Switch Rod For Large Bull Trout?

[CDone]

Got a chance to try out the both new Beulah Opal surf rod (11' 7/8) and the Mystic (11'3 8wt) on a small Vancouver Island stream for Chum salmon and the odd Coho last weekend, using a short shooting head system developed for Nile Creek fly shop that was perfect for the size of this river (picture Upper Oldman/Crowsnest size). Lots of fish up to 15+lbs and never felt under-gunned and if any of you have targeted Chum salmon you know they can be mean and nasty and destroy a lot of gear. Most fish did come on the swing but stripping did produce the odd one, we we're fishing Epoxy Minnows and the hits were violent to say the least.

 

Chrome female Chum still with sealice.

 

[Dangus]

quite a few ridiculous recommendations in this post! ( 12wt and 1000grains LOL can you sub climbing rope?)

I fish for bulls exclusively with a beulah platinum 6 wt switch (10'4). A 350 skagit head that throws up to 10 feet of t14 tipped with a chicken with lead poisoning. The smallest I've fished with it is about the half the size of the carbondale in low water, ideal is about carbondale or bigger (TBH if you're fishing smaller creeks they're probably spawning anyways and you should F-off). Yes stripping can be a little shitty, but with a shorter rod, your sink tip and shooting head are also more compact. Sometimes if you want to strip all the way in, you have to "dump" your head back out of the guides and do a quick roll cast to set up again. That being said, when you're swinging, fish grab at the apex of the swing or after 3 or 4 strips anyways. Far more efficient and free of those heavy back casts that hook on trees and hit rocks break your dumbells and nick your leader.

 

Yes you'll likely never SH a switch rod. Just think of it as a compact DH.

[kevbine]

I'm using a Scott T3h 11 foot 6 weight with a 275 gr. Commando head and Lazar 35 lbs. running line. You have to pick and choose the right flies for this setup but it will cast some pretty big ones, especially does that shed water better. A good example of this would be a large articulated wooly bugger.

The only problem is that I catch probably 20 or more cutties for every bull that I hook into. Cutties love big streamers too. Make sure to use size 4 or preferably size 6 hooks to not put too much hurt on said cutties.

Also: Commando heads are super short so you need to do a lot of stripping, which is annoying in steelheading but great for trout fishing as a lot of the strikes come on the strip.

[Dangus]

How long are your flies? I find once you hit a true 5-6" fly with a big profile, cutties don't really hit them as much.

[Villageidiot]

quite a few ridiculous recommendations in this post! ( 12wt and 1000grains LOL can you sub climbing rope?)

I fish for bulls exclusively with a beulah platinum 6 wt switch (10'4). A 350 skagit head that throws up to 10 feet of t14 tipped with a chicken with lead poisoning. The smallest I've fished with it is about the half the size of the carbondale in low water, ideal is about carbondale or bigger (TBH if you're fishing smaller creeks they're probably spawning anyways and you should F-off). Yes stripping can be a little shitty, but with a shorter rod, your sink tip and shooting head are also more compact. Sometimes if you want to strip all the way in, you have to "dump" your head back out of the guides and do a quick roll cast to set up again. That being said, when you're swinging, fish grab at the apex of the swing or after 3 or 4 strips anyways. Far more efficient and free of those heavy back casts that hook on trees and hit rocks break your dumbells and nick your leader.

 

Yes you'll likely never SH a switch rod. Just think of it as a compact DH.

 

Yes, looking back, i should retract the ridiculous statement of 1000 grain head. However it was more of an exaggeration because the flies I fish for bulls are true 7-9" long monstrosities, and trying to spey cast them would require some ridiculous set up to get the fly out of the water on the forward cast.

 

I've begun to pursue the switch/compact DH rod for bulls, as there is some mainstems of systems they will work well on. Specifically those with long tailouts/runs that just aren't manageable to fish with a SH (Athabasca, Smokey, North Sask, Lower Oldman, Kootenay, Columbia, Fraser). I will be running my 8110-4 Z-axis with a skagit iShort 575 grain head with 7-10' of t-14 and hopefully devise a fly similar to a bucktail profile that will also swim that is castable and will cover the scenarios. I could not see the need for swinging flies to bulls on rivers like the sheep, elbow, highwood, wig, upper oldman etc. Pressured bigger fish will not like the anchor set up and rip.

 

Edit: I should also note, I got a few bulls swinging sculpins as bycatch swinging for rainbows.

[Dangus]

Then that begs the question, For long tailouts and big runs in wide rivers, do you really need t14? T14 doesn't sink much faster than t11 or t8, it just has the weight to keep a fly down in faster, turbulent flows. I would argue that t8, a sparsely dressed and decently weighted 5-6" fly would not only be successful but more enjoyable to cast at a greater distance.

I really only found the need for t14 in the kootenays during the end of the freshet on the Lower reaches when the runs just started. Once summer rolled around, t8 or less.

Even on heavily fished rivers like the W, the fish didn't seem to mind the rip. In a lot of scenarios (other than the meathole LP confluence), you're 30-40 away from them and reaching down to them with a cast and swing.

Just my thoughts.

[Villageidiot]

I never considered that, but that does make sense. I've always found when water temp is colder the fly needs to be on the bottom if not bouncing on it, almost dead drift. Its rare that i've had bulls rush to chase something when air temps are below 5 degrees celsius. Typically the rivers I fish Nechako, Fraser, Athabasca, Smokey, aren't fishable until late fall, or early spring when the sediment clears and I always thought going to t-14 being the heaviest possible tip would get me the closest to the bottom. But what you've proposed does make sense... Now I have to experiment.

 

That being said, I dont fish the bigger systems come May->Early Aug, instead fishing canyon rivers / secondary streams, where i've never found the switch/spey to be beneficial.

[kevbine]

Yeah I am fishing flies that are about 5 inches long. Longer than that it becomes very difficult to speycast, You could at this point use your same setup and do an overhead cast and bomb huge flies 80 or so feet out there.