Putting Backing and Line onto a Fly Rod

So I have a new fly rod and reel combo. I ended up returning my Wind River Combo because it started making a scraping/screeching sound every time I reeled in. I returned it to Cabelas and for the first time I experienced Cabelas legendary return policy. There were no questions asked whatsoever, they just took it back. 

Anyway, I was a bit sad when I had to pack it away and send it back. It was a sweet little set up and I really loved it but I was forced to move on. Well, since I had already returned it, I figured I may as well purchase a new one and since Cabelas already had my money, I figured why not chip in a few extra bucks and get something of a little better quality. 

So I went to Cabelas.com and found a rod and a separate reel that were on sale. I had no choice; I had to jump on these deals! Get ready to “ooh and ahh” folks. I purchased a 4 piece, 6 wt Redington CT Classic trout rod and a Sage 1850 6 wt fly reel! (okay, now you can ooh and ah!) The reel came in a nice little neoprene case and the  rod had its own burgundy rod tube so I’m already better off than I was with the Wind River Combo. 

So anyway, I wanted to try it out this week but I also wanted a pro to set everything up for me. Since I was going fishing on Wednesday  and I received my line in the mail on Monday, I didn’t have time on my side. Since I was heading up towards Yuba city, I decided to call Johnson’s bait and tackle but apparently their fly fishing expert wouldn’t be in until Thursday! So what did I do? I decided to do it myself!!

I know what you’re thinking, “You just started Fly fishing, man!” And although this is true, I know I have to learn to do this type of thing myself. With that said my knots might totally suck and I might lose a fish because of them, but honestly I did check them well and I think they are good! Here’s what I did!

• 1.       Use an Arbor knot to tie the backing to the reel. – This knot was pretty simple to tie. This was one of the easier steps. It only got harder from here. 
• 2.       Distribute the backing on the reel. – Or should I say I tried my best to evenly distribute the backing along the reel. The backing was sitting on a round plastic holder with a hole in it so I put a pair of scissors through the hole, handed it to my wife (who gave me a funny look when I handed it to her but still held it, bless her) and started reeling, holding it so that the backing was as tight as possible. After the backing was in I moved to the next knot.
• 3.       Use an Albright knot to tie the line to the backing. -  This was without a doubt the harder part since the backing is so much thinner than the actual line. I had to repeat this step a few times because the knot wasn’t working. As it turns out, I was making the initial loop way too big since it was made with the line itself which is pretty thick. Finally, after the making the loop just big enough to put the second piece of backing through, I was finally able to get it done. 
• 4.       Distribute the line onto the reel. – I have done this before when I clean my line so it wasn’t that big of a deal. 
• 5.       Tie a surgeons loop at the end of the line – My fly fishing mentor Mark told me to do this (not specifically this knot, but to put a loop at the end). It definitely makes putting a leader on it a lot easier.

 

One thing that I did notice was even though all of the backing fit onto the reel, it seemed to be a bit too much as my line was rubbing on the top of the reel when I reeled all of it in. I might have to go back in and remove some of the backing. Thoughts??

Anyway, I pulled on all the knots to make sure they were ready to go but I guess I will put them to the test when I get into some big fish. Either way, it was a fun and fulfilling experience to do this myself but I am still willing to take the experts word on it. So if you are a seasoned angler, let me know if I should change anything, do anything to it or if you noticed I did anything wrong. I appreciate the advice!

The Slip-Bobber Rig

So i have not been fishing in a couple of weeks now and Yes, i am having withdrawals! With that said and no fishing trips to write about, I figured I would continue with my "Rigs and setups/ teaching" posts which I quite honestly have been neglecting! As i have said before (many times) that i not only want to learn to fish, but I also want to teach brand new fisherman how to get their feet wet (not literal) as well. With that in mind, I bring you: The Slip-bobber rig! (BTW, please take the time to appreciate my fine artistic abilities in the illustrated diagrams! lol)

 

I had seen slip bobbers before but never paid close attention to them. That is until a night with a new moon out on Black Butte Lake when we got skunked. The next morning a guy approached me and showed me a couple of pretty decent cats he had caught. I asked him how he caught them and he told me he used a slip bobber rig. 

I had never actually seen a slip bobber rig set-up close so I paid attention to how it was rigged up and asked him questions about it. Even though catfish are bottom feeders, he told me that they don’t always eat at the same depth. He told me that at certain times they will be in different depths and at those times, a slip sinker is the way to go.

Both regular bobbers and slip bobbers use the bobber as an indication of bites or strikes. The difference between a slip-bobber and a regular bobber is that a regular bobber stays at one depth and your bait normally stays at the very top of the water column. With a slip bobber, you can access any level of the water column by simply moving your bobber stopper higher up on your line. This allows for your bobber to go further up your line and stop when it meets the bobber stopper, essentially allowing you to reach further depths and still use a bobber as a bite indicator. 

When I first decided to use this rig I went to one of my local fishing stores and found a pack with two weighted slip-bobbers and bobber stoppers. Originally I only used the plastic bobber stoppers included with my pack. It looked like a small thin, skinny strip of plastic with four holes in it. Then you simply take your line, run it through all four holes and you have your bobber stopper. As it turns out, there is also a simple fishing knot you can also tie on to your line that will do the same job. You can find a picture of that knot ::here::

A slip bobber rig isn’t the most complicated rig out there, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t catch fish. The beauty of a bobber stopper is that you can fish different depths with it. This is important because if you aren’t getting bites at one depth, you can and should slide the bobber stopper a few inches up or down until you begin getting bites. I have been in situations where one depth will be dead and after sliding the bobber stopper knot a little higher or lower, fish begin attacking it like crazy. The Slip bobber rig works great for catfish, bluegill, crappie, carp, largemouth bass and even striper. 

So a quick recap:

Step 1. Take your main line and slide on your bobber stopper or tie on your bobber stopper knot.

Step 2. Slide your bobber onto your line.

Step 3. Attach a 1-2 foot leader to your line using a barrel swivel

Step 4. Attatch your hook to the other end of your leader.

Step 5. Adjust your bobber stopper at desired length and you are ready to fish!

Fly Fishing Success!

Now it will only be a short time before i buy a fly rod, learn from experience and research and teach everybody I know or anybody willing to learn about fly fishing, because that’s what I love doing. - Juan Lopez Jr.

Yes, you read correctly, I quoted myself! That is from an older blog post i wrote back in May when I started learning to fly fish.

Well folks, it happened. I bought a fly rod, and on my first trip out with it, i got my buddy into it and now he wants to go out and buy a fly rod! in his own words,

"Dude, i was hooked the moment you put the fly rod in my hand!"

Mission accomplished... at least with one person I know.

Folks, I have pictures galore SO I hope you’re in the mood to see them! Originally I was going to go out to Putah creek and try to catch me a nice large trout but my buddy decided he wanted to go fishing. Russell and I hit the FAMOUS Ellis Lake around 5pm. We were out there for catfish but honestly, I just wanted to try out my fly rod. Since I haven’t cast a fly rod since May when I went out with Mark, I really just wanted to get my flow back. Sure enough, I got it pretty quickly. I remembered why I loved it so much the first time I did it!

Well, I really wanted to catch something on my own fly rod so after heeding some of Russells tips about blue gills in Ellis Lake I went out and caught myself my first bluegill on my own fly rod. (Warning, following picture may cause extreme laughter)

I bought a small package of flies and all the box said is that they were called “prime mouches” but I looked at other patterns and the closest thing I can find is a “muddler minnow.” Anyway, I saw something come up and catch my fly and it was on! Didn’t feel too big but I was hoping I would catch it. Sure enough up comes a fish, takes my fly and swims off. The water is sort of murky so I couldn’t see it how big it actually was but when I pulled it up I realized the whole thing was about the size of a silver dollar, and that is being generous! Nonetheless the tiny fish was a milestone: my first fish on my own fly rod.

A few minutes later I caught a bigger one, which was still small but a little larger than the previous one.

Meanwhile, The bells on my catfish pole started going off and I was too far away so I asked Russell to check it out since he was right next to it. He set the rod and had a fish on. He asked if I wanted to reel it in but I only reel in fish I catch myself, haha! He brought in this nice cat on my rod. 

After a while I decided that I had already caught two fish on my fly rod and it was time to teach Russell the basics of fly fishing. I taught him basic fly casting and although he was lacking a bit on the mechanics of it all, I think he did pretty well. I figured I would teach him what I knew and then leave him to it. That worked for me and I knew it would work for him. Russell has been fishing his entire life so I knew it was only a matter of letting him play with it and correcting anything I saw that was wrong.   

After casting for a while  he also landed a tiny bluegill, similar to mine, but I still think mine was smaller! I asked him if he liked fly fishing and he told me he loved it and wanted to buy a fishing rod as soon as possible. Sounds like we have a new fly fisherman on our hands!

After a while we sat and had a couple of beers and watched our catfish rods and sure enough Russell got a bite on one of his rods. He reeled in another nice cat which turned out to be the last fish of the night. Both catfish were caught using crawdads as bait. 

Well, I didn’t end up catching any catfish but that was because most of the time I was playing with my fly rod. I guess what some of you told me was true; my bait fishing is already suffering because of my fly fishing. Either way I had a great time, caught my first couple of fish on my own fly rod, taught Russell the basics, got him to say he wanted to buy a fly rod and got him into his first fish on the fly.  I am really eager to hit the Yuba River or Putah creek in the near future and catch me some nice size trout.

Well, that is it for me, folks! Until next time, break that bank! 

6/7/13 - Lisbon Slough

So as I discussed last week I am trying to get my buddy Luis into fishing. Although he is into video games and everything else indoors, he has agreed to go fishing with me two weekends in a row. After Last week’s Largemouth surprise while fishing for panfish I figure he was inching closer to becoming a fisherman. 

 Last week we discovered a spot that we now have deemed as “The bee hive.” We call it the bee hive because there are tons of bees around that area but we don’t mess with them so they don’t mess with us. The ticks are another story!

 We arrived at spot #1 at Lisbon slough at around 5 pm, the temperature was about 100 but we were sitting in the shade so it was no problem. We had nightcrawlers on two different set-ups.  I set up my buddy Luis with a weighted bobber and a 1 ft leader. I had a slip bobber rig, both of us were using night crawlers as bait. 

We hit spot number one and I had a single bite. After an hour and a half of nothing we decided to move to the bee hive. Sure enough I had a few take downs on my first few casts. First fish of the day was a tiny 5 inch bass. Cute at best. Second fish was a small bluegill, a bit bigger than the bass.  

After a while I hooked into my first nice size crappie of the day, my buddy Luis caught the next. After a while we realized we were down to only two worms so I started cutting them in half. I gave my buddy half a worm and decided to use a lipless crank instead. As I was tying that on, I hear him cast and a few seconds later I hear, “oh, man!” and line peeling. I look over and his pole is bent and something is peeling line like crazy. 

  

Well, the lucky sucker reeled the fish in, and I netted it up for him. His first two pound bass, which put up a nice fight for being only two pounds! Nice size fish for only a half a night crawler; quite a surprise! We ran out of bait at around 8:30. 

We ended up with five crappies that day so we decided to have a good ol fish fry!

 

I beer battered those suckers and a catfish that I had in the freezer. Coupled with some Stella Artois and we had ourselves a hell of a meal on Sunday afternoon!

Well that's it for me folks.I will be out of town next weekend, so not sure if I will get any fishing in. If I do I will let you know. Until then, break that bank, folks!!