Fly fishing isn’t necessarily easy, and sometimes it’s downright hard. Here’re some products that could make your time on the water a little less challenging.
Sunglasses for When It Isn’t Sunny
One of the things I always find odd is how many anglers wear normal sunglasses while fishing in low-light conditions. I get that sunglasses provide eye protection and make you look cool (because we know that is important to the fish), but those heavily tinted lenses are stealing a lot of photons that really should be splashing onto your retinas. Most sunglasses reduce the amount of light reaching your eye by 60 to 80 percent, which is good for typical daytime use. But once the sky gets cluttered with clouds or a fog rolls in, the amount of light reaching your eyes goes down by a factor of 10. By early twilight, when the fishing is often best, ambient light levels have dropped a thousandfold. As light levels drop, your pupils naturally dilate, capturing as many photons as possible. But even fully dilated pupils can’t overcome the photon deficit caused by normal sunglasses. This means that countless subtle visual cues that tip you off to fish or fish-holding water are getting lost in the lenses. Those supercool-looking shades may be costing you hookups.
For many years, my solution to lowlight fishing was safety glasses. They don’t absorb many photons, and they provide much-needed eye protection, which I consider absolutely essential in fly fishing. If you have ever been hit in the face by a beadhead nymph, or worse yet, a lead-eyed Clouser, you’ll know why glasses with good impact protection are so important. Like many fly fishers, I found that yellow safety glasses provide decent light transmission and also a perceived increase in contrast. I say “perceived,” because some studies have shown that there’s no statistically significant increase in contrast sensitivity with yellow lenses. Apparently our brains change what we see after we have seen it. Go figure.
Over the past few months, though, I have been trying out some low-light glasses from Costa. Similar glasses are also sold by Smith Optics and Maui Jim, so there are plenty of options to choose from. They feature polarized yellow lenses and a bunch of other optical enhancements that increase light transmission, reduce glare, and block ultraviolet and high-energy visible light in the violet/ blue band. While I can’t say that the “perceived” contrast-enhancing effects of the yellow lens is significantly better than that provided by yellow safety glasses, the polarization and antireflective coatings have proven to be a very definite improvement. Even under low light conditions, a lot of light still gets reflected off the surface of the water, interfering with your ability to see below the surface or to notice subtle changes in the water’s surface texture. Polarized lenses cut out a lot of this reflected light, allowing you to see subtle details that might otherwise have gone unnoticed, such as weed beds, rising fish, or nervous water. Anglers who fish early or late in the day or anyone who lives along the coast, with its summertime fog, should seriously consider getting a pair of low-light sunglasses.
The low-light glasses really paid off for me this July. I was on a Monterey Bay beach long before the Highway 1 commuters had begun their ritual morning crawl toward Silicon Valley. The marine layer was especially thick and juicy, creating a dense fog that oozed across the beach. I found a good-looking rip and waded out onto the adjacent sand flat to a spot that put me within one short cast of the flat-to-rip transition. That’s where big stripers usually line up to kill things. The waves broke about forty feet offshore, reforming to create fast-moving tables of water that pushed forcefully across the flat. I was just starting a cast when almost
unconsciously, I noticed something in my peripheral vision. Instinctively, I looked down to see a large, dark object about a foot below the surface moving quickly toward me. I slammed my legs into reverse and got the heck out of Dodge. About a second later, a six-foot chunk of well-soaked redwood moved through the space that had just been vacated by my knees. I said something about holy fecal matter and could actually feel a fear-induced sweat form between my shoulder blades.
Replacement Lenses
Perhaps you have a pair of sunglasses that are supercomfortable to wear, but the lenses have more scratches than an old dance floor. They are like a comfy pair of shoes, and you are loathe to get rid of them, but those beat-up lenses drive you crazy. The good news is those old frames can have a new life with replacement lenses. It turns out it’s pretty simple to install new lenses in older frames. The technique varies a little among the various brands, but in most cases, the lenses can be easily and safely replaced in a minute or two.
The obvious place to get replacement lenses is from the original manufacturer. Some companies require that you send them the old frames, while others simply ship out new lenses. However, it is possible that the original manufacturer doesn’t stock lenses for frames that are more than a few years old, which I guess makes sense if your primary business is selling new sunglasses. Thankfully, this isn’t the end of the road for your favorite frames. Two companies, Fuse and Revant, offer replacement lenses for most of the popular brands of sunglasses and can also do custom cuts for anything that isn’t in their list of precut lenses.
I decided to check out Revant’s replacement lens program for a pair of sunglasses that had seen better days. They had the exact make and model in their list of precut lenses, so all I had to do was fill in their online order form. Quite frankly, the hardest part of the process is deciding what type of lenses you want. They had 18 different types of polarized lenses (including photochromic) available for my frames. A direct replacement of the old lenses was the cheapest approach, but I figured why not take advantage of modern lens technology? Instead of simply replacing the original gray lenses for $36, I decided to go wild and upgrade to their top-of-the-line Elite lenses in amber. A few days later, the new lenses arrived (along with a cleaning kit and protective sock), and in under a minute, they were sitting pretty in my old frames. I was astonished it was so easy. I have taken them on several fishing and hiking trips and have to say the new lenses have exceeded my expectations. For just $59, I’m wearing my old, comfortable frames and getting all the benefits of the latest lens technology.
Modern Shooting Lines
A lot of fly fishers read or hear someone talk about how far you can cast with a shooting head and decide to give them a try. Many do it once, have a hard time getting the setup to cast right, and go back to weight-forward lines. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the problem is knowing how much shooting line overhang to use. Shooting line is the skinny line that is looped to the back of the shooting head, and “overhang” refers to how much shooting line is outside of the rod tip on the final forward cast. Get the amount of overhang right, and the head goes a long, long way. Get it wrong, and you’ll wonder what kind of sadist would invent such a line system. It’s really a Goldilocks situation. Too little overhang, and the cast will be short. Too much, and the cast simply falls apart. The difference between the two can be as little as a foot, which can make using heads challenging.
Monofilament shooting lines are perhaps the least forgiving. Thin mono shooting line is great for ultimate distance, which is why it is used in tournament casting. But the benefits of light weight and thin diameter come at a price. Tournament casters working from stable platforms such as concrete paving or well-manicured grass can exercise precise control of their casts. That’s seldom the case in the real world of fly fishing. It’s very hard to be precise when you are standing titty-deep in a cold river or are sitting in a float tube bouncing your bum around on a windswept lake. If you are prepared to spend the time practicing, you can eventually become proficient with mono shooting lines, but few people have that kind of patience.
Coated shooting lines with diameters around 0.030 inches are a lot easier to handle than mono, but overhang can still be a problem. Another alternative is to use the thicker-coated shooting lines (0.040 inches) favored by the double-hander crowd. They are a lot less sensitive to overhang, but that extra thickness reduces casting distance.
Thankfully, the folks at Scientific Anglers and RIO have come to the rescue. Scientific Anglers’ Textured Shooting Line and RIO’s Connect Core Shooting Line both feature 15 feet of thicker, better-handling line at the front end. That may not sound too exciting in these days of multitaper, multi-density lines, but I assure you it got my attention. The beauty of the thicker line is that it doesn’t seem to matter too much if you have 3 feet, 6 feet or even 9 feet of overhang. The thick handling section keeps your rod tip connected to the head, resulting in better casts, while the thinner line that follows helps maximize shooting distance.
I have been blind-splicing 12 to 14 feet of thick running line from an old weight-forward 10-weight line onto the front end of most of my coated shooting lines for years. This pretty much solved the overhang problem, but the splicing process is fussy, and I have always had nagging concerns about the strength of the union. These shooting lines from Scientific Anglers and RIO mean I no longer have to mess with acetone, splicing needles, and sticky urethane glue. If you like the low-friction properties of a textured line, go with Scientific Anglers. If a smooth line is important to you, get the RIO. Having used both lines for many fishing sessions in fresh water and salt, I can comfortably say you really can’t go wrong with either line. Get one and say goodbye to overhang angst.
Armpit Replacements
Anglers fishing from boats or float tubes seldom have to worry about where to put their rod when they need to tie on a fly or pick away at a leader that is riddled with Gordian wind knots. Propped against gunwale or laid across pontoons, the rod and reel are relatively safe and secure. Things are quite different for wading anglers, especially those fishing in boisterous rivers or the surf. Most of the time, fly fishers slip the rod under their armpit and hold it there using gentle pressure. This arrangement usually works out fine, but it isn’t perfect. Every so often the rod is going slip out, and you’ll have to make a wild grab to save it. This usually happens when you have an open box of flies, which often becomes an empty or lost box of flies in short order. If the rod escapes your best Bruce Lee moves, Murphy’s Law almost guarantees that the reel is going to pile drive into a spool-deforming rock or bury itself into some very abrasive sand. Very few things “improve” the performance of a well-machined aluminum reel like a dinged spool or a dose of sharp sand.
My armpits clearly aren’t very good at securing fly rods. After spending the better part of an hour stripping down, thoroughly cleaning, and rebuilding a reel after yet another fumble at the beach, I decided enough was enough. It was time to replace my armpit with something more suitable for holding onto a skinny piece of tapered carbon tube. I looked online and saw a couple of gadgets that seemed like they would do a good job.
I had planned to order one, but got distracted by some gardening chores. A bunch of pole beans had gone kind of psycho and needed to be tamed. I grabbed hold of a spool of garden tie wire and got to work. As I wrapped the soft, rubber-coated wire around the plant stems, it occurred to me that the wire might also be a good way to secure a fly rod. I quickly forgot about the beans, fetched a fly rod and donned waders. About 50 percent of my “great” ideas turn out to be useless. Thankfully, this one wasn’t.
Cut off an 8 to 12 inch section of tie wire. Twist one end around something securely attached to your anatomy, like the suspenders or belt of your waders. Spiral wrap the other end around your rod. I found that a few turns of wire around the rod blank or cork grip (depending on the rod’s balance point) secured everything from a dainty little 4-weight trout rod to my heavy-artillery 7-weight double-hander and large-arbor reel combo. You can also run the stuff through the first stripping guide — just make sure that doesn’t put your reel underwater.
The gardening section of your local hardware store should be able to supply you with a lifetime’s supply of “rod-holding wire” for about five dollars. Alternatively, you can use gear ties that feature a grippy rubber coating and a strong internal wire. They will set you back about five dollars, too. Fly-fishing gear ain’t cheap. . . .
