A friend of mine who lives here in Tennessee but spends at least 3 months in Montanna every summer, was at our Lynchburg Fly Fishing club meeting last night and he is doing a survey to collect input and I decided to post his questions here and see what input you all provide and I will forward the results back to him. I think the survey will provide some very interesting results and I am looking forward to what you all provide.
Here is the survey:
You are going to fly fish a body of water that contains equal numbers of rainbow and browns. All fish are 14" long. Your questions are:
Which species would you prefer to fish for:
A. Rainbow ____ why?________________________
B. Browns____ why?__________________________
C. No preference of one over the other____ why?_____________
What weight rod and what length would you use?
(please do not state rod brand or action, just weight and length)
Warren I know that surverys are suppose to weed out many variables, but how many of us would make a decision on those questions, we would need more imput to make a decision.
For instance I fish many small spring creeks, those places I usually choose my 3 wt as my go to rod and very occationally take a 4. I will be fishing for trout tomorrow. perhaps in that bag will be rainbows, known as steelhead in this larger river and for big lake run browns as well as salmon. Two trips ago I took my 8 wt and that wasn’t enough juice for the king salmon so last time out I took my 10 wt. I actually just placed an order yesterday for a 9 wt for that application.
In other words species are the same, completely different applications. The steelies are very shy in moving water and I can throw a 6’ leader/tippet combo with a 15 pound break strength, on small spring creeks with the situation calls for it I will throw up to a 12’ leader tippet combo.
Unless I know what kind of water and what size fish are to be expected, I really can’t give you an answer to your simple questions.
I’m not try to give you the business, just trying to show you that the real decisions that we make, have more input.
A. Rainbow X why?___They are acrobatic and I like fish to jump.
B. Browns____ why?__________________________
C. No preference of one over the other____ why?_____________
What weight rod and what length would you use?
(please do not state rod brand or action, just weight and length)
Rod Weight ________ Rod Length _________ [b]How large is the water and is it open terrain or forested? Is the water deep, shallow, riffled, pooled?[/b]
Nothing like making an old dog ( that would be me ) learn new tricks, i.e. figure out how to work with your survey. Good for keeping the brain working smoothly.
Which species would you prefer to fish for:
A. Rainbow ____ why?________________________
B. Browns____ why?__________________________
C. No preference of one over the other__XX__ why?they are both trout_____
What weight rod and what length would you use?
(please do not state rod brand or action, just weight and length)
This assumes that I will be fishing a small to medium size stream / river under calm conditions with smaller flies, most likely a dry fly with a dropper until one of them takes a notable majority of the fish, then I would go that fly only.
For bigger water, bigger wind, and bigger flies, especially larger nymphs which I often fish tandem, I would up the ante to a 9’ for 5 or 7, regardless of the size of the fish in the system.
A. Rainbow X why?___They are acrobatic and I like fish to jump.
B. Browns____ why?__________________________
C. No preference of one over the other____ why?_____________
What weight rod and what length would you use?
(please do not state rod brand or action, just weight and length)
Rod Weight ________ Rod Length _________ [b]How large is the water and is it open terrain or forested? Is the water deep, shallow, riffled, pooled? Am I wading or floating?[/b]
Geez, father and son thinking alike, what’re the odds in that?! I agree with mgliss’ survey to the letter, with the exception that I use a 5wt rod and not a 4wt.