What to pack for a Saltwater Fly Fishing Trip

It’s the time of the year where most of us around the shop are preparing for our Salt Water destination trips. Every year we do a variety of trips to warm places, from all inclusive guided trips to sleeping in a cabana on a beach with no fresh water. Besides the fish, the tropical weather, and the great people of the various countries we go to one of my favorite things about going salt water fly fishing is the simplicity of packing.  When I go up to Alaska or even Idaho I have bags of gear, waders, boots, tents, and who knows what else but you never know what your going encounter and must always be ready for it. With a Saltwater trip to Mexico, Bahamas, Venezuela, Belize, or any number of other destinations you really only need 11 items. Here is my list of 11 items we all take on any saltwater destination trip we do. If you have these items you’ll be set wherever you are.

1.     8 weight fly rod, there are a number of other rods you may want to have but it’s the perfect weight for a bone fishing fly rod.

2.     Saltwater fly reel that will hold an 8 weight line and 150+ yards of backing.

3.     Saltwater fly line, occasionally if you going to a destination where there is lots of coral a backup line is good to have just in case.

4.     Flies, a variety of shrimp and crabs.

5.     Boat Bag, we typically use the Patagonia Great Divider. It’s the perfect size; it’ll fit into an overhead carry on compartment, and keep all your gear dry.

6.     Flats booties, if your doing a guided trip a set up the Simms Zip it booties is perfect. If you’re going out walking on your own all day I would suggest a boot with a little more protection and support such as the Patagonia Marlwakers.

7.     Sun shirts, I like the Patagonia Sun Shade. If you prefer a collared shirt the Patagonia Island Hopper is a great piece.

8.     Quick dry pants, the Tropical Flats pants are the best you’ll find.

9.     Saltwater tippet, we like to use the RIO Alloy Hard tippet. The cool part is the bigger sizes work great for building trout leaders, plus it works for steelhead fishing.

10. Good pair of sunglasses, if you have lighter eye’s a darker lens, but we still love our copper lenses.

11. You never know what you may catch, and some of these salty critters have teeth so a good pair of long handled pliers. Rising has some and if you want the best you can find the Hatch Tempest Pliers.

There are little odds and ends that you will want to take, but if you have these 11 things you’ll be set for your trip. One of the other big questions we get asked a lot is how we travel with our fly rods. Some of us have travel tubes such as the Fishpond Overland Tube, but I prefer to just carry all my rods on in their socks duct taped together. I’ll tuck them next to the window or stow them in the very back of the overhead bin.

When traveling to most of your destinations you can carry all your rods, reels, flies, tippets, leaders, and everything else on except pliers. I recommend carrying on anything you can, including your flats boots. With so many of these remote destinations your gear doesn’t quite make it on time and you may be ¾ the way through your week without your luggage. Some of you may be luckier than others, but if I’m paying for a week of all inclusive fishing in the tropics I don’t want to be without my essentials. When I travel home I throw everything in my check bag except my luggage.

I hope you find this helpful, if you have any questions or are thinking of getting into the Saltwater game drop us a line we’d love to help you out.

Sage One Rod Review

Twice a year Outdoor Retailer comes to Salt Lake City, it’s a time we all look forward to. We get to see all the new toys and connect with friends that we don’t get to see to often. One of my close friends who I’ve known since I got into the industry recently took a job with Farbank, which owns Sage, Redington, and RIO. After the winter show we took 2 days off and hit the river.  We had all sorts of gear to demo and one of the things I was most excited to play with was the new Sage One rod.

At the shop we all cast rods before we bring them in to sell, but as most anglers know there is a difference in casting a rod on the lawn and fishing one on the river. For this two day excursion we were loaded with the Sage One 9’ 5 weight and RIO Gold WF5 lines. Winter finally paid us a visit that weekend, and on Sunday morning as we pulled into the bunny farm on the Middle Provo River we had the lot to ourselves. Not only was I excited to fish for the first time this year, but to have the place to ourselves was pretty epic.

 

We fished a variety of dries, nymphs, and streamers. I wanted to put this “all around rod” to the test, and I surely did. I usually prefer a true medium rod especially when fishing small size 24 midges with 6x tippet. The Sage One rod is a quick stick, and I figured I’d fully put it to the test and see how much pressure I could put on a fish with 6x tippet. I hook one fish fully expecting to snap it off, and as he took off down stream the rod had enough give and sensitivity in the tip to protect my tippet connection.

 

Like I said above my usual style isn’t to fish medium-fast or fast rods, but there are windy days when having a quicker rod makes presenting the fly much easier. I haven’t had faith in a rod with this type of action to protect my tippets, but my opinion has changed. There is no tip deflection in the rod, and I have to say hands down, it’s one of the easiest casting rods I’ve thrown and fished. I’ve been out casting this rod now with over a dozen customers and no matter their preference in action or style all these people have thrown this rod in various sizes with ease. It truly is a rod that fits most anglers casting strokes.

 

When nymphing and throwing streamers this rod lived up to all the hype, it has a backbone and will turn over heavy bugs. It handled a 150 grain Streamer Express with ease. I am really looking forward to fishing this rod over on the Green River or South Fork of the Snake out of a boat. With large dry flies and terrestrials on a windy day this rod will excel.

 

 

One of the other notable things that I loved about this rod is the new handle. For those who haven’t fished a wells grip, you need to give it a try. One of the things I’ve found with this grip is it really allows you to generate power for your cast from the butt section of the rod to the tip. Cigar grips are great, but because of the position it puts your hand in most people tend to use their wrist more and only generate power in the tip of the rod. This in turn means you are doing all the work and more prone to tailing loops, when you cast a rod from the butt to the tip you are allowing the rod to do the work and casting becomes a dream.

 

Some people have a hard time with the price of a premium U.S. made rod. If you can put your fly where you want 7 out of 10 times instead of 3 out of 10 times you are going to catch more fish. It’s that simple and with the castibility of this rod your fly will be in the hunt more often and longer.

 

I thought the RIO Gold in a 5 weight suited this rod perfectly. It loaded the rod, but I can also see where some people may like to go up a line weight to help load it. My recommendation would be if you usually line up your rods try a different taper fly line such as a 5 weight RIO Grande or a Scientific Angler GPX. These are a little more aggressive condensed heads and I think you’ll find they’ll load it to suite your needs.

 

Schmidt did a tour of the Sage factory last August when they were building these rods, if you want to hear all the techy fun stuff about these rods come in and pick his brain. Overall I was not expecting these rods to live up to all the marketing hype, but given how many we have already sold our customers thought it did. I still wasn’t sold and didn’t think this rod would be something I’d fish that often given the action, but I am eating crow here and give the One rod my full endorsement. Thanks for reading if you have any question give the shop a call or feel free to email me.

 

Have a good one!

 

Bryce Nichols

bryce@wrflyfisher.com

Newest issue of This is Fly

The newest issue of This Is Fly came out this week. If you’ve never clicked through the pages of this publication check it out.

Landing Bonefish While Wading

Landing Bonefish While Wading.

Great write up, if your into saltwater fishing or looking at getting started this is a good read.

Western Rivers on the water report from the Green below Flaming Gorge

The Green river can be a sleeper in the winter time. It can be a treacherous drive, but when the weather permits the fishing is some of the best you will find. If you fish the Green primarily in the summer months, you should give it a try in February or March. These two months offer some of the best dry fly fishing you’ll find. You rarely will even see another boat or angler and when you do it’s usually the guides enjoying great fishing of their own. In February we see really good midge hatches down by little hole, and even the occasional blue winged olive hatch. A few of the WRF crew headed out and took advantage. Brandon, Matt, and Eli floated primarily streamer fishing and Nick ran the shuttle and wade fished down at little hole. The streamer fishing was awesome, with dark colored flies. Usually we fish large Galloup style patterns with sinking lines to get them down in the zone. Nick had excellent dry fly fishing down at little hole, he had a good midge hatch with a few late after noon BWO’s. If your thinking of getting out of the city put Dutch John in the GPS and head on over.

Patagonia Rock Grip with Aluminum bars review

Patagonia Rock Grips with Aluminum Bars

Leave it to Patagonia to come up with a unique wading boot that offers incredible traction when fly-fishing on your favorite steelhead river or trout stream; the new Rock Grip Wading Boot w/Aluminum Bars.  These boots out perform studded wading boots by attaching a series of solid aluminum bars to the boots rubber sole.  It’s the best boot I and my customers, at least for those who have tried them, have used when it comes to traction.

The notion for the Patagonia’s Rock Grip Wading Boot w/Aluminum Bars was born on the Steelhead Rivers of the great northwest where some of fly-fishing’s most treacherous wading occurs.  Anyone who has fished these waters knows there are rivers and runs where one is just a step from going for a swim.  As I get older this fact becomes even more of a consideration; one I don’t like getting wet in waters that run in the 40’s or less and the thought of drowning doesn’t exactly thrill me either.  These new wading boots simply hold better than studded wading boots.

Patagonia pioneered the modern wading boot.  They applied their knowledge of rock climbing and mountaineering footwear to fishing; footwear that needs to cling to the smallest of holds. The results led to a lighter more streamlined boots that give you better stability.  Since the beginning they have introduced some great wading boots, but over the past decade some of those boots had durability problems.  Patagonia stood behind those issues, but for everyone familiar with their history of quality there was some frustration and disappointment.

In response to these problems Patagonia introduced the first Rock Grip Wading Boot in 2011. I’ve felt it was their best effort in a wading boot since getting into fly-fishing. Having had the opportunity to fish this boot extensively before it went to market we found it to be light, and comfortable; a quality that all Patagonia wading boots share and definitely more durable.   The standard Rock Grip Boot comes with studs, but for most of my trout fishing needs I haven’t had a need to use them.  That should tell you something about this boot, especially on waters like the Middle Provo or Madison Rivers, which are notoriously snotty rivers to wade.  Where I do find a need for some additional traction is on many of the steelhead rivers I fish in the US and BC.

80+ days on the aluminum bar boots

This past year I had the good fortune of logging a fair number of steelhead days in the states and on my home waters in British Columbia.  These new Patagonia Wading Boots were the only boots I used.  It is on these waters where the need for a durable wading boot with optimum grip was spawned (couldn’t resist).  These boots easily handled British Columbia’s legendary ledge rock and every type of precarious wading situation I encountered with a level of stability I haven’t experienced before.  In drift boats, sleds and rafts I found them to be far less damaging to these vessels than cleats.  For the amount of walking I did, through deadfall, along boulder strewn beaches, and thigh sucking bogs, their slender profile and weight proved to be an unsuspecting advantage.  They also proved how durable they were going to be.

At first when I had learned of this new Patagonia wading boot I was a little skeptical of their profound design.  After putting a season into them on some of the west’s more treacherous wading waters I now thankfully know what Yvon was striving to create.   The Patagonia Rock Grip Wading Boot w/Aluminum Bars has become an integral part of my fly-fishing equipment when wading demands such a specialized boot.  Like the Rock Grip Wading Boot, they also got this one right.

Close up of bars, they hold up well

Ryan Barnes ties up his favorite European nymph

Every Saturday at the shop we do a free fly tying demo. We get many local people, commercial tyers, and professionals who come and tie up their favorite flies for 2 hours starting at 10am. This past Saturday we had one of our old employee Ryan Barnes who was on the US Fly Fishing team for several years do a demo. Ryan has fished all over Europe and has excelled in Czech, Polish, and French nymphing. During his demo he tied up many of his favorite nymphs, but there is one in particular that he finds extremely effective here in Utah on the Green River, Provo River, and Weber River. It’s a Euro style pheasant tail with a hot spot. I do need to make one apology my video skills were a little off and parts of the video are out of focus, but you still get the jist. Hope you enjoy and get out on your favorite ditch this week!

Winter fishing on the Provo River is good

We hope everyone is having a great weekend! Fishing continues to be good on the Provo and Green River. Fished a few days this week and found some fish up on midges, and a few that would chase streamers. Nick just did an out and back to the Green River below Flaming Gorge and had a great trip. Fish were up on blue winged olives and midges. If you haven’t got plans to get out this weekend do it, check our condition reports for some of the flies we’ve been fishing.

Utah Stream Access Coalition

For those not familiar with our battle over the public’s right to access water here in Utah, you should check out the Utah Stream Access Coalition. These guys are awesome and doing a great job on protecting Utah’s fisheries and the public’s right to recreate on them. Last night one of our local radio hosts had both sides of the issues on the air.  Below are links to listen.

Utah Stream Access Coalition on “Inside the Outdoors” You can listen to the three segments from the one hour radio program “Inside the Outdoors”. These segments were originally broadcasted 1/26/2012 off the station 1320 AM KFAN. Chris Barkey of the Utah Stream Access Coalition and Randy Parker of Farm Bureau discuss with radio show host Steve Brown the stream access issue and working on finding compromise between recreation users and land owners here on Utah’s waters.
http://1320kfan.com/index.php/audio/…_access_part_1
http://1320kfan.com/index.php/audio/…_access_part_2
http://1320kfan.com/index.php/audio/…_access_part_3

Matt ties up his favorite Green Drake Nymph

We did this video a while ago, but it’s one of our favorites and most requested. Each year on the Provo and many other of Utah’s rivers the Green Drake hatches are some of the most prolific. When the Drakes come off it’s one of our busiest seasons, if you haven’t fished the Green Drakes on the Provo River you need to. If you need some help our guides would love to show you what it’s about. The hatch happens usually early to mid afternoon. When we go out on full day trips usually we start off fishing dry droppers until the hatch happens and this is one of our most productive nymphs. Like most the flies you see us tie, they are our own varieties and you won’t find them in any bin.