With its long, rugged coastline teeming with sea life it’s no wonder that Fuerteventura is a fisherman’s paradise. Although angling is far more popular than fly-fishing on the island, there are plenty of opportunities for those in the know. Of course if you’re flying budget it might be difficult to fit your rod on flights to Fuerteventura but luckily when you should be able to hire kit.
Remember: the Canary Islands are notoriously windy, so if you are able to bring your own rod be sure to take quite a heavy duty one: nothing below a 9wt.
What is fly rod "action", and why is it important? What are the differences between a "fast action" and a "medium action" rod?
The action of a rod is determined by where it bends - nearest the tip for a true "fast action" rod. As the "action" slows from "fast" to "medium", more of the rod tends to bend or flex from the tip area down along the rod toward the handle, or "butt". Therefore, "medium" rods bend toward the middle, and "slow" rods bend almost their entire length. Faster rods are stiff in the butt area and flexible in the tip. Fast rods deliver a lot of power and can cast better than a slower rod.
The fly fishing line weight needs to be the correct one for the rest of the system. Fly fishing systems are graded according to the weight of the line, and the weight of the system you use depends on the intended use. The lines are graded from 1 to 15, with one being the lightest and fifteen being the heaviest. Rods must be numbered to match lines i.e. a number 1 rod needs a number 1 line in order to work properly. This is because the amount of spring or flex that a rod has is balanced to the line weight. If the line is too heavy it will overload the rod and it won't be able to cast it forward properly. Too light a line won't stress the rod enough to get the best spring and again the line won't travel as far as it could.
Perhaps you're in the same fly casting bind I was in. You often don't have enough room to make back casts, and at your age casting a 7-weight fly rod for three or four hours leaves you exhausted and sore. Spey casting, you read, will save you a lot of energy and ibuprofen.
So, you wonder, should you delve into your pockets and shell out the big bucks for a spey rod and line?
Eventually, I did, and then I immersed myself in spey casting articles and DVDs, until I felt ready to give spey casting a go.
I headed to my local park, and plunged in—right into an incoming disaster.
I couldn't set up an anchor. My forward casts, therefore, died before they were born. I felt I just needed more practice—a lot more—but instead of relief in sight, I saw blown anchors and stillborn casts.
It is winter time now. One step on the frozen porch steps first thing in the morning removes any doubt of that fact. Winter time brings on many thoughts, holidays, dark afternoons, football on TV and for me some of the best trout fly fishing there is. That’s right trout fishing, winter steelhead fly fishing has been around a long time, and gets more popular every season. But the truth of the matter is trout fly fishing can be excellent, the crowds are down to non-existent, the scenery and wildlife are plentiful, and it makes those long days of early spring with non-stop rain and overflowing rivers more tolerable.
Selecting the correct tapered leader and tippet for the type of fishing you are about to do is crucial. Nothing can spook fish quicker than an over sized tippet for the particular situation. On the other hand, and undersized tippet can result in the fly fisher losing their trophy before they even get a photo opportunity. We will start at the very basic of leader and tippet selection and then get more specific, and hopefully conclude with enough information so we’ll always have the proper leader and tippet for all upcoming fishing scenarios.
One of the greatest thrills in Pacific Northwest fly fishing is bringing large anadramous fish to a surface fly. While surface fishing in the saltwater is not as popular as subsurface fly fishing, feeding saltwater coho salmon will take a popper quite aggressively. Neah Bay is the best place to cast flies for coho salmon in Washington State, and I believe it's also the best place to catch coho / silver salmon on a cast popper.
Of course, there's a long tradition of trolling flies on the surface in the Pacific Northwest. But there's a move away from trolling (which I do not believe is fly fishing) to casting and retrieving surface poppers in the Pacific Northwest.
Picture this; you've spent some time hiking into a small stream in the back country. It's early morning, mist is rising and the midges that have been swarming around you are breakfast for the small browns you have come to catch. You quietly walk up to the stream, watching the swirls of rising fish. You tie a nymph onto your leader and step into the water.
A trout skids away from under your feet, its flight sending out
warning signals as bright as any neon light. The feeding fish flee in
response and you are left with a section of river devoid of all but the
midges. Welcome to fly fishing the small stream.
Stop and look before fly fishing the small stream
Before you get into the water stop and look at what is in front of you.
This is especially true when approaching the small stream. Trout are well
camouflaged, especially when you are looking down into the water.
(A good pair of Polaroid glasses helps here.)
Many anglers who are new to fly fishing consider dry fly fishing the "traditional" way of catching trout. Well, that's not entirely true. Wet fly fishing dates back hundreds of years, well before dry fly fishing came around.
Wet fly fishing is one of the best ways for anglers to get introduced to sub-surface fishing. Unlike nymph and dry fly fishing, where skill, practice and precise imitations are needed to effectively take trout consistently, wet fly fishing can provide rewards quickly - even to beginner anglers. Unlike dry fly fishing and nymph fly fishing - when using wet flies, the angler is not attempting to precisely imitate any particular insect.
