Our head guide on the Dean River at BC West is Scott Baker-McGarva. There’s a reason he’s in his job – he knows a lot about swinging flies for anadromous fish.
Scott wrote an excellent piece on big bugs and leaders. We think those of you who crave chrome will appreciate it.
Big Flies, Leaders, and How Heavy is ‘Too Heavy’?
My affinity with big flies sometimes knows no bounds – there is just something about the crushing grab that large flies entice from fresh fish. Those fish rarely ‘pluck’ them, and of course sometimes they whack them so hard that one can’t understand how they simply missed the hook! But typically I find it’s the big pull, followed by fly line snapping tight against fingers, and they’re off and running.
Big flies can cast like wet squirrels, and anglers can shudder at the size of some flies for reasons from pure horror to intimidation. “God, I don’t have the chops to cast that….that…thing!” has been heard more than once, but when the little devil appears on their left shoulder yelling “cast it…ya wuss!” there is no angel on the right side offering the alternative of a #6 low water skunk. They know it’s going get ugly, but it doesn’t have to be.
Tossing a bigger fly requires a few “must-do’s”. Constant tension on the line through the cast is lesson number one, combined with a shorter Skagit-type head and some stout cable/leader to turn it over, second. Since this is a muse about bugs and leaders, we’ll leave casting to another time.
Trout School?
An early lesson in trout school is to always scale tippet (let’s just call it leader) to your fly size. It seems obvious, after all – a #14 Adams on some 1X is obviously going to lack appeal for the trout, as much as using 5x with a #2 Sculpin creates a lot of visits to the fly box for another fly. So, somewhere in the middle is happiness. Trout anglers can divide their fly size by 3 and get a reasonable X factor to choose tippet by – but two handed addicts cannot. It’s 10lb, 12lb, 15lb or 20lb – Maxima, preferably!
This is where some get confused, perhaps linking leader size to fish weight (!?!), rather than to fly size, and I don’t mean the hook – I mean the bug itself. One must consider
- Is it weighted?
- Is it a big Intruder that dries in the air quickly?
- Or an evil-weighted bunny fly that leaves the water like a horribly under-powered cruise missile, with a confused idea of where it’s headed?
Suffice it to say, a fish about to crush your ‘5 inches of fun’ isn’t looking at the leader and taking a pass! So I look at it this way – use the biggest tippet you can still catch fish with, yet still break off snagged flies rather than losing whole leaders and sink-tips. Use a loop knot to maximize action and sink rate.
Hooks Matter
An added bonus of contemporary trailer-hooked flies is the balance between an ability to open the hook up on a snag or fish you can’t follow, and busting off the fly all together. A #2 short shank bait hook will hold a fish on a bent rod just fine with 12 to 15 pound leader, but point the rod and generally the hook will open, giving you a cherished bug back, just requiring a new iron. The alternative, of course, is leaving it waving in the current on some tree limb.
Fat Can Be Good
Just like a big rope tows a car more efficiently, so does a larger diameter leader transfer the energy from your rod/line/tip into the fly and its turn-over. Note that this is diameter helping you here, not strength. Micro-thin but high-strength leader material is better suited for smaller bugs and wary trout.
Don’t sweat the ‘meat fishing’ idea just because it appears you’re hunting squirrels with an moose gun. It’s all about easier casts, beaching the fish quick, and not fearing the ‘new earring’.
This is an excellent article! Since the context of the message draws upon experience taken from trout fishing, it also might be worth mentioning that the length of leader, and most importantly the “tippet,” for two handed outfits needs to be significantly shorter than that of what is typically used for trout fishing. I find this to be particularly important when casting bigger flies as a leader that is too long makes it very difficult to keep constant tension on the line during the cast. A longer leader can also negatively impact the depth of your fly as it swings through a hole or run. If a leader too long is employed, the position of your fly in the water column will be more elevated toward the surface the farther away it gets from the sinking tip. You need to be in solid contact with your fly and have a very good idea of what depth you are fishing, given the current circumstances. Since fish seldom see the leader as the fly swings in front of them, keeping a shorter leader can assist in picking up delicate takes as well as landing fish after they are hooked up.
As Scott so masterfully points out, it’s all about the casting. Enough leader to keep constant tension through the cast, and with enough length to maintain an efficient anchor is the ultimate goal. This will vary based upon your particular outfit, length of rod, type and length of shooting head, and flies selected, so will require some experimentation.
The best suggestion I can make after helping hundreds of people learn to cast two handed rods – when you are tuning your practice just before leaving for your trip, it’s a good idea to begin casting with actual flies you’re going to use vs. a piece of fuzz or rabbit fur you’ve concocted to avoid injury. At some point in your practice, you need to start shooting with bullets! Make use of all the kinds of flies you expect to fish on your trip during your practice so you will know how to adjust your leader system to different flies once you are on the Dean. It makes no sense to waste time learning how to cast your flies once you’re there.
The Dean River – You can’t imagine a more beautiful place on earth.
You mention #2 short shank bait hooks. Can you be more specific? Is it your experience that a gamakatsu octopus #2 could be straightened with 15 lb maxima? It would be helpful if you could tell us which hooks you are actually referring to. Thanks. Derek
Derek, thanks for swinging by. I’ll pass your question on to Scott, but in the meantime make the guess that Owner SSWs are the most common trailer hooks we see, and they seem to be plenty strong.