The following report is dated April 1st.

 

 

As a recreational fly angler initially, and then as a professional fly fishing angler, I have developed my preferred list of equipment, to include rods, reels, fly lines, leaders, tippet material and of course, fly patterns. For the sake of this brief article I will skip the rods, reels, leaders, tippet material and fly pattern discussion and save them individually, or collectively for another day and another article. (FYI, in the January 28, 2016 newsletter I penned an article pertaining to my thoughts on saltwater fly patterns.)

 

Of the entire suite of fly fishing hardware used to get a fly in front of a fish, in my estimation THE most critical item- is the fly line.

 

I don't have the time or the interest in experimenting with and testing all the fly lines in the market place and laying out all my findings in an elaborate Excel spreadsheet to help identify the winners. I will leave that to someone else who gets paid to do those kinds of things, or someone who has more time. I have tried most of the major fly line brands, and yes it's probably fair to say that I have not kept up with the "latest of the latest" developments of the various horses running the race to be "the best", but I have a pretty good handle on what's out there. In my estimation, of the high-end lines now available, most are pretty good, some are absolutely horrible irrespective of their pretty packaging, marketing hype and cost, but with only a few who are leading the race to stay ahead of the field by consistently researching, testing and developing new technologies. I don't offer the following opinion out of any pecuniary incentive to do so, my intent is only to provide good guidance to my friends and clients on how to cut through a lot of the marketing bull and get to a point where they don't have to go much further in making a sound purchasing decision.

From where I sit, RIO PRODUCTS is without peer. In the four years that I have been associated with Far Bank Enterprises, the holding company for Sage, Redington and RIO PRODUCTS, I have been primarily fishing with RIO lines. They have performed wonderfully, so much so that in preparation for the upcoming season I recently swapped out all other manufacturer's fly lines (for saltwater and freshwater applications) from my personal and professional inventory, and likewise am recommending RIO to all my fly casting students (both freshwater and saltwater anglers). RIO's fly lines are the only lines that my clients and I will fish with going forward. They offer the largest inventory of fresh and saltwater lines of any manufacturer. Their diversity of types, weights, lengths, densities , coupled with unmatched customer service and technical help desks, is beyond any other fly line company in the world marketplace. I will also say that if you don't have a resource available to you that is knowledgeable about fly fishing and in particular the best fly lines for your type of fishing and level of proficiency, who can provide you with good guidance on what's the best line for you- you can't go wrong by consulting with RIO's experts in Idaho Falls, ID at their manufacturing offices. Some may opine- that's like asking the fox to mind the chicken coop, and I get that, but I think their products and integrity are that good.

In my opinion, for saltwater fly fishing in northeast United States waters, the four most critical features of a fly line are:

• "Slickness"-  During the cast the ability of the line to freely sail with minimal friction through the guides on the way to the target.
• "Non Slinky-Toy Behavior"- Lines that retain "memory" from being wound on the reel will develop tight coils when being stripped from the reel, and the propensity of the line to resume the coiling behavior when on the deck or in your stripping basket even, after you have done your best to stretch it before and during your fishing outing. A coiled line will in many cases either prevent you from making a cast, or at a minimum, rob you of casting distance.  
• Using a line that has minimal stretch. A line that stretches under load will cause you to miss strikes and hooksets, and will be problematic when fish make long runs in current combined with changes in direction. The inability of the angler to maintain a tight connection to the fish as a function of the traditional 30% stretch factor existing in most lines, is the primary reason for fish coming unbuttoned, aside from poor hooksets.
• For the beginner to low intermediate fly angler, to have a line that has a shorter and heavier "head" section, that has the mass and weight of the fly line concentrated in the forward-most section of the line, which permits easier loading of the rod, and faster presentations due to less false casting, particularly in windy conditions.

    

 

 

  

  

It was an early May in the late afternoon, probably twenty years ago when I first started fly fishing the Rhode Island Cinder Worm emergence. I didn't guide then, and for most of my saltwater fly fishing I wade fished, rather than fishing from a boat. One of my favorite spots was Ninigret Pond in Charlestown, RI. I still fish in Ninigret, but now it's 100% from a boat and most of the time I'm guiding. The Grassy Point area of the pond is easily accessible by car combined with a short walk to one of the better coves in the eastern end of the pond. In those days the drill was to get to the pond no later than 3:30pm basically any day from about the end of the first week in May to about mid June. You can still fish the worm hatch from this location but as you near the end of May, the worm "hatches" as we call them, mostly happen at some distance from the Grassy Point area- that's pretty much still the case.

	1964- Lunenburg, MA

    

  I'll digress a bit... I often fished solo then and even today when not guiding I still enjoy going alone, I don't know why, it's not that I'm anti-social, far from it actually, but it's just something in the genes that drives me to seek privacy when I fish. As a kid I would often fish alone, sometimes not returning home in my rowboat until way past dark on Hickory Hills lake where we lived... I would always be worrying my parents when I wasn't back by dark, and be reminded of that too frequently. No such thing as calling in from a cell phone to advise that all was well and that I was making my way back.

  

Anyway back to Ninigret Pond thirty-two years later. The worm hatch is very much a top water game. I still refer to it as the closest thing a fly angler can get to dry fly fishing in salt water. In 1994 the worm hatch was far less popular than it is these days. You pretty much knew most of the anglers you encountered there, most were from Rhode Island. Many of us were good friends who had migrated part time from fly fishing in freshwater for stocked trout. We still loved wading fresh moving water, but there was this allure of catching much stronger fish, ocean fish, using our heavier weight fly rods. Some of us had 8-weights because we used them for fishing for largemouth bass, some even had 9's for those who journeyed north to fish New York's Salmon River for steelhead or and to New Brunswick to fish the Miramichi for atlantic salmon.

The patterns we used to fish for stripers in Ninigret Pond during the worm hatch were pretty much home-developed and for the most part, untested. Most of us were freshwater fly tyers, fairly creative, and in some cases, very talented. We could with ease replicate what we thought to be reasonable facsimiles of the cinder worms we saw swimming in the pond. One day I stumbled across a cinder worm pattern at the Fin and Feather flyshop in East Greenwich, RI, a shop owned by a couple of good friends. "The Fin", as we called it, was a place where many of us would stop by on a Sunday morning, shoot the bull, sip coffee, watch an 8-track fishing video on the TV above the fireplace, and to catch up with one another on our fishing successes, what was hatching and where, and to learn the latest about each other's family and careers. It was a very warm and genuine place where no one was an expert and people were a hell of a lot less bossy and disrespectful than today. I miss that place and those days.

The real deal

   This is becoming a ramble, sorry. Let me get back to the point of the article which is to offer a tip on fly fishing the Rhode Island Cinder Worm hatch. One particular day at The Fin, I found a pattern in their fly bin, the Page Rogers Cinder Worm. It was a very odd looking thing, bright red in color, tied with what looked like a decorative velvet tubing that you'd see on a couch cushion or stuffed chair. It was mounted on a 1/0 stainless hook and had a dark head made from either black or dark green chenille or maybe it was iridescent peacock herl. I had never heard of Page Rogers but after I bought a few of these baubles, I looked her up and a year later actually arranged her to present at the United Fly Tyers of Rhode Island, a fly tying club I started with a couple of friends, a club that was authorized by the original United Fly Tyers of Boston. Anyway, I added these weird looking flies to my saltwater box and used them one particular night fishing the worm hatch in Ninigret Pond.

	Page Rogers Cinder Worm

   I was fishing alone that night. Bass were really chowing down on a solid worm hatch that was unfolding right in front of me. They were slurping on the pinkish/tan colored naturals. I was trying what seemed like every pattern in my meager collection, attempting first to catch fish on my flies...without a heck of a lot of success even though, TO ME, my patterns looked remarkably like the real deal.

  

A hundred yards to my left, down the beach at Grassy Point were two fly anglers who were absolutely slaying the bass, one after another, hooting-hollering-laughing. I was jealous, perhaps a bit insulted, and nearly at my wits end. Then I remembered the Page Rogers pattern made from that bright red couch piping. What the hey, I tied it on, and in short order caught a bass, and another, then another- maybe fifteen minutes between each take. But those guys just down the beach from me, were hooking up on every other cast. WTF were they using?

In those days we often fished into the night, wanting to eek out that last take before reeling up and making the fifteen minute trek back to the car, to get out of Ninigret Park before the 9:30pm curfew, when the park ranger locked the gate. It was time to go. The anglers to my left were ahead of me by a few minutes so I had to hurry to catch up with them to try and find out what pattern they had been using.  I had to know. In short order and panting from being out of breath, I caught up with them and with my tail tucked firmly between my legs, begged to learn their pattern. I was sweaty, out of breath, and desperate. They were well groomed, cool, and somewhat pompous donning their Orvis wear. I must have looked pathetic, but I didn't care. I was just short of going to my knees to implore them to give up there secret fly. They were "Connecticut shrewd", probably corporate insurance geeks (like me). They first asked to see what I had been using- I gladly showed them my bright red Page Rogers couch fly, a small and humble price to pay for the key to their Holy Grail. They snickered to one another, pulled from their flybox a fresh Page Rogers couch fly... in TAN!

   Another (inaudible) WTF! on my part...  One of them smiled and in what I perceived as somewhat of a descending manner, told me they start out with the same red version, but dip it in a solution of Chlorox bleach and water morfing the worm into something ranging from pink to tan. The longer the fly remained in the chemical bath, the more tan it became.

That was It!... a mere subtle color variation!...everything else the same. Bright red vs. bleached to pink and tan, the difference between world class catching and my struggle.

Since then, my go-to pattern for fishing the cinder worm hatch is the "Page Rogers Bleached". For me, it outfishes by a clear margin every other pattern I have experimented with in the twenty plus years of fishing the cinder worm emergence.  Whodathunkit?

  

Water, hooks, peacock herl, thread, Goop, and Chlorox bleach are all easy to find... bright red velvet tubing is not. On scrap furniture collection day in Newport and when local colleges let out for the summer and students trash their dorms and apartments of beat up furniture, I can be found cruising city blocks and campuses scouting for bright red couches with velvet tubing trim. There's a method to this madness.

2014- Charlestown, RI

The following YouTube video takes you through the tying process of my version of the Page Rogers Cinder Worm fly. I start out with bright orange velvet tubing for this pattern. It's best to first bleach a length of the tubing (assuming you can find it) before you tie the pattern. The original bright red fly can still be found if you look hard. My recommendation is if you do find them, strip off the head material, then bleach the fly, then retie the head so it's dark, close to the coloring of the real worm. Alternatively, if you bleach the fly with the dark head, you will have to use a black or dark green Sharpie to recolor it appropriately.

	Wine not Cinder Worm

Good luck!

   https://youtu.be/FTcdngCIGDc

Since last fall I added a few fly rods to the inventory at Skinny Water Charters in preparation for the 2016 fishing season, one of them is the Sage Method in a 9 weight. This is not a new rod from Sage, it was actually introduced to the market a couple of years ago. I'm a fan of fast action rods primarily because the lion's share of the fly fishing I do is in saltwater, in conditions that are more often than not, windy. To make things more challenging, I am fishing with large and wind resistant fly patterns that are tough to cast at longer distances. That combination requires a fast (or stiff) fly rod in order to generate the kind of line speed you need to load the rod, to develop tight fly line loops that are able to punch the line and the fly through the wind towards the target. Over the past few years I have been very happy with Sage's Xi3 rod in a 10 weight for those challenging conditions (that rod is discontinued unfortunately). The Xi3 is a very powerful rod and not one for a beginner or intermediate caster, it takes good technique and some strength to fish this rod through the day, but man can it punch a fly line in tough conditions, and when playing a strong fish, be it a heavy striper or a hard charging false albacore, there is no question that the angler is in full control.

Many reviews have been written about the Method, the following ones from the Headhunters Fly Shop and Hatch Magazine are two of the better ones. Included in the Headhunters review is a link to the Sage website that features a short video of the Method being discussed by it's designer Jerry Siem.

http://www.headhuntersflyshop.com/sage-method-everyday-driver/

http://www.hatchmag.com/articles/review-sage-method-fly-rod/7711218

When you charter with Skinny Water Charters I can put the Sage Method, Sage One, Sage Salt, Sage Xi3, and the Sage Bass II in your hands, all in the same outing if you choose. You will love what these rods can do for your casting and fish catching abilities especially when paired with RIO's Outbound Short fly lines.

     The ancients wrote of the three ages of man;

I propose to write of the three ages of the fisherman.

      When he wants to catch all the fish he can.

      When he strives to catch the largest fish.

      When he studies to catch the most difficult fish

he can find, requiring the greatest skill and most

refined tackle, caring more for the sport than the fish.

EDWARD R. HEWITT

A TROUT AND SALMON FISHERMAN FOR SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS (1948)