Another Salmon River Post

[Tigereye]

Was on the river this past weekend and noticed a lot of switch rods. Got to talking to a guy who said that a lot of folks are using 10-11ft 8 wt switch rods and overlining with 9 or 10 wt lines. Makes chuck and duck "casting" a bit easier. He let me take his rig for a test ride and will admit it was easier. Eliminated the need for a lot of weight to load the rod. He also mentioned some people have been "customizing" a shooting head and WF lines to ease casting.

Any of you guys have the specific for this set up/ technique? Leader length/strength. How do you "customize" a SH line?

 

[CLSports]

No need to really customize anything. I have been doing this for several years up there. I have a 11'-3" 7 wt switch rod for Steel. I use a 5 or 10 ft. sink tip in various grain weights to get down in different currents/water depths. These are attached to the end of my Skagit short shooting head which is attached to a running line. This combo or similar will get the fly down quickly as opposed to any weights on the line. Switch rods seem to have taken over up there in the past several years. It certainly helps to reach the less pressured fish too.

 

[afishinado]

Tigereye wrote:
Was on the river this past weekend and noticed a lot of switch rods. Got to talking to a guy who said that a lot of folks are using 10-11ft 8 wt switch rods and overlining with 9 or 10 wt lines. Makes chuck and duck "casting" a bit easier. He let me take his rig for a test ride and will admit it was easier. Eliminated the need for a lot of weight to load the rod. He also mentioned some people have been "customizing" a shooting head and WF lines to ease casting.

Any of you guys have the specific for this set up/ technique? Leader length/strength. How do you "customize" a SH line?

Generally a SH line has too long of a head for a switch rod. A 7wt / 11ft switch rod would be a good choice for the Salmon River for either salmon or steelhead. The rod can be cast single handed, spey or two handed. A switch line usually has a head 3X the rod length or 33' +/- in the above case.

Here is an example of a switch line. The head on the 7wt line is 34' long and weighs 380gr. a good weight and line choice for that type of fishing.

 

[CLSports]

I used to use a line with a 33' shooting head and switched it out to a shorter Skagit head which was I think is around 25' and I thought it worked much better on my switch rod. Just my personal preference however.

 

[moon1284]

With all due respect to the OP there are very few areas on the SR that you get enough room to fish a switch or double hand rod the way they are usually fished.

90%+ of the guys on the SR using switch rods are using them because they cast extremely poor, and the longer and heavier rods and lines compensate for their lack of ability. I'm not sure what you mean by "eliminates the need for a lot of weight to load the rod" Your line should be loading the rod, not your split shot (which should be less than 1/8oz total in the fly zones). When I fished the SR, I used a 10' 7wt 90% of the time and used a 6wt wulff ambush fly line. This is basically a shooting head line, but the extremely heavy head allows you to roll cast or single hand spey cast a rig with the legal amount of weight added to it. If you swing streamers or wets (which is how you should fish a switch or double hand rod, IMO), this rig will also work very good. As a rule, when I use ambush lines, I like to underline by 1-2 line weights, but that's just me. If I were you, I'd spend 75 bucks on new line before I bought an entire switch rig.

This is not a shot at CLS, he gets it.

 

[Tigereye]

No offense taken. I fish Indy style and use the weights to load the rod. Otherwise I would be snapping rod tips and hooking ears.

I was watching a lot of the fisherfolk and they were definitely not spey casting. I also agree that the longer rod most likely compensates for poor casting technique.

What I meant by "eliminates the need for a lot of weight to load the rod" is that in years past, the common (and easiest) method for newbies on the river was to run straight mono on a fly reel vs fly line, and use a fly rod which made it easier to "lob" cast than spinning rods. It was in a sense a bastardized roll cast.



Something else I should mention is that a lot of those people using the switch rods had a lot of line on the water causing the fly to drag. Now, the good part of me says that was in part due to their ignorance. The devil in me says it is a clever way to snag fish (letting the dragging line foul hook the fish). I say that because a lot of the fish they caught were foul hooked.

Just observations

 

[govtmule]

To be clear the initial post is TWO totally different styles of fishing:

1.Shooting heads and customizing lins/leaders...etc is for swinging flies with really no additional weight besides what may be in the fly...this is typically accomplished by a spey/switch cast in front of you or quartering downstream then swining it and letting it dangle in front of you...step dpenstream then spey cast..repeat..possibly drink a beer in between

2. Chuck and duck is nymphing whether you have tons of shot or slinky for weight and maybe an indy...you are bottom bouncing!...sling the mofo upstream..high stick it down..then repeat..thats it

 

[afishinado]

govtmule wrote:
To be clear the initial post is TWO totally different styles of fishing:

1.Shooting heads and customizing lins/leaders...etc is for swinging flies with really no additional weight besides what may be in the fly...this is typically accomplished by a spey/switch cast in front of you or quartering downstream then swining it and letting it dangle in front of you...step dpenstream then spey cast..repeat..possibly drink a beer in between

2. Chuck and duck is nymphing whether you have tons of shot or slinky for weight and maybe an indy...you are bottom bouncing!...sling the mofo upstream..high stick it down..then repeat..thats it

^ true dat!

It all depends on what type of fishing you are planning to do.

 

[CLSports]

Well actually you could have a hybrid combination of both where you have a switch rod setup, but use nymphs/eggs rather than standard spey type flies and just do a simple roll cast to get the line out. This will get your fly down quickly with a sink tip on and no need for lead weights. Less hangups too, but when you do get hung up you may loose your whole sink tip or even the shooting head! Right Gov't Mule?

In tight areas like the fly zones that is all that is needed to do. In the wide open water below Altmar you can swing away like a champ. Or chump if you have no idea what you are doing . . .

 

[govtmule]

For the record I was swinging flies with this setup on a sink tip...I would use a floating line without a sinktip for nymphing....just my preference