Boneheads 2014

[DNYE]

Count me in Gav!

[MichaelG]

Having had a fly rod for all of a week I would be keen on this trip if there is a spot available

[GDay]

There will be a spot available so suggest you get your deposit paid to lock it in.

[MichaelG]

Deposit Paid

Will be taking my XR6 up if anyone needs a lift and wants to share fuel costs shoot me a message


i plan to do the run all in one day

[Ross Italiano]

Chief

Put me down tentavely...just has to make sure it lines up inmy offswing

[Martin Kuhn]

Gav,
Put me down for a tentative as well.
Things might be changing on the work front so can't lock in leave at this stage.
Cheers
Martin

[Stephen Winsor]

ill be popping down for a couple of days fishing but I doubt ill be staying longer than 4-5days as Im going to be busy with work. Itll be more of a catch up & shit talking session for me! if you cant catch fish (like me).. may aswell talk BS! and im very good at that!

[MichaelG]

So getting excited for this trip but would like a few tips

I have a 10w rod and reel I'm taking up with Scientific Anglers Streamer Express 300gr line on it

I am wondering since Ill be land based what line would you recommend and what leader strength should I be running?

[DNYE]

I mostly used my intermediate and a floating with intermediate tip last time and it seemed to work well.

I fished with 60/30/20 with 20lb tippet and 60/40/30 with 30lb tippet tapered and also twisted leaders with success on all three.

At the end of the day it all depends what type of fishing you will be doing and where, you just want to make sure you pick the correct line and fly so you have as much contact with the fly as you possibly can so when you get that nice big take you can set the hook nicely

Personally I hate stripping baskets as I can never get them to work so I mostly used a floating with intermediate tip land based and alternated between clousers of different weights (olive over white always produced, cheers Gav!) and surface flys, it was a bit of a dud year last year i'm told but I still manage to catch some cool fish, and all of them were land based!

Don't be shy to get out the lighter gear too, I had a bloody ball catching small reef species walking the exposed reefs on one of the islands on low tide on my 10wt, but it would have been heaps more fun with a 6wt

[Hirdy]

I just returned from a few days up there (fishing with my son and with Gael from our yaks).

I have to agree with DNYE: the 6wts were the most fun. Gael and I spent a fair amount of time bothering trevs, queenies, bream and mangrove jacks (and I got a bastard) with our 6wts. I had so much fun that I'm now building a 6wt especially for Boneheads in September.

The leader design will be more specific to the fly you're using and the line you're running than to the fish you are chasing. Choose a leader that turns over the fly you're using nicely with or without a splash (sometimes a splash is good to attract attention.)

On the 6wt, I was using a 6wt Rio Bonefish line with a furled FC leader of 6' and a 4' tippet of 14lb FC. That was turning over Size 2 and 4 shrimpy-looking clousers nicely.

On the 10wt rods, the floating line had a 6' furled Nanofil leader and 3' of 20lb nylon tippet for poppers and deceivers. The WF10F/I line had a 6' triwsted FC leader and 3' of 20lb or 16lb FC tippet for size 2 and 1/0 clousers.

If I thought something toothy might be around, I had 40lb FC to add as a bite tippet.

But as I said earlier: my leaders were chosen to match the flies. Other styles of leader (eg knotted 60/30/20) would have worked quite well too.

Cheers,
Graeme