fishing. One thing I have seen a lot of people do is get a small size Yeti, like the 35, then equip it with Yeti’s rod holders (which also work okay for fly rods). I have a rod holder on one side of a Yeti and a cupholder on the other. Given that they actually float when sealed, they make for a nice little dry box and also something you can hop up on to get some elevation if you happen to find a sandbar to ‘stake out’ on.
Model-wise I can’t really help you other than to say that generally speaking longer and narrower will be faster.
Let us know what you find out! I keep waiting for paddleboard prices to plummet when the trend ends, but we’re not there yet.
Zach
Probably Meridian, based on my understanding that they’re pretty hard-fighting. That rod has more ass.
Zach
You’ve got to understand that every boat is a compromise. I have a Gheenoe (which is pretty similar to a Towee, but poles skinnier and drafts less) and a Clacka Headhunter II, which is what Adipose basically copied (a western pram).
They have totally totally different applications. Poling the Clack on the carp flat would be outright impossible, and I would not encourage anyone to try to sneak up on a carp with oars no matter what craft. Likewise floating the Hooch in a Towee and trying to backrow it safely through the Devil’s Racecourse would be a nightmare not to mention no fun to fish out of.
There is no such thing as an all around boat for every application. Broadly, there are two kinds of boats: motor boats and drift boats. The drifters you see equipped with motors are primarily used to drift down then motor back upriver through water they just crossed–those motors don’t make them appropriate for open water nor for chasing flats species.
I think you need to start there and ask yourself which fishery you are going to spend more time in. If you’re mostly talking about floating the upper Hooch for trout, you could probably (probably!) make due with a Towee, but it wouldn’t be perfect. The Towee is a better choice for carp but in our area waters there are numerous flats that it just drafts too much to pole onto, especially with all the kit people generally attach to them.
In my opinion for carp/redfish/flats fishing what you primarily need is a broad, skinny boat with lots of displacement. The River Hawk, the wide-transomed Gheenoes, or an actual flats boat a la East Cape or Hells Bay are your best choices. The Towee has a rather narrow design which puts a lot of weight down on the rear part of the hull, especially with motor, tower, gas, and a poler back there, but they are well made boats.
Conversely for the river float you need a rockered craft with casting braces, and if you have a motor at all, you’re better off with a jet around here. Some guys do use jet sleds like they have in Alaska, which can be back-rowed, but you’ll be fishing with a motor in your face the whole way down.
Bottom line, I think you are truly describing two different boats.
Zach
I’ve got one of those and I think you could probably gate check it plane-side. You should be able to get it through security since it is utterly non-dangerous. My only concern would be someone ripping the bag, but you could protect it by plastic wrapping the whole hoop area before going in.
There are places where it would be worth it.
Very good rod. I use it interchangeably with the Radian and the S4s. Very difficult to tell a difference in practical fishing situations.
Zach
Aaron, I’ve tied hundreds of flies on both the Dyna-King Barracuda and on the Renzetti Traveler. Notably, I believe the Traveler has exactly the same jaws as Renzetti puts on its higher-grade vises.
I would get the Dyna-King every single time. The jaws are stronger, the vise does not rely on any rubber or plastic parts to work properly, and the Dyna-King is also more ergonomically comfortable to get around and use. Dyna-King vise jaws have slots that are very convenient for locking in bigger hooks for bass bugs and striper flies, but they will still lock down just fine on regular sized trout hooks down to #18. I quit fishing anything smaller than that a long time ago.
Zach
Hey Rick! Great to see you man. Billy, you couldn’t get a more authoritative answer than that.
Thanks again Rick.
FWIW I love the TiCr series dating back to the original TiCr, but those rods probably are a little stiff for the kinds of presentation you’ll need for carp. They would be excellent for surf fishing, for example for stripers or ladyfish, because they’re really really durable.
Zach