When anglers ask us about what gear they should bring to South Andros, we first cover the basics of what should be in their quiver.
Then we get to an absolutely fundamental piece of advice – make sure your rod loads easily.
What You Don’t Want
The worst setup for bonefish on South Andros is a super-fast rod paired with a line with a long, fine front taper – requiring 50 feet of line out the rod tip to be well-loaded. The majority of our shots at bonefish come inside 50 feet. Getting the rod loaded quickly for a decent presentation inside 50 feet is critical.
Ways to Make Sure Your Rod Loads Quickly and Easily
So how do you get your rod to load well at short range? You’ve got a few options – we’ll go from least-helpful advice to most-helpful advice.
- Be a successful tournament caster. Steve Rajeff could make a great, instant 30 foot shot with a 5 weight line on an 8 weight rod, but you’re not Steve Rajeff, are you? Oh, you are? Hey Steve!
- Use a slower rod. Slower rods work OK for shorter shots but things can fall apart a bit when the wind blows or when you need to make a longer cast.
- Go up one line size. In the past a popular option was to, for example, put a 9 weight line on your 8 weight rod. Similar to using a slower rod, this works well for the short casts but your rod is really going to buckle if you need to go for it.
- Use a modern, shorter-head bonefish line. Lines like Bruce Chard’s Grand Slam line were specifically designed to make quick presentations easy. They’re often about a half line size heavy, but that mass is concentrated in a shorter head with an aggressive taper that helps turn over big flies too. We line all our bonefish rods with lines of this style, and this is our top choice to make sure you’re ready for all those short, quick shots.
Took my first bonefishing expedition this year. Paired Bruce’s Grand Slam line with a Scott S4S and couldn’t imagine a sweeter setup. Good stuff here, guys.
Sounds great Mike – glad that line worked well for you!
Good stuff! I’ve been saying this for years. Too many anglers still believe the hype (because very few people correct them) that bonefishing requires 70-foot casts. As you so rightly point out, it rarely does.
I’d add this to the list: “Pick a better rod.” I mean a rod that loads in close and can still fire it out there when needed. This usually means a rod with a softer tip, but more powerful but section. Some of the cheaper TFO rods fit the bill as do Winston’s BIIx rods, though they’re hard to come by nowadays.
Main thing is to try out the rod with a leader, a fly, and very little line out the tip. Most folks pick up an 8-weight and try to see how much line they can sling (cause it’s fun), instead of seeing how the rods perform with realistic amounts of line.
I recommend seeing if you can load the rod with the leader and about 20-ft of line out the tip. If you can quickly and accurate place a fly with such a short line then you can move on to the distance test. If you have to work hard to load the rod then don’t even bother with casting far. Pick a new rod.
Agreed, WindKnot. Great input as always – both on better rods in general and on testing rods at 20ish feet out.