jkim
Well-known member
Yesterday, for the very first time, I went saltwater fly fishing here in southern California. I really liked my brief saltwater experience in Pensacola Florida. The inlets have knee-deep flats where the water are clear and calm with a lot of different fish. My son got ghost shrimp fly patterns about 2 inch long, hook size #10 for me and worked really well.
Hoping to catch some big California Halibut and Corbina I brought these 'big' and beautiful shrimp patterns tied on size 2 hooks. The rod was the same St Croix LE 5wt with Rio Gold 6wt. Very early in the morning I drove 30 minutes to get to the Long Beach harbor where the water was relatively calm but it's nothing like those flats in Florida. And it's very tough to fly fish against cold and pounding waves of Pacific Ocean. Anyway I was still very excited to get there with my fly rod then this funny thing happened. On my very first cast the loop collapsed in the air and the fly simply fell into the water just about 20 ft from me when I wanted to cast about 50 ft. Tried roll casts but the result was same. I wasn't able to properly cast at all. Then I switched to a 4 inch long streamer (shiner) tied on size 6 hook. It was so much better but wasn't good enough. I caught one Mackerel and that was it. BETTER THAN NOTHING. Well I put the blame on my poor casting skills then I thought it might be the fly rod which was not strong enough to throw big flies. So what would be the proper fly rod weight to throw flies tied on size 2 hooks? And I still think my casting skills need to be improved. Any tips?
Hoping to catch some big California Halibut and Corbina I brought these 'big' and beautiful shrimp patterns tied on size 2 hooks. The rod was the same St Croix LE 5wt with Rio Gold 6wt. Very early in the morning I drove 30 minutes to get to the Long Beach harbor where the water was relatively calm but it's nothing like those flats in Florida. And it's very tough to fly fish against cold and pounding waves of Pacific Ocean. Anyway I was still very excited to get there with my fly rod then this funny thing happened. On my very first cast the loop collapsed in the air and the fly simply fell into the water just about 20 ft from me when I wanted to cast about 50 ft. Tried roll casts but the result was same. I wasn't able to properly cast at all. Then I switched to a 4 inch long streamer (shiner) tied on size 6 hook. It was so much better but wasn't good enough. I caught one Mackerel and that was it. BETTER THAN NOTHING. Well I put the blame on my poor casting skills then I thought it might be the fly rod which was not strong enough to throw big flies. So what would be the proper fly rod weight to throw flies tied on size 2 hooks? And I still think my casting skills need to be improved. Any tips?