Help

[cooljaco]

I am new to fly fishing as a whole. Last year I started fishing for trout and this year I would like to progress to salmon. The problem is I have no idea what size rod, what type of rod, reel, or line to use. I have a pretty good idea of type of flies to use for I have drifted a lot of flies for salmon in the past. The river I prefer to fish is the Southfork of the Salmon River in Idaho. It is not a very large river (somewhat of a glorified creek). So I was thinking a a shorter rod in perhaps a 10 wt. But what type of line (sinking, sinking tip, how fast a sink rate)? I landed a nice male last year around 35 lbs so I was also wondering as to what type of leader I should go with. I was very excited when I found this site for there was a ton of really good information, any further help would be greatly appreciated.

[Ed Call]

Luke77 recently started a thread on tactics for springers that is getting some nice response. I fish the beaches for salmon more than the rivers as I find many of the rivers I visit seem to have lock jawed fish. I think that the river depth, rate of flow and where the fish hold will dictate if you need to use full sinking lines, sinking tip lines, a versitile interchangable tip system with varied weights, full floating, short leaders, long leaders and what weight and size of flies are best. All this really does not answer your question, rather it opens more variables. I think that much of what you might need to read about will be found here on this great site. The search function will lead to you a lot of it and you'll find a lot of very experienced fishermen and women here who post and share great information about how to get set up. Welcome, and best of luck. I don't know much but if there are questions you have feel free to hit me with a PM.

[cooljaco]

Thanks Mumbles for your reply. I generally use drift gear for salmon on a rod weighted for at least 20 lbs test with one of my more productive baits of choice being nothing more then tuffs of chartreuse and orange yarn. I am fairly sure that if I can get a fly to the salmon that they will take it. My problem is I do not know which one of the many thousands of fly lines that seem to be out there, to use. Drift gear is fairly simple. If your dragging bottom, cut a little weight off. If your not getting into the hole, add a little. As well, I am not sure as to what weight of fly rod a casting rod of 20 lbs test would equate to? I really don't want to buy a fly rod only to break it on a 20-30 lbs fish. I understand that a lot of this will depend on the river, and the only thing I can offer as explanation to the conditions is: the river I will be fishing is no more then 30 ft across in most spots (some spots that I have caught salmon out of I could almost jump across), it can have a very fast flow in the runoff but this year should be much less then normal, and I don't believe that the deepest holes are much more then 10 feet deep. I will try and check out Luke77's post, and again thank you for your response.

[Ed Call]

You are welcome. I bought a TFO TiCr-X 8wt last year just to fish for Chum in a few local estuaries and rivers. That rod is like an 9wt as it is stout. I would not hesitate to fish for kings with that rod but it could break. Great warranty rods hurt a little less when they break. Just something to consider.