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Showing posts with the label leader

Rigging for Sailfish

After our Sailfish trip to Rompin in November I've had a few questions about the equipment needed to tackle old stick face. The following  information is by no means definitive, but should prove useful to anyone looking to try their hand at sails on fly.  And you should all be looking to! Rods, Reels and Line  You're looking at #12 outfits here. We all have our preferred brands and models, and on this trip there were rods from Sage, Redington, TFO and Colton on the boat.  Although all of them got it done, the Colton blue water stick which was a bit heavier seemed to be putting more strain on the angler than the fish at times but had excellent lifting power near the boat, it's probably a great stick for fighting tuna. Obviously you need a reel to match your rod, quality brands that you trust and have confidence in are a must.  I mostly used a Tibor Gulfstream loaded with 300yards of 65lb backing and a Rio GT line for poppers. The guide's choice was a Nautilus

Thoughts on leader construction

There's a lot written all over the internet about leaders and connections and some of it is good, some of it on the other hand is rubbish.  Anyway I thought I'd add add my tuppen'worth.  Today I changed over to my summer line on the carp set up. I use a WF 8 Rio Smallmouth Bass, in the summer here as it's just too hot for a cold water formula line.  Since I was changing back, I replaced the connections. I start by attaching  a length of 30lb fluorocarbon to make the butt section.  I use a modified Albright Knot for this.  Basically I tie an Albright, but leave the waste end of the fluorocarbon the same length as the end you would normally leave.  If you don't know the Albright you can find out how to tie it   here , just remember don't trim the waste like the standard knot. The next thing I do is furl the two ends together to make a single butt piece.  To avoid putting a ton of twist in the fly line I tighten the drag on the reel and pick up the whole ri