Fly Fishing Port O’Connor Texas – More Choices to Make
In the Monday Morning Sidewalk, we touched on flies for fly fishing the jetties at Port O’Connor, Texas. Today, we work our way up the line.
LEADERS
If you’re like me, then you may not have had many opportunities, or any opportunities, for casting at tarpon, jack crevalle and a myriad of other species found somewhere like the jetties near Port O’Connor (casting off a boat in this instance).
In the dogged search for the truth, with unending help from googlefish, it remains obvious that fluorocarbon rules. But we do have the issue of bite, toothy bites. So what is simple elsewhere, becomes a science here. Wire bite tippet, or heavy 40-80 fluorocarbon? A lot of these decisions come on the water because if we find the fluoro too easy to cut – wire is the ultimate next step.
If you are a regular reader, you know I am a bit partial to Seaguar. With no time to spare (ordering from the company), and nowhere near here having any on the shelf, the Cabela’s house brand caught my eye a few days ago when I spied the “Seaguar” name on the spools. It may not be their best (heck maybe it is), but it’s solid fluro in a 60#.
Formula? There as many opinions on leader formulas for big fish (say tarpon) leaders as there are fly fishers with big saltwater experience. From all I can gather, these leaders are where you want to a) tie in failure, or b) tie in a weight class if you’re chasing records. As much as I don’t want to lose any fish to breakage, something’s got to give. I certainly want to hear from you on this, but here’s how I am starting out:
Nine feet at 25#
Three feet at 60# (bite)
I don’t see any reason for complicating things unless or until they require it. With a knot from 25 to 60, that should be the break point. Wouldn’t it be fun to actually have to think about these things on the water! Again, even every knot on a tarpon leader has a cult-like fan club. It’ll be loop-to-loop to the fly line, and either a surgeon’s or another loop connection at the bite. I do want to take a look at Steve Huff’s Double Figure 8 Loop Knot mentioned at this website – http://www.saltwaterexperience.com/Tarponsystem.htm, and see what that’s all about.
Because of what we are hearing about the coast (the usual smacks tearing everything up), and we’re hearing that the coast is “on fire” with fishing, we decided to heavily stock up on wire leader material and just about every spool of fluorocarbon is duplicated.
I can never recall anything like what I am hearing about the fishing on the Texas Gulf Coast right now, and all I can do is stop talking about it before I jinx it for us!
NEXT TIME – SINKING FLY LINES
So going deep, and offshore? What kind of fly line stands a chance in those conditions? What kind of fly line do I need for dropping bombs on these fish? Well, I picked one up today at Tailwaters, and I will tell you about that one as well as other options and how to attach your fly line to your reel for this particular setup.
