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Sunday morning saw some relatively unpredictable winds and weather so I decided to conduct an experiment at one of the beaches I have been learning. This beach has been consistent every time I have fished it, nice big boulders and seams of bedrock that jut out to bust up a 1/2 walking pace tide into some nice eddies and swirls.The wind forecast suggested winds would be onshore, so I wanted some backup in punching out casts.
The question of which is more efficient and enjoyable for selective gear fishing for SRC off a beach- gear- or flies- has been nagging me for a while. I decided to test it out.
I took a six foot spin rod lined with 6 pound mono, with single hook barbless vibrax, black, and various sizes of rooster tails, again barbless and single hooked, and compared that to a fly rod. I was equipped with a broom handle of a single-hander lined with 6wt sink-line, I cast a epoxy headed sand lance or a variety of small clousers.
Predicted winds were 180 degrees of what was actual, though gusts threw in some variability. The crappy rain on the drive out and on the ferry ride ended right at beach arrival.
After two and a half hours of fishing, cast ratios were about 5:1 for gear to fly rod, If I got a strike I'd try a couple more tries with the one rod and then switch to the other, same cast vicinity. Winds sometimes made gear casts more attractive. The gear consistently out-distanced the fly cast, unsurpirsingly, and the gear fished deeper and hung up a little more. I lost one lure. (If you stand on a rock on ----Beach and see black vibrax #3---take it, it's yours...)
Sometimes I couldn't tell if I was getting hits or brushing up over boulders and weeds, 9/10 times made me think it was the latter. Casting to distant rises was easy and doable with the gear, not-so with the fly-rod. The gear caught one cabezon in the final 3 minutes of fishing, it was about 11 inches, a handsome beast of a thing.
The fly got the only SRC, a nice 15 inch fish. Strikes were easy to feel.
I was more bored with the spin rod, the process of casting and stripping was more fun with the fly rod, except when the wind was up, in which case the fly fun immediately dropped.
So my conclusion was overall the fly was more enjoyable, and got the job done, though the rod (of course it wasn't me) made casts underwhelming in comparison to other rods I have.
I concluded I needed a new rod, and next time I would leave the spin rod at home.
The only other footnote was while casting a dog fight erupted behind me on the path obscured by the bramble and blackberry. I couldn't see the dogs but the owners began shrieking, as were the dogs. Both dogs sounded small. Horror movie kinds of screaming. It left me in a dilemma, wade out and see if I could help, or keep fishing. The guy said "I have a car" several times. I couldn't see what was going on, it sounded nasty. All the noise ended in about three minutes, I kept fishing, figuring they had worked something out.
The question of which is more efficient and enjoyable for selective gear fishing for SRC off a beach- gear- or flies- has been nagging me for a while. I decided to test it out.
I took a six foot spin rod lined with 6 pound mono, with single hook barbless vibrax, black, and various sizes of rooster tails, again barbless and single hooked, and compared that to a fly rod. I was equipped with a broom handle of a single-hander lined with 6wt sink-line, I cast a epoxy headed sand lance or a variety of small clousers.
Predicted winds were 180 degrees of what was actual, though gusts threw in some variability. The crappy rain on the drive out and on the ferry ride ended right at beach arrival.
After two and a half hours of fishing, cast ratios were about 5:1 for gear to fly rod, If I got a strike I'd try a couple more tries with the one rod and then switch to the other, same cast vicinity. Winds sometimes made gear casts more attractive. The gear consistently out-distanced the fly cast, unsurpirsingly, and the gear fished deeper and hung up a little more. I lost one lure. (If you stand on a rock on ----Beach and see black vibrax #3---take it, it's yours...)
Sometimes I couldn't tell if I was getting hits or brushing up over boulders and weeds, 9/10 times made me think it was the latter. Casting to distant rises was easy and doable with the gear, not-so with the fly-rod. The gear caught one cabezon in the final 3 minutes of fishing, it was about 11 inches, a handsome beast of a thing.
The fly got the only SRC, a nice 15 inch fish. Strikes were easy to feel.
I was more bored with the spin rod, the process of casting and stripping was more fun with the fly rod, except when the wind was up, in which case the fly fun immediately dropped.
So my conclusion was overall the fly was more enjoyable, and got the job done, though the rod (of course it wasn't me) made casts underwhelming in comparison to other rods I have.
I concluded I needed a new rod, and next time I would leave the spin rod at home.
The only other footnote was while casting a dog fight erupted behind me on the path obscured by the bramble and blackberry. I couldn't see the dogs but the owners began shrieking, as were the dogs. Both dogs sounded small. Horror movie kinds of screaming. It left me in a dilemma, wade out and see if I could help, or keep fishing. The guy said "I have a car" several times. I couldn't see what was going on, it sounded nasty. All the noise ended in about three minutes, I kept fishing, figuring they had worked something out.
