re: The Fly Fishing Thread: Questions, pics, discussion all here

Hell yeah. Bring some cheap clousers for ladyfish when they are busting. Haul it out, strip fast and hold on tight.

Vlahos sand fleas and crab patterns are great also, if you dont have an intermediate or sink tip I would recommend a versileader to get the fly down a little bit.

Stop by Old Florida Outfitters in the 30A area and/or Orvis in Sandestin.

I've never done it, but know guys who catch ladyfish, bonita, Spanish,blues etc. Using clousers.

Those ladyfish are a blast at sun up.

A few years ago I had them damn near burn up my 5wt, came back with an 8wt last year for a more comfortable fight.

I have the Fishpond Double Haul backpack / chest pack combo.

I love it because I can detach the chest pack, bring it with me down by the water and keep the backpack portion off to the side.

I fish mostly bass, brim, sac au lait from my boat so no trouble. I have gone after trout a few times but other than the scenery and fun fishing a stream didn't like it much the fish dont taste good. Me and my boat with a tackle box and a big fly box are happy and I only hang a big set of clippers around my neck

Headed to Fort Morgan for 6 days tomorrow. I will start fishing on Tuesday morning.

Switched it up and got a sink tip line for my 8wt to try and get down a little deeper in the surf.

Hopefully I can catch a few mornings where its glassy. It has been rough as shite the last 2 years.

5wt would be fine in case you a-hole into a decent sized bass or something.

If you want to live on the edge and probably have more fun, something like a 3wt butterstick would be killer.

Note that I do have a blast catching small bream with my 5wt though.

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with my 5wt though

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What do you have? Looking at the orvis encounter outfit. I love my Orvis Clearwater 9 weight. I bought a cheap cabelas 5 weight a few years ago and it just collects dust, it was my first fly rod and I wasn't sure how I would take to it so I went cheap, like a dumbass.

2 weight or 3 weight is probably under prepared for what I'll be doing unfortunately. The Chipola river is one i'll fish a lot and there's a healthy population of shoal bass there that are allegedly pretty willing fly takers. I know they're spirited fighters so I'm not sure how that would hold up to a big one, which the Chipola river has a population of 4+ pound shoals

I have a Echo Base 5wt with a Lamson Liquid reel and I also have the same setup in 8wt.

I realllly like the Echo Base rods for $99.

Got my 5 weight in last night. I went with the Orvis encounter combo.

I'll preface this by saying that my first rod, a cheap cabelas 5 weight, I often struggled to get a fly 10 feet in front of my in any sort of breeze. The wind just stifled it. I chalked this up to me not knowing what the hell I was doing technique wise, but even now that I'm actually a decent caster it's just a tough rod to throw accurately

I took the new one out in the back yard when it came in, and without a fly tied on it was launching line with the flick of a wrist. Love the action on it. Just need a good drought now so the river will clear up and fall to a fishable level. Really looking forward to this spring and summer, as there are some legitimate world class bream fisheries in a 50 mile radius of me