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Different ways to Skate a sedge

Started by Rabmax, June 28, 2013, 03:28:50 PM

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Rabmax

I have been skating big sedges all week & been catching some rather large trout mainly just before dark.My setup has been 9 4wt short furled leader 6 foot tippet with the lot greased up with floatant.I have been casting across & slightly down.When drag starts grabbing the line i give it little tweaks across & down.Then sometimes little tweaks back up against the flow.The tweaking of the line causes the furled leader to cause a disturbance on top of the water too.Not sure if this disturbance will put some fish of or not.I am wondering if a longer rod high sticking approach holding all the leader off the water would be a better setup to try.Also wouldn't mind trying it in an upstream approach.Not sure how i would skate a sedge fishing upstream guessing i would need to have a tight line & flick the rod tip up & down.Any sedge tweaks out there withing to share any tips on there setup & methods of skating flies would be welcome.Cheers All

scotty9

If you're worried about disturbance I'd go for a mono tapered leader with either a superglued no knot connection to fly line or a needle knot, both very neat and will minimise disturbance. I'd definitely prefer that to a longer rod and keeping the leader off the water as you'd limit yourself in the water you can cover distance wise without getting too close to the fish.

I've been having good success on big trout recently too on a similar method. Also spent a bit of time in NZ this year fishing mouse patterns this way. It's a bit early to call any conclusions but one thing is I definitely don't think the trout take it as a sedge, the response is very aggressive an attack on something rather than a typical feeding rise to an insect. I haven't been fishing sedge patterns either, too small for me, huge foam terrestrials or mouse patterns, I'm finding something very big gets the response. It's a really interesting period experimenting with this, the behaviour is exactly the same as I found in NZ. The notion that skating a sedge is a representation of the natural doesn't work for me, I've never seen a sedge swinging right across the river or even skating as fast as even a small strip to your fly line causes :lol: I definitely feel what we're doing is bringing out the more aggressive, opportunistic side of the trout. Typically they won't touch something that's dragging but make it big and make it seem very alive and all of a sudden...

I have a feeling upstream won't get the same response, well, it will be a heck of a lot harder to impart a swimming action to get the aggressive response. Not saying it won't work and it would be really interesting to try but my gut feeling is negative. My approach similar to my normal dry approach is to cast across, upstream mend, let it dead drift and then fish out once it starts to drag, mixing up straight swings and little twitches. The twitched approach has definitely got the best response. Don't know if many have tried on lochs too but a really big dry pulled across the surface at night is pretty effective too. There's something in the movement at nighttime.

The other night I fished 2030 through till 0530, the period of darkness starting from around 2230 through to 0330 was superb. Rises to the hatching flies slowed down but the fish were obliging to our very large dries. Once it was dark enough that I couldn't fish normal dries to risers I went onto a foam cicada, my brother on a turks tarantula. Mice will be getting a swim next outing. This was also on a river flat, completely calm surface, very modest flow. In NZ I was typically fishing them through runs where they emptied into pools, just as the mouse left the run into the slacker water was the hit zone.

It's all interesting, I'd be very keen to hear your findings if you put in some time in on this as I'd love to learn as much as possible about it.


Harpo

Interesting guys,

Are you fishing to sighted/rising fish or is this prospecting.
Scott I guess in the middle of the night there was very little sighting of anything!

I've tried this on rivers before and had one savage rise to a non seen/non rising trout.
The take was what I assume a sub surface take to a streamer would be like, alas it didn't hook up

Rabmax

#3
I have been using it as a searching method .But if i see a large trout rising rising below me.I let it dead drift down & just as it enters the trouts window if i give a little tweak odes are you get a big responce.Been finding it very usfull on flater sections that's normally hard to fish where i normally spook them with an upstream approach.

scotty9

Mainly prospecting but again if you hear something rise I chuck a cast in that direction. Right now it's not truly dark, there was full cloud cover yet we could still navigate around without torches. It's too dark to see rises though unless there is some reflected light on a pocket of the water.

If I can see the rises, I'm not usually targetting them with the big skated flies, rather a normal approach.

Rab - I find the upstream approach is nigh on useless on the flats. I have to fish across from the fish, or even marginally upstream and across from it, cast with appropriate slack for the angle and I'm seeing a hugely better success rate than going upstream to the fish.

Rabmax

Quote from: scotty9 on June 28, 2013, 06:34:51 PM


Rab - I find the upstream approach is nigh on useless on the flats. I have to fish across from the fish, or even marginally upstream and across from it, cast with appropriate slack for the angle and I'm seeing a hugely better success rate than going upstream to the fish.

Will keep that in mind Scotty9
I have been using large CDC & Elk flies tied with extra CDC & Deer hair on a size 10 Kamasan B830 hook fairly bulky & large.When tweaking them they get pulled under & bob back up & soon become water logged.So with them getting drowned & fish slime there quite high maintenance.I am going through loads of fumed silica at the moment.I saw this pattern on the net.
http://www.frankenfly.com/grillos-later-skater/
I have combined a CDC & elk with the genetic hackle & foam at the front from the grillos -skater.Hopefully a little less maintenance.Cheers

Harpo

Quote from: Rabmax on June 28, 2013, 06:28:09 PM
I have been using it as a searching method .But if i see a large trout rising rising below me.I let it dead drift down & just as it enters the trouts window if i give a little tweak odes are you get a big responce.Been finding it very usfull on flater sections that's normally hard to fish where i normally spook them with an upstream approach.

That's good to know guys, my river has a lot of flats, like casting into a mirror and while,I have some success upstream, will give this method a go, the river has decent sedge hatches as well

Rab what about the good old g&h sedge or stimulator, almost unsinkable and low maintenance

Rabmax

I like the look of the stimulator might give it a try Harpo.But the one i have been tying up to try out is a sort of half CDC & Elk with stimulator & bit of foam at the front.I just find there is something special about a CDC & Elk.Something about those long CDC fibers wafting about make it deadly.I tried this one for a little while last night & had lots of follows & splashes but they didn't really want it.
Fly Tying Foam Grasshopper
I fish it on a few smaller rivers & it catches well.

scotty9

Harpo, don't piss about with sedges  :lol:



In all serious though, I'll definitely try out a big CDC and elk with some foam like you say Rab, like the sound of it. Some big mice are definitely going to get a swim too, that could be very interesting!

Harpo

Quote from: scotty9 on June 28, 2013, 08:41:26 PM
Harpo, don't piss about with sedges  :lol:


:lol:

Have you seen this vid? , only clips on YouTube
Craig Butler has the DVD
http://youtu.be/OyRPa0nA9nM

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