I've been going to different rivers over the last few weeks, not a huge amount of success fishing wise, but it's been fun. Tried out Crane Creek (a little 8 ft wide stream), Whitewater River, and went to Big Bend on the Chattooga today. Ran into a little black bear hiking in this morning. Then my reel broke. The reel separated from the base while casting. I super glued it back together and it seems to be holding, but I don't trust it long term, so I ordered a new reel. Took some pictures from the Whitewater and Big Bend.
My dad has fly tying equipment so I started working on learning to tie flies while on vacation. Started with elk hair caddis and then tried a pheasant tail nymph. They aren't the best but they'd probably work for stockers.
Made 2 more pheasant tails and made 5-6 parachute adams. They're tougher and don't look as nice, but I'm learning.
Seeing the hand made.flies made me remember that when I retire or win the lottery, I'm gonna learn the custom rod making craft
Yesterday made extended body cahills, a light cahill/adams mashup, and then some yellow stimulators. Was going to do a midge, but my dad didn't have any small midge hooks.
I have a bottom fishing charter and inshore tarpon charter for Friday and Saturday. I'm fully torqued. I'm gonna die, going out of PCB Friday for a bachelor party that was scheduled after i booked the inshore trip.
There is this one crazy fucker who goes tarpon and bull red fishing at night all the time on his kayak. It's under a busy ass bridge with crazy add current. Dude has it down though. I'm not that skilled on my kayak yet.
once you get your first on and the reel starts screaming and you feel the power, you’ll be hooked. Nothing else compares. You’ll spend all fall, winter, and spring waiting for them to come back
I don't have the gear to target them on my yak, I wanna get some.bigger gear to go off the beach and just catch some sharks. Figured I'd grab a spinfisher hear soon
fyi - this time of year is when the big shows are and all the new gear comes out. Can find the “old” stuff on clearance usually when I pick new stuff up. these are the new model, and exact opposite of what I just said, but if I needed new tarpon/heavier gear, I’d jump on these. CNC gears, metal body, and penn drag. Can’t beat the price for what you get https://www.tackledirect.com/penn-battle-iii-spinning-reels.html
Yeah I saw them, i bit the bullet and bought a diawa saltist 3000 back bay is fucking tits. Better than a stradic imo for kayaking. Was hoping the BG would get upgraded here soon, I like it too
I’ve never used daiwa stuff. I know a bunch of guides, and none of them use it either. Not a knock or saying it’s not good, just have no real world experiences or people I know who have experiences. Price point seems great, but the value in the new battle 3 is amazing. CNC gears alone make it better for big fish like tarpon. I picked up two new quantums bocas on clearance last year when they got discontinued, and I wish I hadn’t due to these coming out now
I loved my BG, sadly it took a swim and I tried to clean it with experience and basically fucked it all up. I had a 2000 that handled a 31 inch red with ease. I wanna try the new battle III a BG is pretty old tech now
When I was young and dumb, I was the biggest shimano fan boy. Stradics were by far the best spinning reel for casting artificials. Shimano sucks for getting replacement parts though. They have no aftermarket support, are hard to work on (damn Japanese) and stop making replacement parts after 5 years. The new penn stuff is great, imo. Easy to service, tons of replacement parts, and great value. know some people using okuma stuff and seems to have caught up to shimano in tech but way cheaper
depends. Shimanos run small, a 6000 shimano is smaller than some reels 4000. penns run a little bigger. For my tarpon spinning reels I have quantum boca 60s with 30 lb braid on 8 foot xh terramar rods. These are fine for the beach and up in the bay where it’s shallow. If you are fishing deep water you need to go up in power. I have 2 penn clash 8000 I use when I fish the passes and for grouper fishing on old MH talllus rods
I have an okuma avenger that is my beater reel, it's not smooth as others, but it has taken a beating for 35 bucks.
Yeah 8 kinda just wanna a good all around reel/rod for big fish. Soemthing I land a shark, tarpon, king, Spanish, bull red during the mullet run
That's interesting, I've seen more praise for the BG online generally. I owned both a Battle II and a BG and liked the BG better personally, but sadly lost both rolling my kayak earlier this year so I can't comment on longevity. Will have to look into the Battle III. Being in Michigan I fish more in freshwater anyway, but I typically try to have a saltwater capable reel or two around for fishing Stripers on annual trips to Maine. Hope I have a chance to catch some tarpon one day. Had a hook in one down in BVI once, but lost it on a crazy barrel roll jump. Awesome fish.
Well the Penn battle just got new tech so they were really pretty even before the new one dropped like last week
i have never tied, but my only advice would be trying to keep the material from crowding the eye of hook. some of those simpler flies can be unwound and reworked apparently. otherwise i’d fish those now.
Thanks. I try to, but it can be tough to keep the material away on some of these. It'd be hard to unwind them, as I finish them with 4-5 knot at the end that helps pull it back from the eye and then add the head cement at the end to help bind it. I've tried to keep it back some because it is really frustrating to try threading the line in while standing in the river and running up against part of the fly.
i hesitated to say anything because I don't have any experience. it seems to be a common problem people fight against from listening to the mail bag on Tom Rosenbauer's podcast. have you been watching youtube or books to learn technique? i have no interest in tying, but still listen to the podcasts on tying, because the guys always talk about the differences in materials and how they fish. streamers especially have tricked me many times because they don't sink or sink too much for what i planned to do with the fly.
I've mostly been following the videos on the Orvis site. My dad also has a tying book that I've referenced, and just his suggestions/pointers.
Vacation is ending, so these are the last sets of flies you guys will be subjected to for the time being. Did another chubby chernobyl this morning, then a bead head soft hackle pheasant tail, a zonker, a dave's hopper, some hare's ear nymphs, and then some more pheasant tails. When you look at it far away, the week's worth of tying doesn't look like much.
Bay boat . Probably something 20-22 feet. Since it is going to be my first boat, I'm not trying to break the bank. $20,000 is my budget. Something that can get into shallow water for redfish and trout but also can run out to the barrier islands. Blazer bay, pathfinder, triton sea flight are all ideal.
Went out after work for a few hours to try out the new flies. Caught this one after a few cast. Caught it on the Adams fly I made Caught a few more on one of the caddis I made, and one on a pheasant tail I made. Pretty successful few hours.