Fish Talk

Translating Fly Fishing to Spin Fishing #1

by Matt

The other day I found a small bright green 4′ Shakespeare spinning rod at my parent’s house that didn’t have a reel attached to it. Curious about how fun it would be to use I bought a Shimano Sienna 500 spinning reel and spooled it with 4# line. The outfit, despite looking a bit ridiculous, felt good and I couldn’t wait to try it out. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt excited about gear fishing.

College is when I started to get into fishing and like most anglers learning how to fish I started off with a spinning rod. My fishing buddy and I mostly targeted bass throwing soft baits like senkos for largemouth bass. I would dabble with a few bait fishing trips for stocked trout but other than that I didn’t really get to learn how to truly fish before getting into fly fishing.

Noob Fisherman 2012

I caught quite a few fish with soft plastics but eventually got bored and wanted to try and expand my arsenal. I always thought hardbaits were cool but I had no confidence in them with the exception of classic topwater lures like poppers. As a poor college student hardbaits were tough to justify buying because if you happened to accidentally snag one or break one off you’d be out +5 or even +10 dollars. I had a few but I was often too afraid about using them because they were expensive. Losing a few of my favorite flies doesn’t bother me because I know I can easily replace them by tying more however losing my favorite hardbait means having to buy a replacement.

Now as a real adult with some extra spending money I can finally buy all the hardbaits I want and that is exactly what I did. Through fly fishing I now have an advance understand of fish behavior that I probably would’ve never learned if I had stuck to using a spinning rod. I was curious to see if I could use this knowledge to fill in the gap that I left when switching to fly fishing.

I bought a TFO panfish series 6’6” two piece rod and paired it with a Shimano Sienna 500 spinning reel with 8# fluorocarbon. The rod is considered an ultra light rod and feels great. I had to look through a bunch of different spinning rods because I didn’t want one that had too thick of a butt and the TFO panfish rod’s butt was perfect. Nice and thin.

I’ve been getting a bit bored of fly fishing the same rivers, holes, runs, etc so changing it up a bit will be a fun new learning experience.

Putah Creek

Putah Creek Peak

by Matt

Summer flows on Putah Creek are tough. I’ve been attempting to learn where the trout hold during the summer on Putah Creek and this visit I covered water from the Monticello dam down to Access 5. From now on I will be calling it quits on Putah Creek at 700 CFS.

The previous week I had visited Putah Creek the flows were around 630 CFS. This visit the creek was cranked up to 700 CFS. It appears that every ~100 CFS rises the creek about 3-6 inches. I learned this the hard way after I stepped into a spot where I could usually wade in and my waders started to fill with water. Not the best way to start the day… After slogging around in waders for a bit I opted to just wet wade in shorts and sandals. This was more comfortable than wet waders however it also was not the best idea because my leg and feet got pretty beat up by all the berry bushes and weeds.

I checked out the spots where I had caught some fish the last visit and noticed that although there were still fish there were a lot less of them. I hooked four fish and landed two of them the biggest being about 20”. It appears that the fish were only taking midges.

I hiked and covered water throughout the day checking out all available access spots. About 80% of the creek was too high to fish and spots that looked like they should have held fish (nooks, crannies, soft seams, etc) didn’t yield any. As I was making my way around the creek I spotted a Putah Creek beast in soft water that looked like it was +25”. Unfortunately it spooked into deeper water before I could get the chance to cast to it.

I ran into two guys that were interested in fishing the Putah Creek at access 5. Apparently the ranger they spoke to told them they could keep fish at access 3. I kindly iterated that all of the creek is catch-and-release only. If you are ever unsure about the regulations make sure you reference the DFW fishing regulations book.

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Keep Calm and Fly Fish™