[Grampa Spey]

As the weather may be drying up and warming up, we have some unique top water hatches on the Yuba and other California Rivers plus egg laying insects on top of the water.

Dry flies can attract some large trout during these hatches.

The problem is that the fish have learned to stay just outside of the normal distance of one handed fly fishers. So they are out 60 to 70 feet past knee deep water in the slick zones.

Somedays, the fish are kamakazis and will hook themselves.

Other days you have the typical suck in the fly routine, and you have set the hook hard and quick to catch them. I find it very hard to do this at 60 to 70 feet.

How do you do this with a floating line at this distance? I posed this question last fall, and I would like to run it up the flag pole again.

I get the feeling from some Speyers if the fish don't hook themselves at that distance, forget it.

Any suggestions?

 

[beau purvis]

floating line hook sets

in my last post under hook sets i described floating line technique for the deschutes steelhead. I fish a loop.hold the line with my right hand on the cork. the line just lies over my first two fingers. I like to have a glove with covers on those two fingers so that the line canslip over them with no friction.when a fish comes up ;sucks in the fly; goes back down and turns, the line slips out with no tension.when it hits my klick drag and makes a klick I hit them.usualy get them that way unless they dont turn or dont hold very long.dont let too much line hang in the loop.maybe a foot for average steelhead.beau

 

[beau purvis]

floating line P.S.

I forgot to adrress line lenght.I acyualy have better luck more often on the longer line than shorter.I think it has to do with Ed's comment about slack. I never feel less confident and regularly have great hook up succes floating or wet with 90-100' of line on the water.beau

 

[Mean Mr Mustard]

No answer, but possibly a humorous incident:

Last summer while trying out the new XLT with a riffle-hitched fly in water the experts have told me do not support a summer-steelhead run I was the victim of a hit and run. Yeah, I'm contemplating again and out of nowhere, bam! Shock and awe to the extreme and I was incapable of ANY reaction. Obviously, I failed to set the hook before I was shaken off. At least I didn't pee my pants.:chuckle:

mmm

 

[Grampa Spey]

beau purvis re loop and floating spey lines

What are you doing with your rod?

Are you following the fly down stream with it or what!

How are you holding your rod, high, low or medium.

Thanks for your response.

 

[beau purvis]

floating line

what I always do;following at medium to low position.beau

 

[Tayside]

When a fast strike is required I leave the rod tip on a level plane and sweep the rod directly to the downstrream bank. When using the single handed rod I also give a quick long strip as I move the rod sideways. I believe that using this method results in more line staying in the water resulting in downstream pressure on the line coupled with the fast sideways movemnet of line results in faster and increased number of successfull hookups . Hope this helps


Ian

 

[Grampa Spey]

Tayside, aka Ian

Thanks for the suggestions. If it ever quite raining here in N. California and the rivers drop to fishing levels, I will have to try your suggestion.

 

[JDJones]

makes sence

Ian's method of keeping the rod tip low and sweeping towards the nearside bank. What is happening here is that water tension on the line forces it into an L shape. Long leg plus short leg of a triangle. Wheras if you were to lift the rod as a trout fishermen might do, the line is now more like the hypotonuse of the trainge which is shorter than the long plus short leg. To make matters worse, by lifting line of the water, there is less tension on the line to provide the resistance needed for hookup. There is also the "hair trigger" thing to consider. When Mr. Steelhead is coming for the fly, he is pushing a wake ahead of his nose. this wake will push the fly away from him as he makes his grab for it. So extra time must be allowed for him to get a good bite on the fly. This method is mentioned in "Grease Line Fishing" by Jock Scott.

 

[Grampa Spey]

JDJones

Thanks for the Geometry, physics and water dynamics lesson.

I will have to get my copy of Greased Line fishing back from my son and re read it.

When you make that sweep to the shore with your rod low, do you do it as a strong and slow sweep?

 

[Tayside]

I meant that no matter how high the rod tip is off the water sweep the rod sideways to the downstream bank. JD pointed out that rod tip lowand sweep to the near bank is explained in Greaselining for Salmon and Steelhead by Jock Scot that was the way I was taught by an elderly gentelman that assistted me in hooking and landing my first trout on a stream on the outskirts of Inverness Scotland when I was nine. Twenty years later while fishing the Stewiacke River in Nova Scotia another elderly gentelman pointed out that dropping the rod tip before sweeping the rod sideways put slack in the line resulting in the rod tip having to travel further which resulted in me missing fish. .The next cast the rod tip was held high in order to keep line out of the water to get the proper drift and when the fish hit the fly I left the tip high and with authority swept the rod directly sideways to the bank which resulted in a 10 pound Atlantic salmon jumping at the end of my line. I use this method only when a very fast strike is required I use the loop slip method mentioned in other posts when I find that I am striking too quickly. I can only say that this method worked for the old gentelman that passed it on tho me and for the last 25 yearrs it has worked very well for me. Sometimes all it take is a slight variation of someone else's method to be successful. Thats fishing. tight lines
Ian

 

[Rick J]

That technique is often used for typical slack line hook setting. For spring creek stuff where the main casts are slack line downstream presentation, if you try to set a hook by the "normal" method of lifting, you will move very little line. To demonstrate this, go out on the lawn and get lots of slack line on the ground and try to set by lifting the rod tip - you will likely not move the yarn at the end of the leader. Now set by pulling down and across, sweeping the rod tip - much more line moves resulting in a much better chance at a hook set.

I would think a long spey rod would just move that much more line using this technique