Discussion of the Suzuki rod for freshwater reminded me of this. Henry Cowan is a fly fishing guide on Lake Lanier in Georgia.
Here he discusses "Everything You Need To Know to Get Started Fly Fishing for Striper on Lake Lanier"
https://youtu.be/zDMM9uC8LpA
Some of his videos:
https://vimeo.com/channels/149130
https://youtu.be/EQLuPWfsdkY
https://youtu.be/QC2FCLWHY3o
Just watched the first video.
Mr Cowen speaks the truth in regards to the quality of the fly line being more important than the rod or reel.
The rare short and sweet information packed fishing video. No blatant product promotion. No big fish stories. Just Henry talking. I am a bit of a Henry Cowen fan even though I am not that into freshwater stripers.
-J
I don't fish for flies. I hunt them with a fly swatter. ::) I also use an electric swatter. :o Dominick
Quote from: Dominick on February 26, 2021, 11:57:42 PM
I don't fish for flies. I hunt them with a fly swatter. ::) I also use an electric swatter. :o Dominick
Try the Bug-a-salt gun:
https://www.bugasalt.com/products/bug-a-salt-3-0-black-fly-edition
Quote from: SteveL on February 27, 2021, 12:13:37 AM
Bug-a-salt gun:
https://www.bugasalt.com/products/bug-a-salt-3-0-black-fly-edition
Alan bought those for Christmas one year.
Quote from: oc1 on February 27, 2021, 04:29:26 AM
Quote from: SteveL on February 27, 2021, 12:13:37 AM
Bug-a-salt gun:
https://www.bugasalt.com/products/bug-a-salt-3-0-black-fly-edition
Alan bought those for Christmas one year.
They should upsize them so they shoot rock salt. ;D (We have biting "yellow flies" down here. Worse than horse flies because they are faster and you can't feel them land until they bite.)
I us an 'Executioner'
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Executioner-Zapping-Racket-Multicoloured-Standard/dp/B01DMDBSIO/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=the+executioner&qid=1582638927&s=outdoors&sr=1-2
Please accept my apologies for posting back on topic. :)
Nice videos. I tie a very similar fly, structurally a modified clouser, for lake & river stripers here and have done exceptionally well with it. I'm roughly 140 miles east of Lake Lanier, but have never fished there.
He has other flies but often uses the smaller one about the size of threadfin in winter when that's what the stripers are feeding on, and a larger clouser when they feed on blueback herring. Many people learning to fly fish for stripers use just those two files and do well.
I am sorry for interrupting a fly fishing thread with an inane post. Getting back on subject the man sounds like he knows what he is talking about. Dominick
Quote from: SteveL on February 27, 2021, 06:18:39 PM
He has other flies but often uses the smaller one about the size of threadfin in winter when that's what the stripers are feeding on, and a larger clouser when they feed on blueback herring. Many people learning to fly fish for stripers use just those two files and do well.
Certain species really key in on size at times. Tuna do it. My guess is for tuna is that the want to stay tight with the school, and will run down something opportunistically if the odds are good that it is food and they don't have to stray from the pack.
I also have seen strong size preference with stripers. My guess is that the motivation is slightly different. Stripers are not usually packed in huge fast moving schools like tuna. Stripers live in an environment with more compromised visibility. They tend to feed in low light periods, especially dawn and dusk when their eyes get reconfigured for better sensitivity but less acuity. Something that is the same size as everything else they have been eating is more worthy of investigation.
Hopefully it is possible to identify what they are keying on. When in doubt, go smaller. Cutting down a fly when you are not getting bit is a good trick. I always keep a pair of scissors in my fly bag. Choosing non-tapered materials makes cutting down the fly less emotional :)
-J
I always keep various sizes in a box, all the way down to little glass minnows for use with a 5-wt line on the days there are only schools of little 1-3 pounders around.
Lanier is kind of odd with bait sizes. The four main baits that are in the lake are threadfin shad, blueback herring, spot tail minnows and gizzard shad. (If you are night fishing, throw in blue gills and bream, and people buy trout for bait too). There are a few larger threadfin, but the vast majority you see are very much the same size. Blue backs range from smaller ones to typical 5 to 6 inches up to an occasional 9 inch (which I know because I caught one fishing a 3" spot tail, and it self nosed-hooked so it went straight back down to 30 feet). Spot tailed minnows are typically 3 to 5 inches, with a good bit of 6 inch and an occasional 7 inch. Any spottails over 5 inches I try to save for stripers, and they seem to hit them about as well as they would blue backs.
I have had schools of 1 lb stripers follow me around eating every 4-5 inch spot tail I dropped in the water before it was out of sight. Ticked me off at first, but I gave up and switched to ultralight
The bait in your lake may differ, but in lake lanier I would assume to keep the typical threadfin size, the typical clouser, and maybe an intermediate sized clouser. A larger clouser might not hurt either.
Lake Allatoona is completely different from Lake Lanier due primarily to the lack of blue backs and the severe fluctuation of the water level each year. There it is mainly threadfin and gizzard shad, and I'm really not sure of the typical sizes.
This thread was initially taking a tangent from the Black Hole fishing rods. The mention of Lake Allatoona which is known for the float-and-fly technique in the winter, brings us on a tangent right back to the Black hole rods. They should be excellent rods for the float and fly.
But every adult baitfish has to start out as a fry. Juveniles are not as strong swimmers as adults and are often aggregated in large groups -so a nice easy meal. Even if an adult baitfish is 5-7 inches, there are times when the predators are keyed on two inch (or smaller) juveniles, of which there are a bunch of some time after a spawning event. I believe Cowen dicusses this same phenomena at Lanier in at least one of the videos that linked in this thread.
I have fished bites that required eye flies (AKA snot flies), which is a represention of those inch long, just after larval stage juveniles that have a transparent wiggly body and big black eyeballs. Caught some decent sized fish on snot flies too.
-J
I don't know where the threadfin fry spend their days, but they really don't seem to be a major target of feeding. The typical threadfin is likely fairly young due to the massive winter kills from the cold. With bluebacks you notice more of a range in size.
In the video he references the small "young of the year" threadfins about 2" long. The vast majority of the threadfins are 1.5 to 2" long in big bait balls, which is why I don't really see a need to go smaller than that. This is also the size you see floating after schools of stripers or spotted bass feed on topwater.
Quote from: SteveL on February 28, 2021, 12:21:40 PM
I don't know where the threadfin fry spend their days, but they really don't seem to be a major target of feeding. The typical threadfin is likely fairly young due to the massive winter kills from the cold. With bluebacks you notice more of a range in size.
In the video he references the small "young of the year" threadfins about 2" long. The vast majority of the threadfins are 1.5 to 2" long in big bait balls, which is why I don't really see a need to go smaller than that. This is also the size you see floating after schools of stripers or spotted bass feed on topwater.
Sorry, I must of misunderstood the post you made before this one. I thought that you were saying that the baits were all larger, implying that only large flies were needed. I am also of the opinion that it is possible to do well almost anywhere with a few sizes of clousers.
Snot flies are an open water thing. Ocean, and maybe big deep lakes. Yes, snot flies probably will not do much for you for stripers in a relatively shallow lake. The fry will spread out in the weeds and will not be be targeted. In open water this is not an option and the food source for the fry is drifting plankton, so they school up tight and are available by the mouthful to larger predators. I was pointing this out to illustrate that even for a larger baitfish species, a small pattern may be needed, as the predators will key on size at different points in the life cycle.
-J
My home fishing grounds are at a roughly similar latitude as Lanier and have the same basic bait fish here -- bluebacks, threadfin & gizzard shad, several species of shiners, including blacktail (spot-tail). Pods of bait fish fry stay around the cover of the edges or up in coves during their smallest stages and will venture to more open water as they grow; preditor fish also drive them further out into the open.
River fishing during the annual springtime striper run up river from another lake further to the southeast is a different approach with a fly rod and the opportunity for larger fish is greater than in the lake. Plus the river is obviously more limited in width, with more precise traffic routes of larger fish as they move up stream (beneficial for fishermen who focus on that sort of thing). In regards to fly gear, I've been well into the backing with river stripers on various occasions --and I can't recall that happening in the lakes. In the lake, larger fish generally seem to stay deeper than the surface-feeding fish in the 5 -8 pound range I'm usually sight-casting to. That's why the serious bait fishermen & guides are usually out in deeper water with electronics, looking for and fishing the comfort zones of bigger fish. But I much more enjoy throwing plugs or streamers than soaking baits.
In regards to top feeding stripers, I've heard it said that the smarter, larger fish are more aware of the position of a boat and will stay further out on the periphery of the more actively feeding smaller fish.
Quote from: wfjord on March 02, 2021, 06:52:53 PM
My home fishing grounds are mostly at a roughly similar lattitude as Lanier and have the same basic bait fish here -- bluebacks, threadfin & gizzard shad, several species of shiners, including blacktail (spottail). Pods of baitfish fry stay around the cover of the edges or up in coves during their smallest stages and will venture to more open water as they grow; preditor fish also drive them further out into the open.
River fishing during the annual springtime striper run up river from another lake further to the southeast is a different approach with a fly rod and the opportunity for larger fish is greater than in the lake. Plus the river is obviously more limited in width, with more precise traffic routes of larger fish as they move up stream (beneficial for fishermen who focus on that sort of thing). In regards to fly gear, I've been well into the backing with river stripers on various occasions --and I can't recall that happening in the lakes. In the lake, larger fish generally seem to stay deeper than the surface-feeding fish in the 5 -8 pound range I'm usually sight-casting to. That's why the serious bait fishermen & guides are usually out in deeper water with electronics, looking for and fishing the comfort zones of bigger fish. But I much more enjoy throwing plugs or streamers than soaking baits.
That is the case with schools topwater feeding at Lanier. Smaller fish are tearing up the surface, while lazier heavier fish might be directly below feeding on the dead or stunned threadfins sinking below the topwater bite. Sometimes a spoon or a jighead tipped with dead threadfins cast into the middle of the feeding (even after it stops) will find larger fish lurking and waiting for bait to sink.
Even bait fishermen look forward to the stripers running up the rivers, and they will troll larger gizzard shad and trout looking for trophy sized fish.
Quote from: SteveL on March 02, 2021, 07:12:34 PM
Quote from: wfjord on March 02, 2021, 06:52:53 PM
My home fishing grounds are mostly at a roughly similar lattitude as Lanier and have the same basic bait fish here -- bluebacks, threadfin & gizzard shad, several species of shiners, including blacktail (spottail). Pods of baitfish fry stay around the cover of the edges or up in coves during their smallest stages and will venture to more open water as they grow; preditor fish also drive them further out into the open.
River fishing during the annual springtime striper run up river from another lake further to the southeast is a different approach with a fly rod and the opportunity for larger fish is greater than in the lake. Plus the river is obviously more limited in width, with more precise traffic routes of larger fish as they move up stream (beneficial for fishermen who focus on that sort of thing). In regards to fly gear, I've been well into the backing with river stripers on various occasions --and I can't recall that happening in the lakes. In the lake, larger fish generally seem to stay deeper than the surface-feeding fish in the 5 -8 pound range I'm usually sight-casting to. That's why the serious bait fishermen & guides are usually out in deeper water with electronics, looking for and fishing the comfort zones of bigger fish. But I much more enjoy throwing plugs or streamers than soaking baits.
That is the case with schools topwater feeding at Lanier. Smaller fish are tearing up the surface, while lazier heavier fish might be directly below feeding on the dead or stunned threadfins sinking below the topwater bite. Sometimes a spoon or a jighead tipped with dead threadfins cast into the middle of the feeding (even after it stops) will find larger fish lurking and waiting for bait to sink.
Even bait fishermen look forward to the stripers running up the rivers, and they will troll larger gizzard shad and trout looking for trophy sized fish.
Top of the pecking order gets the spot under the bait school. True for all kinds of species. With a fly, it can be difficult to get past the little guys. One trick is casting as far as you can past the boil. This gives the fly a bit more time to get some depth before being discovered.
Learned this the hard way: Always work the edges. Never cast through the middle of a bait school or boil, and try some dead drifts or long pauses on the retrieve. It is the stragglers that get eaten.
-J
Quote from: jurelometer on March 02, 2021, 09:10:17 PM
Top of the pecking order gets the spot under the bait school. True for all kinds of species. With a fly, it can be difficult to get past the little guys. One trick is casting as far as you can past the boil. This gives the fly a bit more time to get some depth before being discovered.
Learned this the hard way: Always work the edges. Never cast through the middle of a bait school or boil, and try some dead drifts or long pauses on the retrieve. It is the stragglers that get eaten.
-J
Another option is to use a weighted bait (live or dead) under a slip float at 20-30 foot depth, cast past the top water action, then slowly reel through it pulling to let the bait rise and fall. They are very sensitive to the size of bait they are feeding on.