Landing nets... A report and a comment.

[Dipnet]

I believe Bart said he's in a 17 ft. Whaler.

BTW, well said, Nick!

Edit: Oops, looks like Nick and I posted about the same time!

 

[SaltyTippet]

Beach fishing with a landing net has not only increased my number of safely released fish but also the number of fish caught during the day as I feel it gives me more confidence to bring them in fast, net them, pop the fly and release them quickly.... then get my fly back into the water were it belongs..... landing nets are as equally important as barbless hooks when fishing the sound.....

 

[Go Fish]

On my drive home I saw you guys in the boat
at said beach. Good advice all around.

 

[Irafly]

A few pics from today. Sure was beautiful day on the water.

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You know that you would have done better with indicators, right?

 

[Nick Clayton]

You know that you would have done better with indicators, right?

Oh believe me this was discussed at length, though in this situation I'm not totally convinced it would have been more productive. We were fast stripping the hell out of these flies, basically like fishing adult coho over the summer. We fished euphasids and small stuff to the sippers but they just weren't interested. When we showed them fast stripped meat then it was game on. And it would have been hard to improve upon the last three hours anyway

There was a spell early on where there was a decent amount of fish just cruising around eating at the surface but it was hard to move in on them as they were ultra spooky and would just move away. I think just sitting in one spot drifting indis could have definitely been the ticket there.

 

[Stonefish]

That poor beach has become like F-Troop central for the south sound.
There can be a bunch of folks fishing there and people continue to pile in.
The cutts there must know everyone by their first name.
A lot more crowded these days then when I caught my first searun there in the mid 60's.
Best advice is to just drive by, burn some gas and find solitude.

Good points in regards to coho, as they are very susceptible to scale loose. Sometimes it seems they lose scales just looking at them.

Glad you guys had a good time.
SF

 

[Riversidecountydrive]

Wonderful report thanks Nick. Always appreciate hearing your perspective.

 

[jasmillo]

Along the same topic, I get the impression watching some people that they are fishing 6x tippets the way they gingerly fight these fish off the beach. There is just no reason a 15" coho should take 4-5 minutes to land. I highly suggest using a strong enough leader that you can really put the heat on the fish and land them quickly. These fish are almost never leader shy. Today I was fishing a dark colored type 6 shooting head with 4' of 8 lb Maxima on a stout six weight rod. There was no shyness from the fish even having the fly so close to the dark colored line, and if I had to guess I'd say all our fish were landed in less than 45 seconds. Again, I'm not trying to judge or blame, just thinking it's possible that some newer salt anglers are getting bad info somewhere about the need to fish super light leaders, or are just so used to trout fishing in fresh water that they don't know any better. I truly believe we owe it to the fish to use heavy enough tackle to land and release them quickly.

This a great lesson for people new to these fish.

I am fairly new (been targeting these fish for about 3 years now) and when I first started I used 5x tippet; what I would normally use for fish this size in a river. It's totally unnecessary. I caught my 3 biggest SRC's of the year this morning fishing 7.5 ft leader tapered down to 2x.

 

[bart morrow]

That's a good reminder, and even if you already have a rubber net try to keep the fish in the water as much as you can. A while ago at that popular South Sound Beach I saw this guy in the distance landed a fish, had it in the net, yet he carried it in the air back and forth dicking around for a long time. Who knows what he was doing but that fish was in the air for a long period of time.
Nice report, is that a wooden boat? Any pics of the boat? I'm a sucker for wooden boats.

1972 Sakonnet w/casting platform Fun to fish from drag to maintain! I imagine one could say that about most boats!