Great Outdoor Blog

Conventional wisdom on “small stream flyrods” dictates a very short rod, usually 7’ or under, fast action concentrated in the tip, and light line so that the small trout in these streams are more fun. Of course such rods work, but is there a better choice? Our staff’s experience and their observations of others fishing these streams suggest another approach.A good place to start is to outline what will be required of small stream rods here in North Carolina. First, the rod needs to cast easily and accurately at distances from 10’ to 30’. Second, it needs to be long enough to mend line, and keep the line out of the fast water at the tails of the little “plunge pools” that characterize the steeper portions of these waters. Third, unless you are a dry fly purist, the rod needs to cast a wide range of flies, dry, wet, and streamers from #4 or 6 down to #22. And, it needs to be handy in close quarters.

For every cast over 30’, small streams offer up hundreds under 15’. We’re not talking “dappling” or “bow and arrow” casts, but short, conventional casts to close marks; overhead, side arm and roll casts are all necessary in a given day. One reason for the short casts is that our streams seldom open up, foliage wise, enough for longer casts. Another reason is that the water often flows through boulder fields requiring close stalking to get a good presentation and drift. And, as the stream gradient increases toward the headwaters, we find small plunge pools with little waterfalls and cascades at the head and tails of these pools; while standing in the cascades at the head of one pool, one seldom has an opportunity for long casts to the next.

This brings up the need to control drag. All fly fishermen are faced with controlling drag, but with the complexity of currents created by a rapidly changing underwater topography, and the typically fast water at the tails of pools, the small stream rod needs to be long enough to easily mend line, and long enough to keep the line out of the fast water at the pool tails. One is often faced with the necessity of several quick mends to get even a 2-3’ drag free float. And, while the angler may use a short rod and extend his arm to help with drag, a moving hand or arm is much more alarming to trout that the movement of a thin rod shaft.

While most of us tend to fish dry flies to see the rise and the strike, there are many days when a crayfish imitation or streamer will prove the most effective. A Muddler or Wooly Bugger in size #4 or #6, cast to the head of a pool, allowed to sink for a few seconds, and then retrieved as quickly as possible will often yield the best fish of the day. Weighted nymphs are also deadly, especially in pools or portions of pools greater than 4’deep, with big (#6 or #8), ugly stone flies being especially effective. In shallower water, small bead heads fished on a short dropper under a well dressed Stimulator or Wulff often doubles the productivity of fishing one or the other; even dual hook ups are not uncommon. These tactics require a line of at least 4 wt, with 5wt better and not much downside with a 6wt. If used with a well designed tapered leader, you can still go down to 7x for the small, late season terrestrials or tricos, and the baeits that seem to always be on the stream.

“Handy” is, literally, a moving target. Most folks define “handy” in terms of overall length, the shorter the “handier.” However, it is important to keep in mind that the static length of a rod fails to tell the whole story. A soft, slow or medium action rod that loads progressively and flexes well down toward the grip has a much more compact casting arc than the same length rod that has a fast, tip action. This action type also loads easily for very short casts, is forgiving with weighted nymphs and dropper combos, and is especially good with streamers. As the variety of rods is so great, only casting the various candidates will tell one which has the most compact casting arc. But, don’t be surprised if the softer, progressive action rod that matches the casting arc of a fast, tippy seven footer is 8’ or 8.5’ long!

So, what do we recommend? Keeping in mind that all good fly rods are neat, fun to use pieces of gear, and that none of us can seem to limit ourselves to just a few, we make the following recommendation acknowledging that there is no best answer for everyone, and even what is best for any one of us can be left at home when we want to try something for variety or challenge!

The rod would be between 7.5’ and 8.5’, have a slow to medium cadenced, progressive action that flexes well down toward the grip, so that it would load quickly, handle a wide range of flies, handle line mending efficiently and possess a compact casting arc. It would use a 5wt line unless dry fly work would heavily predominate, and then a 4wt would be fine. It could be made of bamboo, glass or graphite, with the material secondary to the quality with which the maker is able to accurately adhere to the design parameters. This is the place one would be truly sensible to splurge on the very best, as it will probably become your favorite small stream trout rod and may well become your favorite rod period.

One last note. We seldom get excited about new lines, but the Rio “Nymph” line is really a problem solver. It floats like a moccasin because it has extra flotation spheres in the coating, has a short front taper that loads a rod very quickly, and the back taper helps keep the line from sagging on long casts. A triumph, and a very good line for small streams as well as the nymphing it was designed to facilitate.

Tom Valone, Founder

By Alex Webb
Reprinted with permission of the News & Observer.

RALEIGH — The parking lot at Lake Wheeler was nearly full as Collins Chalmers pulled in Saturday. She was running a little late.

A rowing competition was scheduled, but Chalmers wasn’t one of the women there to glide across the water in a sleek rowing shell. She was there to learn about an equally graceful sport — fly-fishing.

The 11 students gathered that morning in the classroom at Lake Wheeler were there to learn about fly-fishing from Scott Wood, a buyer and instructor with The Great Outdoor Provision Company in Raleigh.

The nine men and two women were mostly novices in a sport that can be intimidating, conjuring images of anglers prowling Florida flats for bonefish or wrestling giant salmon waist-deep in a cold Alaska river. Most of these students were there to satisfy their curiosities about the sport and to learn enough skills to be confident in trying it on their own.

Wood’s first experience with a fly was in Lead Mine Creek in Raleigh 25 years ago, and the experiences expanded when he turned 16.

“When I got my driver’s license, I headed to the mountains for trout and was obsessed with them for years,” Wood, 38, said. “Now, I’m hooked on saltwater fishing for drum, Spanish mackerel and false albacore. I also like to experiment with oddball species [on a fly] like amberjacks [which usually are caught in deep water]. Around here, I fish for bass in a local pond and take a john boat to the Roanoke River for stripers and shad.”

As with many fly-anglers, Wood’s love for the sport goes beyond catching fish. He visited Labrador, in eastern Canada, this past summer with a friend, writer T. Edward Nickens, who documented the trip in an article for Field & Stream magazine’s April issue. This was his most exciting fly-fishing expedition, searching for wild brook trout on the Kanairiktok River.

“We fished the headwaters of the river by canoe. We were truly fishing for fish that had never been fished before,” Wood said. “There was no anecdotal or physical evidence that anyone had ever been there. The only trails were caribou trails.”

Fly-fishing student Steve Colbert, a 43-year-old forest and soil scientist from Raleigh, was familiar with his instructor.

“I met Scott five or six years ago when I wandered into the store,” Colbert said. “I knew right away he really knew what he was talking about, and I did go fly-fishing five or six times.”

That’s something Colbert is preparing to do again.

“Now that my kids are a little older, I can sneak away for a couple hours to go,” he said. “If I catch a fish, that’s just the icing on the cake, I just like being outdoors, the Zen of it. So I came here to learn some more, and, with this course, I can hopefully get my feet wet again.”

Chalmers, 46, also from Raleigh, said she came to preserve her marriage — sort of.

“We are planning a trip to Montana this summer and will fish the Madison River and maybe the Snake River. … My husband fly-fishes, but I thought it was very good not to take lessons from my husband,” she said with a grin.

Wood shared his own experience on that topic. “That’s the rule at my house, too,” he said.

Chalmers also thought it would be more efficient to learn from a classroom setting.

“In one day they cover all the basics, and I can then go home and discuss them with Tim [her husband],” Chalmers said. “Tim and my son, Miles, are so excited about the trip.”

This first class of the season also included Jeff Hamm, a software engineer from Raleigh.

“I am basically an offshore fisherman and wanted to expand my knowledge,” Hamm, 37, said. “When I was about 7, my dad taught me to fly-fish, and I’m here to get rid of my bad technique. … I want to get some good habits for a trip to Florida next week. My dad and I are going bonefishing.”

Most of the students in the full-day class had signed up themselves, but Randy Hingson of Clayton was surprised by his family.

“I used to play golf but got tired of coming home so sore and thought I would try something else to relax,” said Hingson, 56, owner of the White Swan Barbecue restaurant in Clayton. “… I have always done some fishing but thought this would be a little more challenging than putting a worm on a hook. A friend took this class last year and told me about it, and the kids gave the school to me for Christmas — and Santa even brought me a fly rod. I’m going to the mountains totry it next weekend. I am looking for the basics so I can go to ponds in the area. It’s a skill you have to work on.”

Wood, assisted by Michael Grant, 29, a salesperson at the Great Outdoor Provision Company, started the class by saying, “I want to get you to the point that you can do this by yourself and have the confidence to tie knots, pick the right flies and cast well. You will not come out of class as an expert, but you will be ready to get started. We are always available to follow up either at the store or on the phone.”

This was exactly what Norman Storwick, a 35-year-old actuary from Raleigh, had come to hear.

“I signed up for the class because I want the comfort to go by myself. I have picked up a rod in the backyard but never fished with it, just enough to pick up some bad habits,” he said.

As close as Storwick was to a total novice, Todd Zarzecki, 28, of Raleigh is a self-proclaimed one.

“I’m a total novice,” Zarzecki said. “I work with Scott and Michael at the store. I’m in paddle sports but wanted to expand my knowledge for myself and the company.”

As Wood polled the room for students’ interests and skill levels, five held up their hands for trout, five for bass and panfish and five for saltwater angling. Two expressed very serious interest in fly-fishing and had some experience.

Teaching the fundamentals in a class of mostly novice fly-anglers was essential because of the basic difference between fly-fishing and all other types of rod-and-reel fishing. With conventional gear, the angler casts a lure, dragging the line with it, but when using a fly rod, the angler casts a heavy line, taking the lure with it. Understanding this concept allows the angler to put together a rig in a logical way, depending on conditions, species, size of the quarry and type of water.

“In North Carolina, you can, depending on your interests, cover most species with just two fly rods. If you want to go for bluegills and inshore [saltwater] species, a 5-weight and an 8-weight will do. If you want to go for just mountain trout and heavier saltwater fish, a 4-weight and a 9-weight will work,” Wood said.

The different weights do not refer to line-breaking strength but to the size and weight of the line, which should be matched to the rod — 4-weight line on a 4-weight rod, for example.

“Overlining the rod by putting too heavy a weight line on a rod may break the rod, while putting too light a line on a rod will not bend the rod and make it hard to cast well,” Wood said.

Having learned the basics of line and rod, the students headed to the sandy beach, which presented another challenge — wind blasting across the lake at nearly 20 mph.

“You can, with the proper technique, cast in a wind like this,” Wood reassured the students.

He demonstrated feeding the line through the eyes on the rod, a seemingly innocuous task until one attempts to see the nearly invisible leader. Wood’s tip: Fold the heavy, highly visible fly line and feed it through the eyes.

Casting, although not difficult, does take good instruction. Without proper technique, casting can become an exercise in futility.

At first, it was hard to tell if the froth in the water was from the wind or the students’ lack of technique. Within 30 minutes, though, each student was adequately laying the line on the water.

The act of “presenting” a fly is perhaps most important while fishing for spooky trout in a small stream; any slight movement can send a nervous trout to cover. A fly rod, properly loaded and rigged with a tapered leader, best exemplifies the true purpose of modern-day fly equipment: the presentation.

As these students found out, most fly-fishing will never require a delicate presentation of line, leader and fly gently rolling across the surface to meet the rise of a wild brook trout. That’s because so many other species are readily available and very willing to inhale a fly.

Fishing for bluegills on the full moons of spring requires little finesse; not easily spooked and ever wanting to rid their spawning beds of intruders, panfish are easy targets. At the coast, bluefish will bite anything while on a blitz for baitfish.

Still, the beauty of a fly line, laid out in mid-air behind an angler, then flowing forward in a perfect cast gives the angler the satisfaction of having learned a skill. And, as students in the class expressed, the exercise is not for the catching but for the experience and the grace of the fly.

By Tim Glover, Wilmington Store Manager

That was a mini albacore, I said to David. I thought he fought too hard to be a spanish, he replied. A moment earlier, we watched the foot long false albacore churn around the boat, his tail sputtering like one of those wind-up bathtub toys. All that remained now was a dark cloud of blood, spreading from the spot where a big barracuda nailed him right against the boat. The first spanish mackerel we hooked later that day didn’t make it as far as the boat before being mauled by a barracuda. It was time to do something about this problem the best solution we could come up with was to try to catch one.

Barracuda can be extremely aggressive when there is a struggling fish on the end of a line. Convincing one to strike a fly, especially in clear water, is a bit more challenging. Looking for something different to catch (for me anyway), I started trying to catch big cudas on the wrecks around Wrightsville Beach several years ago. There are plenty of them around this time of year. Almost any wreck or other structure will hold one or more barracuda. They are fairly easy to spot, as they tend to cruise near the surface a long, brown profile visible from a good distance. If a buoy marks the wreck, there will often be barracuda holding almost right on top of it.

Barracuda like flies that are long and skinny, with lots of flash. I use a pattern that has a trailer hook attached with wire, so that the hook is located at the tail end of the fly. With the wire contained in the body of the fly, there is no reason to use wire in the leader, because barracuda almost always bite the middle or end of the fly. Not using wire in the leader makes it easier to tie the fly on, and also makes the leader less visible to the fish. The body of the fly should be about 6 to 8 inches of accent flash, in silver and green or pearl and green, with big eyes in the front. A finished pattern will somewhat resemble a needlefish.

Getting a barracuda agitated enough to attack the fly usually takes some preparation. It requires two people using some method of bait and switch. The simplest technique is to cast an artificial plug (either a popper or tube lure without hooks) on a spinning rod. One person reels the plug to the boat quickly, while the other gets the fly ready. Once a cuda gives chase, the plug is yanked out of the water and the fly is thrown into his path. If the fish is reluctant to commit, try ripping the plug through the water in a figure eight pattern next to the boat. If they get excited enough to start attacking the plug, they will usually go after a fly thrown into the mix. When a cuda is after the fly (they often track behind it with their nose almost touching), it is important to keep the fly moving at a moderate speed, but the action is often too close to the boat to make this easy to do. If you run out of room to retrieve the fly, move the rod tip at a steady pace, and walk your way around the boat if necessary. The other option is to rip the fly in figure eights, as you would a teaser plug. Either method will often keep the fly moving long enough to trigger a strike.

Artificial plugs work as teasers with some barracuda, but some of the more educated ones (those exposed to lots of fishing pressure) will only respond to live bait. A small, live bluefish is an ideal teaser. They can either be stitched to a swivel with floss, or put on a small hook on a spinning rod. As with a plug, you should take the bait away from the cuda and replace it with a fly. In this case, a fly that more closely resembles the bait (try a large deceiver-type pattern) is best, with a short section of single-strand wire in front of the fly. If the cuda grabs the bait before it can be taken away, try to pull it away (or whatever is left) and get the fly in front of him. The fish is often excited enough to continue looking for something to attack after it chops a bait in half. The greatest challenge in a bait and switch for barracuda is matching your reflexes against theirs. They are incredibly quick, but if you learn to read their behavior, you can sometimes anticipate their moves and hopefully hook one.

The fight is explosive, with a powerful first run including some spectacular jumps. As barracuda are built more for speed than endurance, the fight doesn’t last long after the first few runs. A 9 or 10 weight fly rod matched with an intermediate fly line is best suited to this type of fishing. It will handle large flies, and is rigid enough to rip a fly in a figure eight pattern when necessary. Also, most of the barracuda in our area are very large, so you need enough fly rod to fight them effectively. Your reel should have a smooth drag to handle extremely fast runs. Landing one is a two-person job, as it should be with any large, toothy fish. If you need to add some excitement to your fishing, try to find some barracuda this summer they won’t disappoint.

He’s on it! I hissed. Keep it moving steady… strip, strip, strip. As usual, I was attempting to coach one of my fishing buddies from the poling platform, as if anyone could miss the bulging hump of water tracking the fly. Events progressed quickly as the drum pounced and my fishing partner stuck the hook in him. A spray of water exploded from a seven pound drum now rapidly evacuating the flat. This recent encounter is typical for May, a time of year when drum move inshore in large schools. For the fly fisher lucky enough to find a big school, catching drum can simply be a matter of putting a fly in the water without spooking the fish. Unfortunately, giant schools of drum don’t appear often enough (for me anyway), so it pays to find other methods of locating fish.

When possible, sight-casting to fish is exciting, but it is not always an option. Fishing with poppers and sliders (a popper with a rounded face that “slides” across the surface, rather than chugging) for drum is an ideal technique for covering a lot of water with a fly rod. A drum that might never see a sinking fly will often move a fair distance to locate a fly churning on the surface. There are many effective surface patterns, but two styles in particular deserve special mention for the Cape Fear area. Joe Blados’ Crease Fly has an erratic motion in the water, and when motionless floats partially on its side like a stunned baitfish. Gold is a favorite color, especially in turbid water. The other pattern I favor is a deer hair slider. Ron’s Rattlin’ Mullet and Dahlberg’s Dilg Slider are two examples of this style of tying, which features spun deer hair trimmed to shape. The effect is a soft body fly that wakes along in the surface film, rather than floating up high like a foam or cork body. With a steady retrieve, a slider strongly resembles a finger mullet waking along the surface. Natural tan, olive, and black are all good choices in this pattern.

There are many options for covering water with surface flies. Working an area with two people, one poling while the other makes long casts is effective in shallow water. Focus on points, oyster reefs, grass edges, creek mouths or any other structure that might hold drum. The same method may be applied using a trolling motor, either alone or with two anglers. The other option is to set the boat (either with an anchor or by wedging it onto a bank) in a position to cast over a specific area. The key to success lies in making long casts, and working the fly with a steady retrieve. Drum will often push a wake behind the fly as they chase after it. Be sure to keep the fly moving until you feel the fish on the fly with your line hand…setting the hook with the rod will result in a lot of missed strikes.

As always, be considerate of other anglers, especially on the flats. There is plenty of water available to share, so find another area if you see someone has already staked out your spot. Besides, you might just find that giant school of drum around the bend if you explore new water. Try your favorite surface pattern, and get ready for that big wake plowing after your fly.

Tim Glover, Wilmington Shop Manager

By Scott Wood, Fly Fishing Buyer

Stripers have arrived in the upper Roanoke River. They are not as numerous or as large on average as they will be later in the season, but there are more than enough to justify a trip. Here are a few pointers for catching them on flies:

The Right Fly Line: This is the most important part of fly fishing for stripers on the Roanoke. You can catch fish on an intermediate or sink tip line, but it’s a real handicap. The most effective line is some sort of fast sinking shooting head rig. There are many good ones on the market. The Scientific Anglers Streamer Express and the Cortland Quick Descent work very well. With the water level the way it is this year, a 300 or 350 grain should work well. This will work on an 8 or 9 weight rod. These lines do not have a line weight designation, but use the grain system instead. You can also make a shooting head from a length of Rio T-14 or Cortland LC-13 attached to some sort of running line. This system is not as easy to cast, but is quite a bit cheaper and just as effective. Again, this is not a sink tip. The sinking portion will be around 25 feet long. Our staff can advise you about which option will work best with your rod.

Leader: Keep the leader short. I usually use about 18″ of 40lb. test looped to an 18″ 12 lb. tippet. Don’t use too strong of a tippet or you will risk breaking your fly line when you hook a log and have to break the fly off.

Rod: Any 8 or 9 weight rod will do nicely.

Flies: Clousers and Half and Halfs are the standard, although deceivers work well when the water is low. 2/0 to 3/0 3 inch long flies will attract all size classes, while going to a 5-6″ inch fly will result in fewer fish with a higher percentage in the 5-8 pound class. If you want to target the big 15 to 30 pounders you can use a 9-12″ monster fly, but you will stop catching those smaller fish. Later in the season, poppers or crease flies will work well cast against the banks early or late in the day. Of course you will want to switch to a floating line for this. Good colors are, red and chartreuse, blue and chartreuse, and chartreuse and white.