Quote:
Originally Posted by Altaboy
I have a 13’ 7-8 wieght, a 14’ 8-9 weight, and an 11 footer 6 weight switch rod.
I do also have a 8 1/2 foot 9 weight single handed rod with a Rio Pike line witch I used last season. I was just expecting to be able to cast further. Sparser flies is proberly the answer
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Like us "average guys" like to claim,,,, "Size doesn't matter, but what you do with it is what counts!!!"
Fishing efficiency is based on two things really,, 1) a presentation that elicits a positive reaction from the fish, and 2) maximizing the time of that presentation in the zone where the fish are willing to eat.
Longer casts can help you keep your fly in the game longer if presentation at distance does not suffer,,, and in those cases where the "fish zone" is well away from the boat becuz of boat shy fish,,, or in the case of a wading angler, the fish holding zone is well beyond normal casting distance. So by all means grab that spey rod and go for it, if you are talking about fishing from shore.
But as far from fishing from boat,,, pike are not particularly boat shy,,, a fifty foot cast fished all the way back to boat is in the zone as much as a 100 foot cast fished 50 feet back and then recast as would be a typical spey style cast.
From a stripping and line management point of view, handling 50 feet of flyline off the reel is significantly less problematic than trying to manage 100 feet of line off the reel.
At the end of the day I would venture to say you will get more 50 foot casts in the zone than trying to make 100 foot casts all day. The extra casts ultimately should mean more time with your fly in the zone which should mean more fish as well.
I guess the point of all this is too that while having the ability to go for distance is a good skill / tool in an anglers tackle bag, focussing on distance doesn't always translate to more fish if you can make "better presentations" and spend more time in "time in the zone" with more repeated shorter casts.