As I've done more and more fly trips the last few years, often getting more troll hookups than our other boats, Mark and other captains have definitely played with flies on gear rods. Success has been hit and miss. My guess is adding a bullet weight somehow changes the natural action, or more likely just how it rides in the water or something. It works, but I am very confident in saying not as well as flies fished under heavy sinking lines.
I definitely agree that having too many troll rods is not a good thing. We fish a 5 rod spread on our standard charters, but we also have 8 people total onboard so converting is not an issue as long as people are competent. Usually by this time of year I'll stop running the two rods off the outriggers and just fish 3 off the stern, mostly because the fish tend to get so focused on bait that converting faster is more important, and the troll bite often wanes this time of year. This year has been an exception to that experience. Great fishing overall, but they are still responding to the troll extremely well and while we're getting plenty on bait we aren't seeing much of that wide open bait stop type of stuff either, so I've kept my standard program going.
I used to be of the mind set that fly rod fish took longer but at this point I don't see it that way. Just like with gear rods it comes down to the angler. Many people can land fly rod fish every bit as fast as most gear fish. It's all about fighting them aggressively. Most of my usual gear charter customers fight them too timidly and you'd be amazed how long it takes them. In the right hands fly rod fish can be landed quite quickly. I could probably land a troll fish with a gear rod slightly faster with our heavy gear rods vs a fly rod fish, but the difference would be negligible.
Its a tough thing to wrap ones brain around, but you can put a ton of pressure on those fish and fight them quite aggressively, and with the right technique get them in quite quickly.
I definitely agree that having too many troll rods is not a good thing. We fish a 5 rod spread on our standard charters, but we also have 8 people total onboard so converting is not an issue as long as people are competent. Usually by this time of year I'll stop running the two rods off the outriggers and just fish 3 off the stern, mostly because the fish tend to get so focused on bait that converting faster is more important, and the troll bite often wanes this time of year. This year has been an exception to that experience. Great fishing overall, but they are still responding to the troll extremely well and while we're getting plenty on bait we aren't seeing much of that wide open bait stop type of stuff either, so I've kept my standard program going.
I used to be of the mind set that fly rod fish took longer but at this point I don't see it that way. Just like with gear rods it comes down to the angler. Many people can land fly rod fish every bit as fast as most gear fish. It's all about fighting them aggressively. Most of my usual gear charter customers fight them too timidly and you'd be amazed how long it takes them. In the right hands fly rod fish can be landed quite quickly. I could probably land a troll fish with a gear rod slightly faster with our heavy gear rods vs a fly rod fish, but the difference would be negligible.
Its a tough thing to wrap ones brain around, but you can put a ton of pressure on those fish and fight them quite aggressively, and with the right technique get them in quite quickly.
