Baby snapper and some salmon.....

[MattGoodall]

Went on a kayak mission with some mates down walpole. Paddled from nornalup boat ramp down the river out too the mouth of the inlet too camp from the kayaks for 2 days... It was epic too say the least.......

Set up camp and out on the water for a fish... Was so nice too have the mouth of the inlet crystal clear.. There was plenty of big bream which were very hard too tempt with a fly... Plenty of skippy and big herring...... ended up hooking a baby snapper on fly... and when i got the depth and retrieve right it was one after another at this reefy hole. Which was awesome fun on the 3/4 wt...... No salmon sighted on this trip but was an awesome weekend eating fresh fish and washing it down with some port around a fire

Went out yesterday for a quick fly close too town. Got too the spot around 10 too find no one around which is unusual for a saturday... First cast in and out from the reef into the turquoise water was 10 big angry salmon. very dark backs all getting excited from the deciever i through out. second cast and i was on in a big way... they would have easily been 6-7 kg fish and after a few jumps the leader popped. out again and another one on plenty of big jumps and was loosing backing fast than the hook pulled. soon after a seal came and they all disappeared. was a great sign that things are well on their way down here i think i might need too bring the 10 wt out as from the rocks I felt very ungunned with the 7/8 wt( or at least put on more backing than 50m) haha . Seeing salmon smash the surface for ur offerings never gets old

[Tony Ong]

Good report Matt. Good news for those longing for a salmon fix.
Salmon don't run that far. If you're giving them 50 meters of backing, you're not going hard enough.
Jokes aside, 50 meters of backing for salmon would be right on the borderline of being enough.
Do you have room on the reel to fit a little more backing?

[MattGoodall]

Yeh i guess more of a reassurance of having more backing there but yeh they dont normally run alot. Nah not really
with the 7 wt line on there its pushing max, and i just got a 9wt wildfish i wana set up for salmon. Think i need too get another reel Yep cant wait too get into em on fly this year such a great fish.....

[Tony Ong]

What are you using as backing. If it's currently Micron or Dacron, you will easily fit 75m of 50lb braid.

[MattGoodall]

Yeh it is dacron which is know is real think just what came with the combo. But yeh i am just about too order a bulk spool from the US. Do u put 50lb braid on most of ur reels or ?? would 30lb be enough ?? like is their a rule with what size wt lines u use a certain lb braid?? cheers

[Tony Ong]

As a rule of thumb 6wt up 50lb backing. 6 wt under 30lb backing (to get more capacity on small reels).
If you're looking at buying a bulk spool, just go 50lb. Bright colours help. Easier to spot/follow than dark/dull colours.
You can use 30lb on the 7wt to get more capacity if you feel you need it.

[Hirdy]

In addition, if you buy a really good quality braid (like TasLine), you can get about 50lb strength out of braid that has the diameter of 30lb stuff. That means you can fit more backing on with some confidence that it's going to be up to the job. (Remember that most fly lines will break between 25 and 35lb, so loading with 50lb is overkill most of the time.)

I've got TasLine 30lb braid that has a test strength of ~48lb on my two 5wt Solitude spools . Each of those spools has 300m of 30lb braid plus about 50m of 50lb to bulk it out. THAT'S what I call OVERKILL!!!

Cheers,
Graeme

[MattGoodall]

Yeh ok cheers guys.... is that more so u definetly wont loose the flyline??
so on a 6 or 7wt u could get away with 30lb but depends on what ur chasing or ??
cheers guys much appreciate it might just get a big spool of 50lb....

[Tony Ong]

30lb if you feel you need more backing capacity. 50lb is easier to manage when fighting a fish. 6-7wt outfit, I generally don't fish much over 16lb tippet. If I need, I'll add a bite tippet. I would rather the class section break rather than the fly line or backing.

[Hirdy]

My use 300m of 30lb backing is due to wishful thinking more than through any pressing need. The chances of me hooking a fish that will run 300m are slim at best, especially since my kayak will be dragged by any decent fish for some distance.

However, one of the reasons I've chosen 30lb line instead of a smaller amount of 50lb line (which would have been cheaper, too) is that I'm using small arbor reels. A fish that takes 100m of 30lb backing will reduce the remaining effective arbor of the reel by less than if it had taken 100m of 50lb line. That means less winding to get the fly line back onto the spool. (I could have used 50lb against the arbor of the spool with a "top shot" of 30lb joined on.)

Cheers,
Graeme