Freshwater Salmon Fishing with Single Hand Rods

speedbird

Life of the Party
Forum Supporter
Hi all, you probably remember me from the old forum as Speedbird48. I'm still working on my casts, and still hoping to land Sea Run fish. I've been fishing a lot more small water and rivers recently, practicing casting dry flies, and swinging wet flies. I have a few Salmon/Sea Run trips planned with a friend this November, and I would love to practice my presentations on the water. Spey rods are the traditional rods used for Salmon and Steelhead since Salmon and Steelhead rest close to the river bottom, and spey lines are most effective at reaching deep down, unlike the intermediate lines we prefer while fishing streamers on the beaches. Spey rods and lines are unfortunately beyond my budget, or justification until I am more confident in my ability to read water and find fish. Can I get away with traditional single handed sink tip lines that you would use for trout streamers? Apologies for the elementary question but it was surprisingly difficult to find anything on Google, and I figured other newcomers could benefit from the answer as well.
 

Matt B

RAMONES
Forum Supporter
This is more a general fly line question, but why do dedicated interchangable tip fly lines exist if you could just tie a sink tip onto a floating line?
Different tapers. Tying or looping a sinktip on to most unaltered floating lines is going to cast like crap due to the front taper of the fly line.
The dedicated interchangeable tip fly lines end in a loop at a fat part of the fly line taper, not a reduced skinny part of the taper like a normal floating line will. The increased mass helps to turn over the relatively heavy sinktip.
 

O' Clarkii Stomias

Landlocked Atlantic Salmon
Forum Supporter
This:

....and this in an 8-weight:

Combine the above with this in a 10'- 8-weight:

Or this:

....and a reel like this:

With the above, you would have a setup that would be appropriate for everything from summer run steelhead, to late fall Chum salmon.
 

speedbird

Life of the Party
Forum Supporter
This:

....and this in an 8-weight:

Combine the above with this in a 10'- 8-weight:

Or this:

....and a reel like this:

With the above, you would have a setup that would be appropriate for everything from summer run steelhead, to late fall Chum salmon.
I’m curious, is the wet cel line an interchangable tip line? It’s a very attractive price point, so I will definitely pick it up
 

Matt B

RAMONES
Forum Supporter
I’m curious, is the wet cel line an interchangable tip line? It’s a very attractive price point, so I will definitely pick it up
It is not, but you could probably turn it into one. I wouldn’t recommend that, though, not necessarily. It’s sooo much nicer to cast an integrated (non interchangeable) tip line. I think @O’ Clarkii probably recommended the Teeny line as your deep dredger. It would be a proven, functional choice.
 

O' Clarkii Stomias

Landlocked Atlantic Salmon
Forum Supporter
I’m curious, is the wet cel line an interchangable tip line? It’s a very attractive price point, so I will definitely pick it up
The SA wet cel is an integrated sink tip on a weight forward line. That in combination of the Teeny 300, which is a integrated shooting head, in combination of casting angles will give you a great deal of versatility when it comes to depth of presentation. Add a weight forward floater, and a reel with 2 extra spools, and you should be able to cover most situations. Makes me long for the pre-spey days. It was a lot simpler back then.
 
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