{Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: Surf fishing -- Floating line = idiot?

Gene,

Here's a little of what I learned from fishing the OBX;

I just moved from the Cape Lookout area of NC to Beaufort SC.  I started fly fishing the salt there and luckily on my first day of fishing the surf was just about flat.  I was throwing a floating line with a sink tip.  The 36"stripers I caught most of the day did not care what I was throwing and the wave action was not an issue.  Since that day, 10 years ago, I've spent a couple hours or more of 150 to 250 days a year fishing, mostly fly.  I have all sort of rods with all sorts of  lines and line arrangements.  If I had to have just one line, it would be an 8# rod with an 9 to 10# intermediate line.  Along with that line, I  like 10-15 foot of a 400 to 500 grain sinking tip and a 15' piece of 10# floating tip.  The intermediate will get to 80% of what you'll find and the sink tip will get down to the bottom in those really deep troughs with a swift current.  Occasionally, you'll get a surface feed and the floating line will keep it on top long enough to present a fly. For leaders, a 30 to 40lb butt with a 12 to 15lb tippet and maybe a 20 to 30lb bite tip of 6".  Total leader length, 4' to 6 ' , fluoro to sink and mono to float.

I generally hate the surf to fish.  Rarely is it calm enough to comfortably fish.  Knee deep is about all I'm going in for.  I've gotten to old to be beat up.  When it is, interesting things can happen.  See pic.  It took me 6 years to get me, these fish and the surf conditions to come together to do this. 

I generally look for inlets that allow you to fish just inside and out of most of the wave action.  Next, I look for sand bars that break the waves yet give me a good size trough to fish.   Find yourself an inlet with a good rip on a moving tide and you'll usually find fish.

You can buy the heads or make them from the first 15 foot of a WF line.  I generally do that with a 10 to 12wt line. 

Hope this has helped,

John 

On Wednesday, March 5, 2014 3:25:51 PM UTC-5, TurbineBlade wrote:

Hey -- I'm planning to do more fishing on the beach this year and will be in OBX in few months (and also MD Eastern Shore).  I've done a little surf fishing in DE with a full-sink line, and I didn't catch anything other than horseshoe crabs -- but I got an understanding of how to use the basket, etc.  The full sink was honestly dragging bottom too much to be effective....at least where I was standing.  

One thing I kept thinking was that fishing near the shore (I guess between the "wash" and first sand bar -- I'm too scared of sharks to try to get to the deeper cuts...sue me, I never claimed I was rational) might be a place to use a floating line?  A lot of folks talk about using the int. line instead, but doesn't the wave action push just as much a few inches below the surface as it does on the surface?  It seems like you could mend the floater and work a "swing" with the incoming waves better than you could with a sinking line.  

I also understand that the intensity of the waves and/or depth you're fishing makes a difference....I'm mostly thinking OBX and Assateague.  

In other words, is it worth my time to use the floater, or is that one to leave home?  

Gene

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