Salmon on the Fly.

 

        
Having recovered from a shoulder injury i started back salmon fishing with my new Shakespeare 11 ft Switch 7/8 wt fly rod, i had bought the rod a few weeks ago but with my injury couldn't use the rod and as all anglers was disappointed not being able to try out my new toy. The line i was using was a 6/7 wt shooting head trout fly line with a short front taper but it was able to cast a Rio 3.9 ins per second sink tip and salmon fly with ease, having just started salmon fishing the water had come up by at least 3 ft due to the dam releasing water so the fly was now fishing just under the surface due to the speed of the water where as it had been fishing at about 2 ft down prior to this. I had two fish pitch over the fly as i fished it through the pool so i quickly changed over to a small Scierra bullet type tube fly that i had tied up for high fast water, doing a few experimental casts i was surprised that the line and rod were quite capable of throwing this combination with a bit of effort and tweaking on my behalf.
On moving back over these fish i hit a good salmon of about 12 lbs which shot off down river at a rate of knots but then doubled back on itself and came back towards me keeping up with the fish it then made a second good run and then the line went slack.... every anglers nightmare, on checking the fly i realized that one of the hooks was slightly blunt bad observation on my behalf while tying up the fly i should have checked this but in the excitement of having seen fish come at my fly it was obviously overlooked. That's the difference between catching and fishing just a fraction of a mm can make a good day or a bad day. Changing the hooks i started back through the pool and found that the tube fly was fishing nicely well over a foot down in the fast high water, i felt a short bump followed by a very aggressive take and i was into a nice grilse cartwheeling into the air and zigzagging across the river, it put up a great fight and i quickly beached and released it and the new rod was now christened. A few minutes later a second grilse succumbed to my new tube fly and this was also quickly landed and released, both fish were extremely fresh and had just arrived off tide due to the heavy water bringing them up over the Kingsley weir. The fly line i was using is only an outbound shooting head trout line but even though it was light for the rod i was still able to cover the whole river with a 3.9 ins per second sink tip and a heavy tube fly, i can imagine matching up the rod with a proper line like the Rio Switch fly line or even the Shakespeare Switch line what the rod will be able to do. If i was to make a few changes to the rod i would definitely make it (1) four piece instead of six, (2) shorten it to 10 ft and put an extendable double hand butt on it which would bring it up to a 10 ft 6" rod  when opened then you would have the perfect Switch rod, but for the price it's a good Switch rod. When i can afford the Rio Switch line i will do a video on what to look for in a proper Switch rod / line as there seems to be a lot of issues there considering the number of views i get on my Switch rod post.