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Lines for stripers

1K views 7 replies 5 participants last post by  peter-s-c 
#1 ·
My striper trips have been very limited over the past four years but this coming year I may have more reason for a trip or two to the Cape. I'll be needing a floater and a clear intermediate (the heavy, deep stuff is covered). What's de rigeur on the Cape these days for a clear intermediate? Are people still using full lines or looping heads to running lines?

On my first trips, I used an SA Intermediate that had horrible memory and I don't want to repeat that experience with the next purchase.
 
#3 ·
What Sean said...

Peter...
The Airflo is a good bet...I've had mine for 3 seasons and it's still going strong!

Almost as important as the line...IMHO...a good stripping basket!
If you don't normally use one, I've got something you can borrow. Except for a basket that I put together, the Orvis molded model (pricey) is top shelf. Or you can do the dish pan/cones/bungie drill.
You gotta' have one if you plan on being in the surf or you'll be all tied up in no time!
Trust me!
 
#5 ·
Hi Peter -

Striper angling primarily consists of the intermediate and sinking lines with a floater a third option for most angler's methods. There are the floating line first afficionados but they are a small percentage albeit very pleasurable way of fishing using a flatwing, etc. It applies well to spey rods in the salt as well.

Anyway, if you had one line it should be an intermediate as Sean and Pete have mentioned. This will let you catch fish on the flats, shoreline beaches, estuaries, etc.

That being said, in deeper water or faster currents you should have a sinking head line on an intermediate running line to get the fly into the feeding lanes of big lazy fish. BIG lazy fish that is.

People don't go for loop connections because you strip the line right to the butt when fish are hitting close, and they often do. With a loop you clunk-in and then if you get hit it clunks out. Less than ideal when one extra spool ;) will put you in the either/or situation (intermediate/sinking).

There is a lapse of coverage between the two lines where it doesn't matter, but when it matters it does so by a good margin. That black line causes a whole pod of stripers to detour on the flats, where the intermediate can't get the fly down to the tops of the tidal humps where a submarine is feeding like a nymphing trout on sand eels.

Final answer: get both, and 2 spools for best coverage. If you fish poppers, a bug taper floater is a nice luxury as 3rd option.

.02
 
#7 ·
Thanks folks - an Airflo it is. I'm going to check the loop connections on my heads to see how clunky they are. I have an Airflo running line and the loop on that is pretty smooth. I haven't used the heads in ages, but I think Airflo-to-Airflo is pretty smooth.

Funny about the Albright, but I was having a bit of trouble sleeping last night and remembered that I'll have to dust that one off -- somewhere around mignight. Never thought of fishing knots as a reason for insomnia. FishHawk, do you use it also for the backing knot?
 
#8 ·
juro said:
. . . where the intermediate can't get the fly down to the tops of the tidal humps where a submarine is feeding like a nymphing trout on sand eels.
Oh ya, my submarine story . . .

I'm standing on the edge of a small sandbar as it tails off into deep water, in Pleasant Bay at the end of Fox Hill Road (I think that's the name). I'm trying to reach a tidal rip that's chugging by me like the Niagara. I've got a Loomis 8/9, that crappy SA Intermediate, and these monstrously heavy clousers that I had bought at GH.

I'd cast "upstream", let the line sink, then strip in as it starts to go "downstream". Nada. There's a guy on either side of me about 100' apart, doing the same thing.

The shoulder is done -- I can't stand these clousers anymore, even though they are getting down quite deep, so I tie on a deceiver. Well, not more than 30 seconds after making the switch, a Los Angeles class swims up out of the depths and over the sandbar, "nymphing" as she goes. I cast out the deceiver in a panic, only to see it swim majestically, three feet over the head of the sub. My kingdom for a clouser! I turn to yell to the guy to my left to ready the depth charges only to see that he has given up and is taking down his rod.

Oh well, such is fishing . . .
 
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