I use 5 foot poly leaders on all of my intermediate lines. Add 3-4 feet of tippet and it should turn over well for you.
Yea i used just like 3 or 4 ft of 15lb maxima but i couldnt get thing to lay out or not pile up mid air.... i have never have had that problem really. Guess i will break out the tfo to see if i can cast that fine haha
I fished two beaches Sunday beginning at 4:30AM. I fished my pink popper and didn't raise any fish, but then, the only fish I saw were when I was walking the other way. Leland.
East side of Area 9 was quiet too. I fished Picnic Pt from first light to tide change on Sunday and never saw fin nor tail on the surface. Couple of small SeaRuns, but not much sport on a 7 wt rod. One fellow trolling about 250 ft from shore hooked up with a nice King, chased after it for over 20 minutes while he played it, including screaming bloody murder at the seal that had breakfast designs for his fish-on-a-leash. Pretty funny. Any day now things will start popping.
I haven’t noticed as much surface activity either. In fact, I’ve caught most of my fish on sink tips rather than my standard intermediate lines. The diving birds are going down a few feet to get the lance, but the seagulls have not been very active on top. Maybe it’s just a numbers game. As more fish show up the topwater action should improve.
Once we finally get out of this high pressure system, I think things will pick up. These clear skies and strong north winds certainly don't help.
I usually don't need fish showing to get topwater action, I just need them to be "around," especially this time of year. Poppers, if nothing else, are the ultimate attractor fly. Leland.
slow last night 7/20, picked up a nice rezzi 1 hour after the tide change. 4" hot pink/white clouser. Looked like a few nice fished landed by the boats out front of us.
Fished a local beach and picked up a nice 18" Silver and 10" silver. They are getting bigger. Caught nothing bigger than 12" couple months ago in same area.
Snuck out last night after dinner 7/21/09 to hit an east side MA9 beach about 8 pm., 1.5 hours into the outgoing tide. Most of the salad had dissipated by that time, wind had dropped completely, and after the sun set behind Whidbey Island and light was left to orange and red highlights over the flat water, some resident Coho starting showing their presence as they smacked into bait balls, mostly about 20 yards farther than I can cast while wading deeper than I was comfortable with. I thought for sure the bite was coming on and the rises were getting tantalizingly closer, but it stopped about 20 minutes after it started, so I reeled in and called it a day before my car got locked in at the parking lot. Beautiful way to spend the tail end of the day. The salmon will go on the bite when they choose, nothing to be done about that; I will be there when they do. I was pleased with my casting though, still learning to apply the lessons from my casting instruction last month which has given me another 5-10 ft to my average cast. An evening at the beach, it's all good. Stay cool bros., they're coming. Jim
Amen to this Leland! I was using your beach popper on the beach here last week when a school of bait sprayed up out of the water right at my knees, with a big salmon churning around amongst them gobbling them up. I had been stripping your fly along on a retrieve and it seemed like the whole crazy feast ran right along behind my fly like a flock of sparrows. I got one good grab, my fly right at the tip of the rod, and I was so cranked up I yanked the fly right out of the big salmon's mouth! :beathead:
I fished Soutwest Whidbey on the 21rst- some big fish jumping... I saw about a 12 pound fish jump 5 times right in front of me. I only caught little guys- salmon and 1 trout, the first I've ever caught on the west side. I think I caught 2 12 inch pinks... possible? It was a great morning to be out. First salt trip of the year.
The fish you caught were probably resident silvers, not pinks. We don't normally see pinks in the sound that are not adults (3+ pounds typically). However, we catch resident silvers year around from 6" up to several pounds.
