Fly Line for Jetty Fishing

  Oh yeah! I like all kinds of fishing, but there's something special about hooking up on the fly rod. Plus, with the stripping basket I always have a place to put my beer!

Alright, it's really really really weird and difficult to cast with a 10' sink tip! I got the RIO MOW T14 sink tip, and boy does it SINK. I harvested some serious vegetation from the bay floor.

This definitely opens up deeper water options for me. I guess I need to get better at all the skagit casting skills, and probably set up a line properly to get it to behave. Darn it, I guess that means I need to buy a new reel (can't buy extra spools for my current one).

Well, I won't continue to regale you with my struggles, but I'm grateful to have a lot more options now. I might just stick with weighted flies and a long leader for <15' of water, because it has worked for me in that situation. But for the other 90% of the jetty, I will definitely be going with the sink tip.

I gotta start shopping for a kayak...

It sounds like ten feet of T-14 might have been too much.  Your theoretical sink rate is about 8 in/sec and only slightly slower when stripping.  That might be taking you deeper than you need to be as your fly gets close to the jetty.

It's trial and error to get it dialed in and before you invest in another reel, you might want to try a lighter MOW tip and see if that gets the results you want.  surf12foot uses a faster stripping retrieve than me and he's happy with 15' T-20 sink tips.  I use 10'-12' of T-18 in deeper water, without a jetty.

We won't bore you with my Adventures in Casting Heavy Sink Tips For the First Time.  Suffice it to say it wasn't pretty...   

It's going to feel weird at first. Just wait till your flies go over the 8" mark then it's like throwing a dead chicken. Slow your cast down and try what Tinker says-go with a lighter tip but most of all don't get down on your self it will come all together the more you get out there.

Either I'm doing something right, or some of the things I'm doing wrong are canceling-out the other things I'm doing wrong! A shorty but lots of fun.

See there is nothing wrong with dragging the bottom, fish live there too and may I add to- the yummy kind it looks like to boot. These came from 20 feet off of a jetty up here in Oregon this morning in about 26 ft. of water

Either I'm doing something right, or some of the things I'm doing wrong are canceling-out the other things I'm doing wrong! A shorty but lots of fun.

Where's the beer?

Nice job, Gary.  Half the time I think I'm doing it correctly 10 percent of the time.  But it works...   

These came from 20 feet off of a jetty up here in Oregon this morning in about 26 ft. of water

Scott, those look fantastic - very inspiring!

See there is nothing wrong with dragging the bottom, fish live there too and may I add to- the yummy kind it looks like to boot. These came from 20 feet off of a jetty up here in Oregon this morning in about 26 ft. of water

They were all between 2 feet - 5 feet off the bottom and they put up a heck of a battle.  Ask anyone who passed by in the South Coast kayaking tour!

If you go to a shooting head I would run 40# mono as the running line (its cheap)and then regarding the head look at your rod and it should have a grain weight. You will want about 30 foot of head and calculate the weight for the head and use the t# x 30 feet to get the correct overall head weight to match the rod. Don't be afraid to go a little heavier cuz you can always trim off some length to get it to load the rod properly. With a shooting head you are looking more for castability and being able to punch thru the wind. I run 7 to 15 feet of tippet on the end. I like to strip the weighted coating off the level and tie a perfection loop for the tippet to go on to. I just double nail knot a loop onto the back end.
Level t14-t20 is 30# test so I use 20 # tippet so I minimize loosing the level T. Another way to go is use Scientific Angler Wet Cel type 6 sinking line its real cheap and you can get deep with it. I have caught Lings with it.

Thanks Crayon for your detailed (if a bit waxy) advice. I'll check out the SA line you mentioned. I like cheap line (I cannot lie).

Hah that is great!

I've used Berkley Big game mono as a running line (because it's popular with the spey-casting folks) and it had two drawbacks for me: all mono has line memory and it has to be stretched to relieve the coils every time you go fishing, and it's pretty easily nicked on rocks.  I didn't mind stretching the line, and nicks aren't much of an issue in open water, but might be for jetty fishing.  It's definitely low cost, but you might end up having to cut off damaged chunks of it and re-rig all day. YMMV.

Great tips on line setup. For someone who does mainly freshwater fishing for trout and steelhead, and is new to kayak fishing on San Francisco and San Pablo Bays, I need all the help I can get. I'd like to use my 8 wt  steelhead rod. Will that be sufficiently stiff for stripers and rockfish? Where would you recommend buying the running monofilament and shooting head/sink tip? Thanks, Randall Smith

Great tips on line setup. For someone who does mainly freshwater fishing for trout and steelhead, and is new to kayak fishing on San Francisco and San Pablo Bays, I need all the help I can get. I'd like to use my 8 wt  steelhead rod. Will that be sufficiently stiff for stripers and rockfish? Where would you recommend buying the running monofilament and shooting head/sink tip? Thanks, Randall Smith

Can't say about stripers since I've never had one on the hook and don't know how big they get around you, but I'd guess if your 8wt works for steelhead, it'll work for stripers, and it'll definitely work for rockfish.  It helps to remember that you'll be in a kayak and a really big fish will pull you around which allows you to use lighter rods than you would if fishing from a stationary jetty or a boat.  I've been using a 9wt since someone convinced me I might hook a Chinook but since that hasn't happened I'm planning to drop down to a 7wt this year.  Maybe a 6wt.

For rigging, I've been using either SA Shooting Line ($39.95) or I've been cutting the head off fly lines I get on sale for $29.95 at Sierra Trading Post.  After cutting a fly line, I weld a new loop on the cut end, but a dab of goop or Aquaseal to seal the cut end and a short section of 30# Maxima tied on with a nail knot works just as good.  From there I attach x-feet of T18 - "x" is whatever length works best with the rod.  For my 9wt, it's about 21 feet of T18 and I've never gone longer than 24 feet or shorter than 17 feet.

To me, it seems that thirty feet of T14 would be a lot of line to try and lift out of the water when casting from a kayak, and there's a post somewhere in this topic about doubling over the sink tip so you get the benefit of 30 feet without the problems caused by the length.  It's a great idea that I simply haven't yet tried.

The advantages (for me) of the set-ups I use are that fly line material tends to be more abrasion resistant than monofilament, I can change the sink tip length or convert to a floating tip faster than I can change spools, and I don't need to keep buying (and carrying) extra spools for different lines.  And it doesn't hurt that I can get three or four years out of one shooting/running line.  Casting distance has never been important when fishing from my kayak - I can paddle into range.

I almost always fish with Scott and he may pop in with tips, too.  He's the one who corrupted me and taught me what little I think I know.