It is currently 28 Mar 2024, 18:23


Previous  1, 2, 3  Next New Topic Add Reply
Author Message
Post 01 Jun 2016, 09:16 • #26 
Sport
Joined: 05/16/12
Posts: 29
Location: AB, Canada
Sorry to dredge up an old post, but I have a few questions. I recently picked up a rio trout max 200gr and some 5ft polys for my 686. I really wanted a opst head, however they are back ordered and about $30 more expensive. I took it to the river a few nights ago and had a lot of fun tossing a big circus peanut.

I need to practice as I found that I was blowing my anchor quite often. I have watched all the opst videos, and was are you suppose to have have a portion of the head in the guides, or do you want it just outside of the tip top? Rewatching the videos seem to show maybe 6-12" of shooting line outside the rod, but it's tough to tell.

Any help is greatly appreciated.


Top
  
Quote
Post 01 Jun 2016, 11:29 • #27 
Guide
Joined: 04/09/14
Posts: 173
Location: US-MN Driftless region, western Lake Superior
Im running a 200gr OPST on my 6 wt 8ft WM All American. Similar to what you have. I slow down so the anchor can set, but its still one fluid motion, I don't actually stop in a Skagit cast. I am also using a 10ft poly (int sink) and 4 ft mono leader.
I noticed when I blow an anchor I just need to slow down, weather using SH or DH rods. Hope that helps.


Top
  
Quote
Post 01 Jun 2016, 16:01 • #28 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 12/27/14
Posts: 1501
Location: ON, Canada
Yep. First try slowing waaay down.
Next try lengthening your tippet so you have just a little more 'stick'
Finally if the above doesn't work for you switch to a longer (7 or 10ft) polyleaders or tip.


Top
  
Quote
Post 02 Jun 2016, 13:00 • #29 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 10/12/06
Posts: 1184
Location: US-CA
I find this topic fascinating and enjoy all the comments. I fish using the Skagit style, constant motion/water contact, casts as well as more traditional two-handed casts when fishing West Coast rivers. I have never been inclined to take that casting style to my trout rivers. I do use single handed spey casts, with a DT floating line and WF's.
As others have already stated in using a Skagit style approach, slow down, "the sweep" will lift all the line you have to, to preform the cast.
Without getting to technical, lift, into a sweep, too your firing position, forward cast, it's really a short stroke. The biggest change is there is NO STOP(into your forward cast) but a constant motion (accelerate into your firing position, but not very fast) into the forward cast. It's not acceleration into a stop, but more a constant motion into a change of direction(forward). The rod tip usually never travels behind your head, but is maintained just off your casting shoulder. Controlling the rod tip path is my key. I hope this is an adequate description of the casting stroke and of some help. The casting stroke is a description of what I do after I have placed my anchor.
Anchor placement is accomplished using many techniques. Good luck, good fishing.
Respectfully rvreclus


Top
  
Quote
Post 02 Jun 2016, 23:08 • #30 
Sport
Joined: 05/16/12
Posts: 29
Location: AB, Canada
Thanks everyone for your help. I switched from old running line to big game mono and it shoots much better. I went out again tonight and I am improving using your advise. I made some longer leaders to add to my polys and that helped, as I didn't blow as many anchors.

I still have lots of work to do on casting. I slowed down as everyone suggested but I still don't feel that I load the rod enough. I keep reading and hearing to make everything compact. I have a tendency to raise my casting arm too high in the sweep. When I held on to the but of my rod, my distance improved. Lots to learn, but this is really fun. Had a few guys looking at me sideways trying to figure out how I was getting my flies to the middle of the run when they were tangled in the trees.


Top
  
Quote
Post 09 Dec 2016, 04:53 • #31 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 02/10/07
Posts: 1632
Location: The Netherlands
After reading Colt's adventure I decided to jump in too!

The last day I ordered three heads: 150, 200 and 250 grains. And two Lazer line 25 lbs.
I'll need some polyleaders in various styles too.
I intend to try/use them on #3 (Barclay), #5/6 (Steffen) and a #3 glass switch rod (Anglers Roost blank).

I doubt I'll be testing them any soon as winter is about to arrive and I hate casting out in the cold :) Kinda like the idea to cast deer hair sculpins on (ultra) light rods.

Anymore testing done by other members so far?

Image


Last edited by ibookje on 10 Dec 2016, 12:22, edited 1 time in total.

Top
  
Quote
Post 09 Dec 2016, 12:36 • #32 
Master Guide
Joined: 02/07/11
Posts: 750
Location: US-IL
Ibookje,

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts. I thought the 175 grain worked best on my 5/6wt. glass rods. I would like to get the 150 grain, and I would imagine that you will find that the 150 grain works well on your Barclay 3wt. and maybe even your Steffen 5/6wt. I discovered that I'm a horrible spey caster. It's a lot of fun when I finally make a really good cast, but I haven't been able to master the process of loading the rod properly.

Colt


Top
  
Quote
Post 09 Dec 2016, 12:50 • #33 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 09/18/14
Posts: 1367
Location: Pleasant Garden, North Carolina
I use a 200 grain OPST head on my 686. I'm definitely still learning but it's fun. I'll be very interested to see how your 3wt does with the 150gr head...


Top
  
Quote
Post 09 Dec 2016, 17:30 • #34 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 12/27/14
Posts: 1501
Location: ON, Canada
I agree with the above - I'm finding I pretty routinely like 2 line weights under OPSTs single hand recommendations (ie what they rec for a 5wt I like on a glass 7wt). My most successful combos are a 200 + polyleaders on my Epic 686, and a 250 + light mows on my 7/8wts (FF807 and Lami SLF102 7/8F).

I also have a 150, and I find that it's too heavy for my Epic 376, at least for my taste. I prefer the 150 on my Steffen 4/5, but even then it's a little heavy.

Actually, if you're thinking of trying this stuff on a glass 3wt, here's an idea I've been meaning to try: before dropping the $65 or whatever on a head, try using a Rio floating MOW or regular tip as a mini head. The medium floating MOW tip is 10ft and 120gr. I bet it would work great as a skagit head on a 7 or 7.5 foot glass 3wt. And the 15 ft 9 and 10 wt tips would be good scandis.

And they're a lot cheaper to try!

(Ps - I'm not a good spey caster yet either, especially single handed. I think it's too easy to make your strokes too big. Working on it. )


Top
  
Quote
Post 10 Dec 2016, 05:43 • #35 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 02/10/07
Posts: 1632
Location: The Netherlands
I ordered the heads using the table shown on the OPST site.
I'll try the 150 first on several rods to figure out how they react.
I can always send the one(s) back I don't use.

Steve Godshall made me a Scandi head for the 3 weight switch rod that's 225 grains.


Top
  
Quote
Post 10 Dec 2016, 14:42 • #36 
Master Guide
Joined: 12/23/15
Posts: 654
Location: Texas bound
I find that the 200 grain Rio Skagit Max Short fishes well on a variety of my rods. I fish it on my Prime 5 weight, and my CGR 7/8. It may be a tad heavy on the Prime 5. I fish this same line on a G Loomis GLX 9' 5 weight carbon rod and get a bit more distance than the softer glass rod. I originally got this line to fish on a 12' 2/3 switch rod I built from an Angler's Roost IM6 blank.

I've been running 25lb Berkley Big Game hi viz for my shooting line.

If you have an old heavy weight fly line laying about - you can chop it up and experiment. A scale that does grams or grains is helpful.

I made short shooting heads for my graphite 2 weight, and my glass 4 weight from an old #8 DT floater - I cut two scandi-like heads from the ends - differing the lengths to see how they reacted, and I cut some level heads from the belly sections. THe biggest issue I ran into on the light weight rods is that the guides are a bit too small for a non-integrated head sometimes, and I've found that the head to running line connection snags in the guides sometimes.

I really like the shooting head setup for streamer fishing and swinging wets, and have been playing with skating dry flies by running the floating polyleaders as tips, with short, stout mono tippets. It's real fun to skate up a trout and watch the surface grabs, not quite like a bass hoovering a popper off the surface, but usually way more violent than one casually sipping a dead drifted dry fly.


Top
  
Quote
Post 10 Dec 2016, 17:33 • #37 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 02/10/07
Posts: 1632
Location: The Netherlands
brockton wrote:
I also have a 150, and I find that it's too heavy for my Epic 376, at least for my taste. I prefer the 150 on my Steffen 4/5, but even then it's a little heavy.


Do you mean when using roll or spey casting of when casting overhead?
When overhead casting (actually one back cast and then delivery cast) it should feel (too) heavy since the AAFTA line weight for a #3 line is 100 grains and the OPST 150 is between a regular #5 and 6 line.

As they say a spey fly line and a regular fly line has this 'rule of three' difference.
So a 3 weight spey fly line has about the same weight of a #3 regular fly line plus 3 equals a regular 6 weight fly line.


Top
  
Quote
Post 11 Dec 2016, 09:00 • #38 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 12/27/14
Posts: 1501
Location: ON, Canada
I mean even when skagit and roll casting it feels heavy to my taste. It works certainly, but Im pretty sure I could go with a lighter head if they made one. Which is how the idea to try the 120gr MOW tip as a head came up.

Admittedly, I'm lately enjoying lighter heads more and more on all my rods, so this probably reflects that. I've gone from heads in the 500-540 range on my Epic DH11 down to 425-475. I'm sure this says something about my casting but I'm not sure what.


Top
  
Quote
Post 11 Dec 2016, 11:10 • #39 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 02/10/07
Posts: 1632
Location: The Netherlands
Well that's the confusing with double handed casting and lines.
It's very personal which rod & line weight (in grains) you feel most comfortable.

At least it's fun to discover :)


Top
  
Quote
Post 02 Jan 2017, 20:54 • #40 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 03/28/07
Posts: 1006
Location: US-TX
(this is mostly a response to b-line's post)

With these ultra short skagit heads, I have to really slow down the "rip" until it is more of a slow drag. Any attempt to build up power will blow the anchor. The line shoots best when I keep my elbows pinned to my sides, and there's really no effort involved. Adding 2-3 feet of overhang (shooting line outside the tip) also helps to prevent blown anchors.

The Skagit Revolution video recommends raising the rod to 30 degrees first, then sweeping horizontally. I find this pulls the entire head out of the water. I prefer to sweep the rod at a lower diagonal angle into the final shooting position.


Last edited by bassackwards on 03 Jan 2017, 13:43, edited 1 time in total.

Top
  
Quote
Post 02 Jan 2017, 21:11 • #41 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 09/18/09
Posts: 5561
Location: Relocated to the Drought Stricken West.
Just thinking about this, OPST's recommendations are going to be for graphite rods. The glass rods are going to flex more and so don't take (can't handle) quite as much weight.

I've taken the up two handers (Scandi and Skagit) and it takes a bit of time to get the feeling of it. However I do feel like it is half a step away from casting a spinning rod and not as convenient.

Carl


Top
  
Quote
Post 03 Jan 2017, 13:54 • #42 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 03/28/07
Posts: 1006
Location: US-TX
The OPST recommendations are lighter than conventional grain windows for 2-handed rods. Their recommendations for single handed rods are almost as heavy as the same weight spey rod. That doesn't quite make sense to me, since the spey ratings are 3 line weights heavier than single handed rods.


Top
  
Quote
Post 03 Jan 2017, 18:12 • #43 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 12/27/14
Posts: 1501
Location: ON, Canada
bassackwards wrote:
The OPST recommendations are lighter than conventional grain windows for 2-handed rods. Their recommendations for single handed rods are almost as heavy as the same weight spey rod. That doesn't quite make sense to me, since the spey ratings are 3 line weights heavier than single handed rods.


it's because the shorter the head is compared to the rod length, the lighter the head can be. Same basic reason the AFTMA standard for a 7wt short belly spey is 470gr, while a 7wt long belly needs 650 gr. both are a little over 8gr per foot of line.

At least that's how I understand it. The OPST heads are super short and have much more mass per foot of line than either of the above examples - their rec for a 7wt spey is 325gr at 15 feet. That's over 21gr per foot.


Top
  
Quote
Post 14 Feb 2017, 17:34 • #44 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 06/21/06
Posts: 3081
Location: Orygun
I'm curious what you ended up going with, Colt.

A little update on my OPST experimentation. Previously, I had the 350gr that I use with my 7wt Echo glass switch and my Epic Bandit. This year, I purchased the 300gr to use with my Steffen 8wt...(sad sad story on the Steffen, I fell down an embankment while winter steelheading and broke the butt section---by the sound it made I thought I had broken something on me real bad, thankfully not, but I was still in absolute shock when I looked at my rod, luckily, Mark is quite accommodating with these types of things)...at any rate, I decided to try out the 300gr on my Bandit. All I can say is WOW. I like it just as much as the 350gr, perhaps slightly better. I threw on a 7.5' T-14, 3' 15lb fluoro, and a 2.5" Dolly Llama and it was throwing lasers on the small stream I was fishing (at least when I was fishing river right, where I could do my snap-T and cast over my right shoulder--off-shoulder? forget about it, I almost gave myself a couple new piercings).

I also picked up a 175gr head for use with my Lami 4wt. I don't doubt that it'll work well with that rod, but I'm also looking forward to trying it out on my 8' Steffen 5/6, with a short section of T-8, I think it'll absolutely sing.


Top
  
Quote
Post 14 Feb 2017, 18:25 • #45 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 12/27/14
Posts: 1501
Location: ON, Canada
clarkman23 wrote:
I'm curious what you ended up going with, Colt.

A little update on my OPST experimentation. Previously, I had the 350gr that I use with my 7wt Echo glass switch and my Epic Bandit. This year, I purchased the 300gr to use with my Steffen 8wt...(sad sad story on the Steffen, I fell down an embankment while winter steelheading and broke the butt section---by the sound it made I thought I had broken something on me real bad, thankfully not, but I was still in absolute shock when I looked at my rod, luckily, Mark is quite accommodating with these types of things)...at any rate, I decided to try out the 300gr on my Bandit. All I can say is WOW. I like it just as much as the 350gr, perhaps slightly better. I threw on a 7.5' T-14, 3' 15lb fluoro, and a 2.5" Dolly Llama and it was throwing lasers on the small stream I was fishing (at least when I was fishing river right, where I could do my snap-T and cast over my right shoulder--off-shoulder? forget about it, I almost gave myself a couple new piercings).

I also picked up a 175gr head for use with my Lami 4wt. I don't doubt that it'll work well with that rod, but I'm also looking forward to trying it out on my 8' Steffen 5/6, with a short section of T-8, I think it'll absolutely sing.


Your experience parallels mine, Clarkman. I keep going lighter and lighter with the OPST heads. There's less 'feel' to the cast, but somehow the casts keep getting better. It's a little bit of a leap of faith.

I need to play with the Bandit rig more and shorten the tips as you describe above - I've used it with a 350, 10' med MOW tips, and 3' of Tippet and had a hard time getting the T11 out of the water. The Bandit is just so short! I'm kinda waiting for the 5' OPST tips to come out.

Can't wait to build out my Steffen 7/8 and try it with the 250. But weirdly my favourite combo for the rivers I get to most is the 350gr on a 9'3" Fenwick 1093 with the 6" fighting butt.


Top
  
Quote
Post 14 Feb 2017, 19:52 • #46 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 06/21/06
Posts: 3081
Location: Orygun
Brockton, yeah, I had been using 10' tips and was having a tough time even with T-8, but once I started shortening them, it made things really easy (almost too easy) & I could jack up the weight on the tips as well.

next step: try the 300gr out on the switch...


Top
  
Quote
Post 14 Feb 2017, 20:08 • #47 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 12/27/14
Posts: 1501
Location: ON, Canada
clarkman23 wrote:
Brockton, yeah, I had been using 10' tips and was having a tough time even with T-8, but once I started shortening them, it made things really easy (almost too easy) & I could jack up the weight on the tips as well.

next step: try the 300gr out on the switch...


That's good to hear - I need to play with them on the Bandit again.

I use the 350 on my Epic DH11 and RetroGlass 11'9" 7wt and I'm sure I could go lighter on both. I bet the 300 will work on the Echo. I think the combo of the super short heads and glass' huge grain window makes it pretty hard to go wrong.


Top
  
Quote
Post 14 Feb 2017, 20:49 • #48 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 06/21/06
Posts: 3081
Location: Orygun
brockton wrote:
clarkman23 wrote:
I think the combo of the super short heads and glass' huge grain window makes it pretty hard to go wrong.


yep, one of the many things I love about fishing glass...plus, it's fun to experiment anyway.


Top
  
Quote
Post 17 Feb 2017, 17:30 • #49 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 06/21/06
Posts: 3081
Location: Orygun
I just keep coming back to this thread...so much good info in here that is glass-specific.

On Sunday I'll be taking my Bandit back out with the 300gr head. I have swapped out the Big Game running line back to Amnesia (last trip) and now back to Frog Hair (I've used all in the past and keep rotating between them trying to figure out which I like best...jury's still out).


Top
  
Quote
Post 18 Feb 2017, 01:51 • #50 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 12/27/14
Posts: 1501
Location: ON, Canada
I'm still on coated running lines. Not into the mono thing yet.


Top
  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  

Previous  1, 2, 3  Next New Topic Add Reply



Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Jump to:  
Google
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group