Flyrod with spinning reel

OK... I fully expect to get blasted for this question considering this is a flyfishing board, but I'm ready for your indignation and hoping you'll still give me a straight answer. Could I combine a flyrod with a spinning reel and light braided line to effectively cast (as in spinning casting not fly casting) very lightly weighted flies to fish smallmouth bass? If it is a possibility what should I be looking for in a flyrod for this purpose as far as length, action, "weight" is concerned? Thanks.

Wouldn't it depend on the weight of the fly? So why bother with the fly rod you'd be spin fishing?

The guides on a fly rod are not set up right or the right size for a spinning reel. John

Steve: I can't answer your question as far as length/action/weight are concerned but I do know that it can be done as I fished that way years ago when I wanted to only pack one rod into the Uinta Mountains. I used mono line (6 lb?) and attached a egg shaped bubble on the line, then a swivel, then a 4 lb leader to the fly. I filled the bubble with water for weight and let her fly. It was about the only way to fish some lakes because of the numerous trees surrounding the shore. The biggest drawback as I remember (this was 50 years ago) was that the reel was seated too far back to make casting and reeling enjoyable. With the advent of these light weight graphite spinning rods I have no reason to attach a spinning reel to a fly rod except in an emergency.

Tim Anderson

redacted,,,,,,,

I don't flyfish now and don't have a desire to learn to flyfish but do have an interest in presenting light weighted streamers to my local smallmouth. I thought the attributes of a flyrod married to my spinning gear might better accomplish this. It may be that I have to research flyfishing further to determine if one rod/reel/line outfit might satisfy my needs.

Steve..I don't know where you are re: fly fishing vs spinning but in fly fishing you are casting the weight of the line ...spinning the weight of the lure....that's why panman had to add the weight of the bubble and water to the setup he described....you should be able to cast a very heavy streamer with the setup you first talked about ...but probably heavier than you want....

Thanks for the replies... I'll have to think a little further.

Is there a single flyfishing rod/line combination that would be suitable to fish smallmouth with wooly-buggers or other streamers?

Not that it's any of my business Steve, but what have you got against fly fishing?

Despite what you may think, it's not hard. You can learn enough to get you started in a few hours.
And basic gear costs no more a decent spinning rig.
Not picking on you, just curious

Your basic 6wt from W**mart would be a good rod for smallies.

dudley... I don't have anything "against" flyfishing. I have been fishing lightly weighted streamer type jigs with spinning gear and wondered if "tweaking" equipment a little might improve my presentation. Conversations I've read concerning flyfishing seem to be a little "involved". I may seriously consider purchasing an outfit to flyfish my smallies with. I'll have to research what single combination of rod, reel and line would best suit my fishing.

Hello Steve, I like my 2 piece 9 wt flyrod with a sink tip flyline of the same wt, i.e. 9wt flyline with a ten foot tip that sinks at a medium rate, I can throw the biggest streamers I can come up with at the vise and the 9wt would throw larger flies still if I tyed them.

I'd like a 2 piece 7 wt flyrod for the same purpose and may build one but I know I'd have to down size the streamers that I tye.

Any decent reel that will hold a hundred yards of backing (this is more or less and in the case of smallies is just to fill up the reel spool) plus the 9wt flyline, (or 7wt if you go that way) and that has a useful drag will work fine. There are too many reels out there to name a brand. Same with the rod, but if you want to get into a more detailed recommendation, just say and I know it will follow !

Hope you take up fly fishing with a fly rod and reel, flyline and leader Steve, and I hope that at least some of the above helps !

Cheers,

MontanaMoose

One of my fishing buddies tried his hand at fly fishing about 20 years ago. he just didn't like it. after his outfit sat in the corner for a year or so a guy at work was saying how he wished he had a fly rod so the outfit got sold. The fellow that bought it did just that. Put a spinning reel on it and used it for throwing bass plugs. He claimed it would cast further than anyone he had ever seen.

Yes it can be done,

Rusty <><

Rusty...of course it can be done as you describe....but a bass plug is not a light streamer :roll:

Steve_IA,

What you need to do is just as Panman said, put a bobber about 4-5 ft. above whatever fly you wish to use on a spinning rod and reel rigged with lightweight line. No need for the fly rod.

A friend of mine loaned me an old fishing book once that told about the French fishermen using a similar technique to catch large fish on small lines.

Hope this helps.

Steve Bill Dance uses a fly rod often with a closed face spinning reel. The closed face will work better with the smaller fly rod first guides. If you want to use a open face you should change to first guide to a larger size. All should be under the handle type reels.
I have flyfished for over 75 years and will often take along a 8 foot fly rod in my boat with a mitchel spinning reel for deep bluegills with a fly. Four pound line to a teardrop float (the kind with a eye on each end) and 8 ft of 2 pound line.
I often start a youngster with a small spinning rod same float and fly--------
I feel I'm still fly fishing no mater what you youngsters think.

Steve_Ia, I have done just what you are talking about. I used a cheap 9' rod from one of the Marts, a Zebco spinning reel w/ 4# line. Worked good with small jigs, for crappie and bluegill. Hope this helps.

9' spinning rods were not easy to come by when I was a kid so I used a Berkley Cherrywood fly rod with a small spinning reel for steelhead fishing. Small plugs, spinners, jigs and flys with additional split shots were relatively easy to cast with this outfit.

When I got a few years older I scored the plumb job of a unionized A&P stock clerk and I got a proper 9' noodle rod for the spinning gear. Nowadays, G Loomis seems to sell a nice 9'6" rod STR1141S: 4-8lb line, 1/16 to 3/8 ounce lure weight. Sounds just about right.

Fishing a streamer is basically the same as fishing a spinner so I'd just add two to three split shots 18-24" up from the fly for weight to cast.

Steve,

Yep, it can be done.

AND, you can 'cast' with a spinning reel and a light line on a fly rod, many of the lightly weighted flies that many of us cast with our fly rod/fly line combinations.

Streamers like clousers, weighted wooly buggers, and just about any streamer that has lead dumbell eyes can be cast fishing distances with a spinning reel and light mono on a fly rod.

And, with NO apologies to the fly rod folks here, you can get a much better presentation in most instances without that annoying and difficult to control fly line in the way.

You want a slow to moderate action fly rod for this. Which is nice, since many of the less expensive rods fall into this category.

For the lighter flies, you want a 'lighter' line weight rod, but also something long. A 9' 3 wt. would be ideal.

Now, you can buy a ready made rod and just put a spinning reel on it. It will work. But, as mentioned above, the guides on all factory produced fly rods are basically crap, and they won't work very well with your monofilament.

Buying an inexpensive fly rod 'blank', and adding properly placed real line guides (like they put on real fishing rods), will give you an incredible casting tool for light lures. You could also use a regular reel seat, placed properly for a spinning reel. Having the reel where it would normally be on a fly rod is a bit awkward for a spinning reel(if you do go with a factory made rod, just tape the reel to the grip where it fits your hand).

I've built dozens of these for serious crappie and 'float and fly' smallmouth anglers. They work VERY well. It's not hard to do.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Fly fishing is a way to make things MORE difficult, more of a challenge, and make fighting the fish more 'fun'. No one believes it's the most efficient way to fish, nor is it even the best way to present 'flys' that don't float. Sometimes we forget this.

Good Luck!

Buddy

MoTURKee-
my son, the college grad, who says in time he'll have what he sees as patience to actually cast a fly line. For now, he uses the walleye fisher's best friend up here, the slip bobber, and my flies with his spinning rod and does just fine. He bookends the bobber with the two of those threaded knots and has a little red bead on each end of the bobber to do the stop. Basically the foam bobber what some around this place might call a strike indicator. The flies work quite well for him. He catches fish. He's happy. Even in the bow of my canoe.
JGW

I've been using an ultra light (Daiwa), open faced bail (using 4# mono line) spin cast reel, as a back-up in certain areas for a long time. I particularly like using it with an old timey 8' True Temper fiberglass fly rod that I bought new way back in the late 50's. It also does a good job on a graphite 7 1/2'(4wt)IM-6.

One of the areas I like using the spin-cast reel is with the little 4wt, in the western mountains of North Carolina, fishing in some of the small mountain creeks that are lined with Rhododendrun trees - you'll be crawling on all fours to get creekside! A little flick of the wrist will send a little bead-head CopperJohn the short distance needed.

The other place I like using the spin-cast reel, when necessary, is when a group of us gather a couple of diffent sites (with our campers) next to a couple of large ponds that yeild a lot of bluegils. Of course, what fly rod fisherman does'nt want to go after them gils with a fly or popper? But ya got to remember, one of high lights of those gatherings, is a big fish fry right there next to the camp, in the light of a roaring campfire! Usually we have pretty good luck with flies & poppers, but if push comes to shove, and the gils are not co-operating ... we've been know to bait a hook with a worm or live grass hopper (God forbid!) and fish that drop-off area where some sea-weed growth is coming up from the deep. Yessirrie, that flyrod with the little spin-cast reel will pull them in, one after the other. Our gathering will not be denied it's fish fry!



Dale

try this http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catalog. ... get=browse

its a convertible spinning/flycasting combo. ive used one before and its pretty cool. should do the job for ya.

The answer is NO. You can not cast a small fly with a fly rod and a spin style cast, the fly will not have enough weight to propel the cast.

Thank you ,Ray you answered the question :roll:

" Could I combine a flyrod with a spinning reel and light braided line to effectively cast (as in spinning casting not fly casting) very lightly weighted flies to fish smallmouth bass? "

The rest of the thread has drifted off into methods of using or adding weight.

I suppose "very lightly weighted" should be defined.

The answer is YES You can use a fly rod spinning reel and a fly. Use a fly rod spinning reel and mono for line and a small fly. If you need weight to sink the fly add split shot. You wont cast as far with the mono but it's great for gills and bass. Take line off the spinning reel and cast just as you do with a fly rod and fly line. Bill

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ducksterman

I suppose "very lightly weighted" should be defined.

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In the neighborhood of 1/16 oz. Medium light steelhead rod may be an option I should look at. I admit the diversity of replies have me a little confused... but, I'll continue to sift through them and use the information to give me direction. Thanks

Steve, yes you can cast flies but with a spinning rod and a spinning reel by using a fly bubble from Netcraft they sell them. No need to put a spinning reel on a fly rod by using this bubble which was made for fishing flies with a spinning outfit. Check out Netcraft on the Web for your needs.

Hobo

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Steve_IA

I admit the diversity of replies have me a little confused...

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Now I'm confused... you asked a question to fly fishers and you expected a common answer?????

As an aside, I spent the 80's fishing for steelhead with the long spinning rod (I upgraded to a 11 1/2 footer) and spinning reel. One of my favourite lures was a #12 black stone fly nymph with two small split shots attached above. The place where I bought my flys didn't add weight to them. I'd cast a bit upstream and keep some tension on the line and let it drift a bit downstream. Repeat. I was essentially "hi-stick/czech nymphing".

"The place where I bought my flys didn't add weight to them."

but you just said you added weight :shock: :shock:

Steve;
I had to go back to your original post several times to think of a proper answer. I have used a spinning reel on a fly rod. The reel, I beleive a Shakspere, had a front spade type trigger so you could release the line with your little finger. I used 4 lb. mono with a Thill long skinny slip bobber. It was sort of like throwing a dart when cast, very accurate and with the proper depth a deadly outfit for Blue Gills, Crappy and Bass. The 9 foot rod made for some good daping in the holes in the Lilly(?) pads. A Snelled hook with a light split shot and a worm!! Yep I have not only fly fished!!

You can fish with all kinds of flies, even dry flies, on a spinning rod. Do a google search for, "fly and bubble fishing," and you should get plenty of information on the subject. Of course, with streamers I think all you'll need is to add a few splitshots. :wink:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ducksterman

"The place where I bought my flys didn't add weight to them."

but you just said you added weight :shock: :shock:

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Yeah, normally a stone fly nymph would have lead wrapped around the shank but these ones didn't. So I had to add a few shots instead.

Guess I'm saying that if you short-line nymph with the spinning gear, you don't need the casting bubble.

"There is nothing new under the Sun."

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I am writing this because we have come full circle.

This topic makes me smile, no laugh, as do posts asking the inverse, if you can make a fly rod out of a spinning rod blank. The first serious spinning rod I got around 1955 was based on a fiberglass fly rod blank. Both spinning and hollow glass were in their infancy in the US. At the age of 13, I was ready to dump the primative spin casting outfit I had for something better. We purchased the kit to build an Erne St. Claire Wavecaster "Parabolic Action" spinning rod. The heart of the kit was a three piece 8.5 ft., HDH or D hollow glass fly rod blank. The but section was cut down to about 12-14 inches so that the final assembled rod was about 6'9". This produced a nice light action spinning rod for lures from 1/16 to 3/8 oz and line weights from 4-8#. The Wavecaster was a great rod. Erne later changed his design to use a 2 piece 8.5 ft rod so that all the guides could be mounted on the tip section with the handle built on the shorter but section for a total rod length of 7 ft.

Since spinning was new there were not a lot of rods specifically for spinning though my great uncle had a stunning 7' bamboo spinning rod (Orvis?). Therefore, for a short time, catalogues and literature featured a lot of adapters which would allow one to use a fly rod or casting rod with a spinning reel.

BTW that HDH translates to DT6. Therefore I assume you can make a light spinning rod on today's 6 wt blank. Move up and down the scale for a heavier or lighter action.

So in the end you certainly could use a fly blank for building a spinning rod. But, why would you with so many good spinning blanks out there and with some in the 8-10 ft length range? No matter what, a spinning reel on a rod built as a fly rod is a Rube Goldberg affair at best. This is like a combo rod which serves two purposes though it does not do either one very well.

Wow! Talk about deja vu!
Thanks for the memories Mike. I too built an Erne rod many, many years ago. Enjoyed it so much in the warmwater I was limited to, that I put together several more for family and friends. Mine even had the Alcedo Micron loaded with 4 lb. Stren. Caught lots of bass and bluegills in lakes near Detroit.
Probably not a good idea for today. I doubt that Erne's "Wave Action" cast would work with the much stiffer graphite blanks in use today. That "Wave Action" was little more than a snap of the wrist that sent a wave down the length of the rod and shot the lure off the rod tip.
Again, thanks for the memories.

Bill

"Again, thanks for the memories."

You are welcome, Bill. I still have the Wavecaster and the Micron. The soul of the first Wavecaster passsed into the one I have now when I took the high profile guides off of it and used them to reincarnate the rod on a 3 piece,8.5 ft, HDH or D, Herter's Browntone Precision Fiberglass blank cut down to 6'9".

I still use the Micron once in a while though, with my current interest in Fly Fishing as much as possible, that is not a lot. The rod is retired. I realized that, though it always made a bluegill feel like a whale, I wanted to catch the whale. That was not the rod to use.

I am not sure if the 50s were transition years for fishing or transition years for me. Either way I want to write these stories down to share them with others besides those I fish with. I will use a figure because it is hard to say directly. When I look at the horizon, it is closer than it was before. So , while it still can be described as pretty far away, I want to get this done.

Mike, I hope you do...please enjoy the journey :!:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Steve_IA

If it is a possibility what should I be looking for in a flyrod

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Look for a flyrod you can borrow so you can actually try it with the flies you intend to use before buying something you might not like. I suspect you'll be able to cast clousers (lead eye, not beadchain) and conehead buggers, but maybe not well enough to satisfy you. If you like the length of the fly rod but don't like the location of the reel seat, there are long ultralight spinning rods (noodle and crappie rods) that might work better for you.