We have had a lot of rough surf conditions this season but the ocean seems to be calming down finally and it is clearly time to hit the beach with the dory and fly rods rigged and ready to fish.
Our friend Kevin hosted me and my long long long time friend Bob Hooton a few days ago. We fished a few hours before the wind came up and had a very entertaining time catching modest numbers of lingcod, black rockfish and cabezon. Bob and I fished the ECHO Bad ASS Glass rods, both 8 wts in nine and eight foot versions. I’ll have more to say regarding these rods after I’ve had more time to fish them but I can say that my immediate reaction is very favorable: they cast well and oh my goodness the bend in these rods makes ordinary size fish feel very large. Oddly enough, the big bend is accompanied with a very powerful butt section with great lifting power—all in all a pleasant combination.
Kevin skippered his dory and fished expertly – showing off a cabezon here. These fish pull far harder than their size would suggest.
Bob and I fished SA sink fly lines. Bob Fished the Sonar Sink 25 Cold water and I fished the Sonar Sink 30 Cold water. Both of these lines performed well — the principle difference is that the Sonar Sink 30 has a longer section of sinking line on the head coupled with an intermediate running line. The running line on the Sonar sink 25 line is a floater. Consequently the Sonar sink 30 will deliver your fly a little deeper a little faster. While I do not dispute this technical fact, the two lines performed very similarly and both got our flies down where the fish wanted them. I’ll add that the traditional fly line vs fly rod chart suggested we should have been fishing a fly line with a head from about 200 to 220 gr, we were actually fishing 350 gr heads. Modern fly rods are very powerful and I often overline my rods especially when I want to minimize false casting and in this cast when I wish to get my fly deeper faster. Great fly lines, no question about it.
Ill note also that we fished flies freshly tied with UV2 Dragon Tails. These flies look really wiggly and attractive in the water and the fish seemed to accept them quite readily.
All in all we had a great day of it and are looking forward to a repeat venture very soon.
My friend Bob at the end of our offshore.
Jay Nicholas May 2018
