Mono rigging

[ben bell 0]

Poopdeck, doesn,t fly fishing mean your using a fly for bait.. method of fly presentation doesn,t matter. it,s still fly fishing..isn,t a fly hanging from a plastic bubble on spin outfit, a form of fly fishing..there are so many ways to fish with flys..no? i don,t think it is but many people do, tournament people have a new definition so why can,t the kid with a bubble?

[goofnoff 0]

Poopdeck, doesn,t fly fishing mean your using a fly for bait.. method of fly presentation doesn,t matter. it,s still fly fishing..isn,t a fly hanging from a plastic bubble on spin outfit, a form of fly fishing..there are so many ways to fish with flys..no? i don,t think it is but many people do, tournament people have a new definition so why can,t the kid with a bubble?

That's how I see it.

 

At one time the only man made thing on a fly was the hook. It all had to be natural materials or it was a lure.

 

Within the fish and game laws we set our own parameters.

[chugbug27 0]

My personal ranking of fishing I like in the order I like to do it:

1. Selective trout on emergers or dries

2. Selective trout on pupae or rising nymphs

3. Getting a (preferably large) trout to rise to the surface from a bank or pocket

4. Getting a subsurface fly to feeding trout without an indicator of any sort

5. Swinging a wet fly to trout in a pocket or other structure

6. Catching a trout with a nymph or wet fly at the end of a drift on the swing

7. Getting a subsurface fly to feeding trout with any form of indicator that I have to gaze at to see it twitch or shift. Equal to that is opportunistic dry fly fishing.

8. Pulling streamers to entice trout

9. Dangling or jigging or pulling flashy or splashy or smelly or alive stuff to catch anything

10. Sit and wait style fishing on any water for anything using a fly

11. Sit and wait using bait

12. Trolling

 

I'll drive for many hours to do 1-7. There are probably some I'm missing, also I've never fished for salmon or steelhead... Yet. I think that would be a blast, especially on traditional wets and salmon flies. Could be wrong... Will have to do it someday.

 

Now, getting back to topic, I think you can do 2, 4, 5, 6 & 7 with "Mono rigging" or euro rigging, and other nontraditional fly fishing rigs, while still having roughly the same flyfishing experience. With spinning or bait casting or trolling gear you can probably do 9-12 better than with fly fishing gear, but you'd be hard pressed to do 1-7.

[mikechell 0]

Probably another matter of opinion.

In my mind, fly fishing is the manner of presenting the lure. A fly is just a small lure, too small to throw by itself. Fly line is used to present these small lures to the fish.

Larger lures can be presented by throwing their weight ... thus spin fishing and bait caster reels and rods are used.

Using a bubble to throw a fly with a spinning rod is spin fishing, since you are casting the weight of the bubble.

[SilverCreek 0]

States and national parks like Yellowstone have legal definitions of what is and is not fly fishing. Other states do not distinguish between flies and lures, grouping them into artificial baits.

 

In Yellowstone Park, a mecca for fly fishers, the definition is more like fishing with a fly so casting bubbles with spinning gear is allowed on the major rivers since the entire park except for a few streams are "Fly Only', not fly fishing only:

 

https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/upload/17Fish_FINAL_sm.pdf

 

"Fly fishing only: Madison River, Firehole River, Gibbon River below Gibbon Falls (not including their tributaries). Use only artificial flies regardless of the type of rod or line.

 

Idaho defines fly fishing on pg 46 at

 

https://idfg.idaho.gov/sites/default/files/seasons-rules-fish-2016-2018.pd

 

"Fly-Fishing: Fishing with a fly rod, fly reel, fly line, and artificial flies."

 

My home state of Wisconsin does not separate out fly fishing. We have artificial only waters and seasons. See pg 4:

 

https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/fishing/documents/regulations/TroutRegsFull1819Press.pdf

 

”Artificial lure means a spoon, spinner, plug or other fish bait made of hair, feathers, cork, wood, rubber, metal, plastic or other synthetic materials, or combinations of these materials. An“artificial lure”may not include natural or organic food stuffs such as corn, marshmallows, dough, cheese, meat, living or dead organisms or parts thereof, except hair, feathers, cork, wood and rubber.”

 

Montana is similar to Wisconsin. You can fish with spinning gear and artificial flies or lures on juat about any river including the Madison River.

 

See pg 20 of the regulations at http://fwp.mt.gov/fish/regulations/default.html

 

"ARTIFICIAL LURE: Any man-made lure (including flies) that imitates natural bait. Artificial lures may have a scent infused or applied. Artificial lures do not include sh eggs, any natural or artificial food such as corn and marshmallows, any products that are derivatives of natural foods, any chemically treated or processed natural bait such as salted minnows, nor any artificial dough, paste or edible baits.”

 

I've met spin fishers on the Madison River and they have been well behaved and frankly better behaved that some "fly" fishers I have met. Give them a chance and try not to be so judgemental. They have as much right to fish those public waters as fly fishers.

[Poopdeck 0]

Am I the only one who enjoys bait fishing as much as fly fishing, spin fishing and ice fishing? Why do flyfishing only people like to establish some kind of hierarchy and why must they develop definitions that allow them to believe they are still fly fishing. What's wrong with fishing however you like without justification. ANSWER - tournaments, but ego is an acceptable answer as well.

 

Power back on.

[ben bell 0]

Poopdeck..i have fished all those ways that you mention but flyfishing catches way way more fish than any other method i have tried..i didn,t know there was so many fish in our state until i started fly fishing...it doesn,t catch lots of large fish especially bass but it keeps you busy..i also use tenkara, but i consider that flyfishing too.. i tried bass tournament local club stuff..one year of that was one year too many..lol..i,m only talking about warm water not trout fishing..

[chugbug27 0]

@ Mike, agree 100% re spin/fly, & just a matter of personal preference what you like to do best, not a value judgment.

[Prybis 0]

Probably another matter of opinion.

In my mind, fly fishing is the manner of presenting the lure. A fly is just a small lure, too small to throw by itself. Fly line is used to present these small lures to the fish.

Larger lures can be presented by throwing their weight ... thus spin fishing and bait caster reels and rods are used.

Using a bubble to throw a fly with a spinning rod is spin fishing, since you are casting the weight of the bubble.

 

What is the difference between this mono rig and using a 15' leader for dry fly fishing? Besides the length of the leaders I see them both as the same.

[vicente 0]

I think the difference is you're still casting a fly line using a 15 foot leader for drys.

[tjm 0]

As I mentioned once with two examples and SilverCreek gave more examples; what is or is not fly fishing is legally defined in many/most jurisdictions. As I said before, in some jurisdictions it is determined by the rod and reel used and in other places by the composition of the bait. So it becomes more of a matter of semantics than of opinion. On the other hand spin fishing and bait casting and spin-casting are all always determined by the reel used and by no other criteria.

 

There was a fad once (@ 1980?) of lining the fly reel with Flat Nylon line rater than flyline, I can't recall the reasons given for doing this; but I do recall buying an extra spool and a "line" of flat nylon. I used this enough to know that while I could cast far enough to catch fish with what ever flies we used at the time, it was useless in wind and more work than fun anytime the cast exceeded a couple of rod lengths. After several months I was cured. I have never again felt the need to fish ultra-light fly lines,

 

You and only you can determine how a particular method suits you, so I suggest giving it a trial if you want. I personally can't see any need for a leader over twice the rod length and commonly go shorter rather than longer.

 

A major consideration of using all leader or extremely long leader is said to be reduced drag, this comes with a loss of ability to mend the line.

I'll ask, does drag very near the fly or drag very near the rod have more affect on the drift?

It is my observation that never more than a few feet near the fly is visible to the fish and most drag problems are in this small area, if my line can't be held off the water and is caught in current nearer me, a mend can set that right and get a longer drift, of course your experience may be somewhat different, or ymmv.

[goofnoff 0]

Most of my trout fishing experience has been dry fly fishing. I only use really long leaders in places like the Beaverkill where long casts over multiple currents are the rule. I think overly light tippets are to often used. For a lot of fishing I use 6' leaders. For bass poppers I use three to three and a half feet of stiff level mono.

 

The more I research this, the more I think I like the Galloup drop shot rig. One place I can see for long mono.

[JSzymczyk 0]

 

46 foot leader? Given that probably 6 of 10 people waving a fly rod can not cast 46 feet with a "normal" leader, and probably 8 of ten cannot cast 46 feet with any accuracy, use of this gear is way out on the edge of usability. Great if that is what gets you through the day, but when we sift through the volumes of explanation and rationalization, we get back to the basic question of "what is fly fishing?" Does it matter? At this point in life, I don't think I give a crap any more If I'm not mistaken, Pennsylvania has a regulation (and that by no means defines anything ... except if you happen to be standing in it) that a fly tackle leader can not be longer than 18 feet? or 16 feet?

 

anyway, I rather like the idea expressed above about using a jig as an anchor and a nymph as a dropper. I think a quarter-ounce jig would be about right.

Quarter ounce would be a bit heavy. A sixteenth ounce and down is the usual prescription.

 

^^ sarcasm ... if you're going to drop-shot, then drop-shot. Using a jig for the weight does not make it anything more righteous. Why F around with a 1/16 oz jig if you really want to stay in contact with the bottom, and use the DS technique the way it is most effective?

[spiralspey 0]

I've seen mono rigging in the midwest for steelhead and once here in the west on a really big river for trout. Guys use a reel full of heavy flat mono (yellow or red amnesia) and no fly line at all, and used a heavy weight (slinky weight) on a dropper above a couple flies. They coil the shooting line in their hands or ground and overhead cast the setup just like a spinning rod and let the weight pull the shooting line out, then drift the flies on a tight line. It's really effective and you can cover water much farther out and deeper than pretty much any conventional fly line setup. After watching guys doing it I thought it was very effective, but it didn't look like fly fishing to me, didn't look like much fun (lots of tangles), and could be done so much more easily and effectively if you used spinning gear. To each there own I guess, but mono rigging isn't for me.

[ben bell 0]

it almost seems like tournament fishing is making the rules for everyone else..the power of group think, maybe?