Bad outing for FlyFish Dan

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Canuck from Kansas said:
Man, this FFD sure seems to have triggered some folks, and just about everyone has chimed in, so I guess I better. Seen snark going in both directions, not a good thing, can disagree without being disagreeable.

Cheers and Go Royals and Go ThreePete
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@Canuck from Kansas good point, trying to combat snark with snarky really isn't productive (or healthy) for anyone.
 
@Rob Allen I completely understand the need to conserve what is left of this once plentiful fishery - that is why I follow the regs, keep wild steelhead in the water and leave no trace when in the OP (and anywhere else for that matter). It appears that we probably agree on most things. I am a lifetime Washingtonian, my father before me (grew up in Forks), his father before him, dating all the way back to my great, great grandfather (all fisherman). Speaking of which, here's a photo of my dad and grandfather when steelhead were as thick as a stocked trout back in the early 60's.
 

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FlyFishDan said:
@Rob Allen I completely understand the need to conserve what is left of this once plentiful fishery - that is why I follow the regs, keep wild steelhead in the water and leave no trace when in the OP (and anywhere else for that matter). It appears that we probably agree on most things. I am a lifetime Washingtonian, my father before me (grew up in Forks), his father before him, dating all the way back to my great, great grandfather (all fisherman). Speaking of which, here's a photo of my dad and grandfather when steelhead were as thick as a stocked trout back in the early 60's.
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That is true with just about everyone here.. the smaller our differences the fiercer we have to fight :) a good friend of mine long passed probably taught/coached/ fished alongside your family members.
 
FlyFishDan said:
I'll never be on the same level as Todd Moen or be as funny as Hank...but I might learn you a few nuggets of fly fishing stuff and things
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That may be the other way around.... @Salmo_g can fish circles around many here!

perhaps stick around for a bit longer...
 
Rob Allen said:
you should always use the heaviest rod reasonable regardless of your preference for lighter rods..
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Rob, explain the physics behind this please. It makes no sense to me. I would say use the heaviest tippet you can get away with. If I have an 8 weight rod and a 3 weight rod with the same tippet, and I hook a fish with 40 feet of line out and I don't allow any line to come off the reel, then when I reel or strip in 5 feet of line, the fish is now 35 feet out. With both rods. It may be harder to pull in the 5 feet of line with the lighter weight rod, but I am not prevented from doing it as we are not talking about a 50 pound fish. The reason I use heavier rods is that it easier to toss my bigger flies, or because of the wind. Using your logic, we should all be using 3 foot,12 weight rods to horse the fish in quicker.

Teach me please.
 
Wayne Kohan said:
Rob, explain the physics behind this please. It makes no sense to me. I would say use the heaviest tippet you can get away with. If I have an 8 weight rod and a 3 weight rod with the same tippet, and I hook a fish with 40 feet of line out and I don't allow any line to come off the reel, then when I reel or strip in 5 feet of line, the fish is now 35 feet out. With both rods. It may be harder to pull in the 5 feet of line with the lighter weight rod, but I am not prevented from doing it as we are not talking about a 50 pound fish. The reason I use heavier rods is that it easier to toss my bigger flies, or because of the wind. Using your logic, we should all be using 3 foot,12 weight rods to horse the fish in quicker.

Teach me please.
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Go frame a house with a ball peen hammer and you'll understand the need for a framing hammer

Also I said the heaviest reasonable. Your tippet is not the weakest part of the equation.. 12 lb maxima can come close to snapping an 8wt..... it will destroy a 3wt

If you're in an area where 20 lb steelhead are reasonably common. An 8wt spey rod is a reasonable choice. An 11 ft 6 wt is not.
 
Kinda feel for FFD, it's a tough crowd with a lot of opinions. Putting yourself out on YouTube is like putting a big "hit me" sign on your back and running around in a rowdy drunken crowd. No matter what you do someone's gonna take a shot. Dan's reaching out to folks wanting to learn flyfishing, and I'm sure many learn a lot from his videos. And while I personally prefer heavier rods for winter steelhead, I also wonder how many on this forum remember the videos of Lee Wulff fishing for wild Atlantic Salmon with a 3 or 4wt bamboo single hander. If he was alive and on the forum, would you call him out? Not advocating for anything, just posing a question ---
 
For someone who is in the industry, promoting the use of 5wt trout speys for OP spring Steelhead is just plain unethical and wrong, no matter how strong one thinks the rods are, they are not the appropriate tool for the job!

In the Lee Wolf videos he was catching grilse and small Atlantics, not 20+ pound fish. He also preferred shorter rods than the majority used back then and probably didnt have many options on line wt.

It would be cool to hear his thoughts on modern angling though!
 
Paige said:
For someone who is in the industry, promoting the use of 5wt trout speys for OP spring Steelhead is just plain unethical and wrong, no matter how strong one thinks the rods are, they are not the appropriate tool for the job!
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This.

I won't even fish the D with my trout spey once steelhead are present.
 
Rob Allen said:
Go frame a house with a ball peen hammer and you'll understand the need for a framing hammer

Also I said the heaviest reasonable. Your tippet is not the weakest part of the equation.. 12 lb maxima can come close to snapping an 8wt..... it will destroy a 3wt

If you're in an area where 20 lb steelhead are reasonably common. An 8wt spey rod is a reasonable choice. An 11 ft 6 wt is not.
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Oh, I thought it was out of respect for the fish, not the fly rod.
 
Paige said:
For someone who is in the industry, promoting the use of 5wt trout speys for OP spring Steelhead is just plain unethical and wrong, no matter how strong one thinks the rods are, they are not the appropriate tool for the job!

In the Lee Wolf videos he was catching grilse and small Atlantics, not 20+ pound fish. He also preferred shorter rods than the majority used back then and probably didnt have many options on line wt.

It would be cool to hear his thoughts on modern angling though!
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Oh, it is out of respect for the fish.

I agree one should use the proper tool for the job, I just don't think that my opinion of the proper tool is something I have to push on others. If you ultimately want to respect the fish, then don't fish for them.
 
Wayne Kohan said:
Rob, explain the physics behind this please. It makes no sense to me. I would say use the heaviest tippet you can get away with. If I have an 8 weight rod and a 3 weight rod with the same tippet, and I hook a fish with 40 feet of line out and I don't allow any line to come off the reel, then when I reel or strip in 5 feet of line, the fish is now 35 feet out. With both rods. It may be harder to pull in the 5 feet of line with the lighter weight rod, but I am not prevented from doing it as we are not talking about a 50 pound fish. The reason I use heavier rods is that it easier to toss my bigger flies, or because of the wind. Using your logic, we should all be using 3 foot,12 weight rods to horse the fish in quicker.

Teach me please.
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I think technically, you'd want a 12' 12 weight rod. You'd have better leverage that way.

Anyway, I was curious about your question of physics, so I went to the obvious source - chatbot GPT.

Here's what I got:

Hooke's law describes the actual physics of how a fishing rod bends in reaction to a force being applied.

Here's the equation:
F = -K * X

F is the force applied by the fish
K is the spring constant, or the stiffness of the rod
X is the displacement, or how much the rod bends

Lower K = softer rods, require less force to bend.
Higher K = stiffer rods, require more force to bend.
If the fish applies a force of 10 (arbitrary unit of measure), we'd apply a force of -10 (F), the soft rod (value K=1) will bend a lot (X=10). However, if you have a fish applying a force of 10 with a stiff rod (K value of 10), the rod will barely bend (X = 1).

As long as the rod stays within it's breaking point (elastic limit), you can see that you'd be able to absorb more force from the fish, tiring it out quicker with a stiffer rod, since it would take the fish more energy to apply more force. The faster the fish uses it's energy, the faster the fish will get tired to the point that it can be landed. With a stiff enough rod, an angler could conceptually land a fish before the fish is even tired from the fight (reference tournament bass anglers). Where as with a lighter rod, the fish could apply less force and get the rod to the breaking point quicker, and thus prolong the fight unnecessarily because it's using less energy to swim away from the angler.
 
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