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Lines for the Oceana 9/10?

3K views 30 replies 5 participants last post by  peter-s-c 
#1 ·
More time I spend with the cheapo lines I bought, the less I like them (too heavy).

What have Oceana 9/10 users found to work well?
 
#2 ·
skagit 450 with a floating tip for overhead and spey casting in the surf.

10wt outbounds relieved of thier running lines with the aurflo tactical running used instead.

The rod is a different animal than the big atlantis , do not hit it hard and it goes and goes.

-sean
 
#3 ·
Interesting comment re: don't push it hard

The first time on the water was with a small fly and an Airflo 28' head that weighed in at 355 grains (AFTMA 12 weight country @ 28'). My cheapo lines are 475 and 490 -- probably a tad lighter than a Skagit 450 plus floater tip. The first time out with the floater cheapo, I had a quartering tailwind + a fluffy, laid out nice gentle casts and got decent distance. Next time with the intermediate cheapo, I have a headwind + a big, heavy fly, tried to drive it into the wind and all sorts of ugliness resulted. I could've cast my single hander 10 wt. the same distance.

The Outbound I tried at the Salmon River clave seemed to be a nice fit, but that was with a fluffy and no wind.
 
#4 ·
Peter -

That rod was fit with a 10wt Intermediate Outbound which I feel is a good 'easy stroke' fit for the rod. The floater and fast sink have a different feel as is the case with any line.

The reason I think Sean suggested the running line replacement was that one fishes better than the other in the field, meaning an intermediate running line with a bit of mass stays put in the basket better than a thin floating running line in wind and the mayhem that arises when the big fish are in.

And they were in last weekend. And the floating line tangled but that was about the windiest day where beach fishing was possible, any more and it would be time to duck and cover.

The next day I went with the big gun. It provided the beach superiority I needed and I hooked fish from about 75% or more of the opportunities that arose despite even worse conditions than Sat with steady wind gusting over 30mph making it hard to walk. I used the Airflo 40+ beach line on the big Atlantis and the Rio Outbound in 14wt fast sink (600 gr) which is heavy for the rod but again with a relaxed stroke it casts itself.
 
#5 ·
I have the 40+ for the 11/12 as well.

The 9/10 is giving me that "deja vu all over again" feeling. I had an 11 wt. before that was fussy to cast, needed a light stroke, and wouldn't tolerate pushing. The butt section seemed too stiff for the rest of the rod so that when loaded up, the mid and upper sections were pushed too hard and the butt wasn't doing its fair share. When I dropped the line weight, the rod came alive and was easy to cast as the butt was now no longer needed -- the mid and upper sections were adequate to cast the lighter line.

When I get home tonight, I'll try some lighter heads to see if the same thing is occuring on the Oceana as well. I did notice that with my heavy cheapos, the butt wasn't bending much and my normal casting stroke usually bends the butt sections pretty well.
 
#6 ·
I'm not sure if any changes since the atlantis but the 9/10 delivers the extra distance best while whispering the 'lead before speed' mantra. The finish is important with that match-up (10wt outbound) where the upper arm should maintain the path of acceleration into the release and the bottom hand should honor that as it comes upward to the armpit.

Did you measure the head length on that 40+? Quite a running line eh?
 
#7 ·
juro said:
I'm not sure if any changes since the atlantis but the 9/10 delivers the extra distance best while whispering the 'lead before speed' mantra. The finish is important with that match-up (10wt outbound) where the upper arm should maintain the path of acceleration into the release and the bottom hand should honor that as it comes upward to the armpit.

Did you measure the head length on that 40+? Quite a running line eh?
Mine's 33' but Rajeff will swap it for a 35 footer when they finally arrive. Yes the running line is very nice.

Part of my problem is the short, snap Underhand style stroke that I have. With heavier lines it can produce an overload condition on some rods. I often need to underline my other two-handers to get them to perform to my satisfaction. I'll be trying an AFTMA rated 10 wt. this evening to see if that's a better match for me.
 
#8 ·
The shorter head can be helped with leader design although it would probably be longer than you care for in SWFF in order to dissipate and brake the energy enough to suffice. A big fly also parachutes it for you.

In addition to line the rod action and your casting stroke are variables of equal or more influence. However depending on the person and situation sometimes one is easier than the other to change.

IMHO the most adaptive and potentially beneficial is flexibility in your casting stroke. Cheaper too :)

However it can be less satisfying than having the rod, line matchup accomodate you.

One of the benefits of the more supple 9/10 is roll, switch, Skagit and Spey etc. It does take a bit of adjustment to get to the backing consistently every cast with overhead blasts but not overly difficult and it's a pleasant groove to get into where you work little to get a lot over the course of a hard days fishing.
 
#9 ·
juro said:
In addition to line the rod action and your casting stroke are variables of equal or more influence. However depending on the person and situation sometimes one is easier than the other to change.

IMHO the most adaptive and potentially beneficial is flexibility in your casting stroke. Cheaper too :)
Unfortunately, previous bouts with rotator cuff tendenitis precludes any sort of power stroke that requires lots of top hand push. The side benefit has been the development of a low effort, bottom hand oriented stroke that works OK. My LeCie 9/10 needs a "drift 'n' drag" stroke to get it working well and I'll try this evening to see if that'll make a difference on the Oceana.
 
#10 ·
To make matters worse, two of us bought Oceana 9/10s at the same tome however they were labeled 8/9s and so were the rod socks. We were assured that this was just a labeling error but my rod doesn't like the grainage piled on. It even cast my 8 wt. single hander shooting heads that only weigh 255! At best it'll handle an AFTMA 10 wt. line.

The bad news is; my el cheapos won't work on the 8/9 Oceana (probably would on a 9/10) but the good news is; I'm up to my arse in lines for the 11/12 as the el cheapos work great on it (a little light but still great).
 
#12 ·
SSPey said:
I spent a little time using that rod with an Airflo coldwater clear single hand 10 wt line (38' head) - it loaded and fished well - though the running line wasn't nearly as slick as the polyshoot XT.
That's where I'm leaning as well -- an AFTMA 10 wt. single hander line. My 10 wt. floater SH line worked best on it last night with the 10 wt. Airflo SHs being next best.
 
#13 ·
The rods are 9/10 and not 8/9s. It was a labeling error and I have compared the new oceana to my atlantis version and they are the same. It is more than likely the bottom hand pull as you are putting too much energy into it so those lighter lines will serve you well.

Like I said I use a 600 grain line with about 5 feet pulled in so I am probably aeralizing 500 and change. It is effortless and I barely have to do a forward cast to shoot the whole thing. Plus it spey casts pretty well with the whole head outside the guides which is a supreme advantage in the surf.

If you really want the best overhead lines they are the outbounds. Maybe Juro will let you try his out on the cape.

-sean
 
#14 ·
sean said:
The rods are 9/10 and not 8/9s. It was a labeling error and I have compared the new oceana to my atlantis version and they are the same. It is more than likely the bottom hand pull as you are putting too much energy into it so those lighter lines will serve you well.
Good to know -- I was beginning to wonder about the accuracy of the "labeling error" claim.

sean said:
Like I said I use a 600 grain line with about 5 feet pulled in so I am probably aeralizing 500 and change. It is effortless and I barely have to do a forward cast to shoot the whole thing. Plus it spey casts pretty well with the whole head outside the guides which is a supreme advantage in the surf.
Well, that's always been the difference between those who toss massive grainage with a slowly accelerated stroke vs. those who use low grainage with rapid acceleration. It's the same force being used to load the rod, just a different mix of mass and acceleration. The advantage here for high weights is that it works nicely with great big clousers.

When I first cast the el cheapo floater, I had a quartering tailwind so I slowed my stroke and opened up the loop to take advantage of the wind -- went very nicely. When I tried to tighten up the loop with my usuual stroke and drive it into the wind, lots of nasty head crashes and tailing loops ensued as the rod was clearly knuckling under -- classic overload condition. No problem with a SH 10 wt. line though.

sean said:
If you really want the best overhead lines they are the outbounds. Maybe Juro will let you try his out on the cape.

-sean
I found the Outbound to be very nice on it at the Salmon River clave but that was with no wind and no fly. I'll have to spend some time with one before I spend anymore money on lines for this rod.
 
#15 ·
peter-s-c said:
Unfortunately, previous bouts with rotator cuff tendenitis precludes any sort of power stroke that requires lots of top hand push.
Peter,

Sorry to hear about your rotator cuff ailment.

Luckily a "top hand push" is not necessary; when I said "the upper arm should maintain the path of acceleration into the release and the bottom hand should honor that as it comes upward to the armpit" it did not necessarily mean a top hand push using the shoulder but rather adjustment to keep the bottom hand pull within a focused lane (which co-incides with the path of acceleration).

That could be as simple as using the elbow (for fore/aft) without any shoulder action or lowering the hand postion coming forward (like a scandi stroke) or using the hips to rotate slightly to accomodate the arms, rather than the common mistake of making the arms swivel around the body so the body doesn't have to move.

As I know you are a very technical guy, as long as the deflection of the rod loads and unloads in alignment with the path coming from the backcast, and as long as that path remains straight it's an easy and very fishable cast with the 10wt outbound.

Not that you are doing this but pulling hard with the bottom hand while the top hand remains motionless can only result in a radial arc of the rod tip. This pulls the energy out of the focused lane of which I spoke. Even without a push, the back/forth vector in opening the elbow and vertical control helps keep the bottom hand power inside a focused "lane", that is to say keeps it from scribing a circular power path.

You might already know that where an up-down adjustment of the top hand helps direct lower hand power (underhand / scandi style) an outside-in motion assisted by the hips achieves the same result and the two can be combined. You can see a lot of both of these forces in Henrik Mortensen's dvd as well as the short clip at the end of the Rio International VHS. I'll pop in Simon's new DVD to see if there is an in-depth segment over the weekend.

In summary, the point I was trying to make was that strong bottom hand requires some form of compensation of the upper hand (not necessarily a shoulder rotation) to keep the deflection of the rod pulling the path in line. There are many ways to achieve that, and you've named one - going lighter on the line which reduces the rod deflection.
 
#16 ·
The crashing head and tailing thing could also be indicative of too short a head on these rods. 35' heads have problems containg the casting energy one can apply to two handers. Unless you use a huge parachute fly then things will work better. One reason Juro and I went to ~38 heads to help with the crashing problem. Also the 9/10 just cannot be hit hard like the big 11/12. It is a much more sensitive finesse stick. It took me a couple weeks to slow down but now I have not picked up another rod.

I am not understanding the big clousers are able to be thrown better with an underhand stroke. I can throw anything I want on these setup as long as the leader is tuned for it. 600 grains has that effect:)

The difference in styles is one use the blank to do the work while the other is applying a huge downward pull to make up for the fact that they are using less grains. Eacch work and each throw big flys as any proper 9/10 rod should be capable of.

BTW there are already fish all over the cape and from what I saw yesterday the big residents are starting to show. Your yearly cape trip is going to be a good one.

-sean
 
#17 ·
Thanks Juro for your explanation.

I'll try to describe my "normal" stroke as best I can and perhaps you might have some suggestions.

Starts facing the target with top hand foot forward (goofy footed). Smooth lift, then draw back to the backcast stopping point. I then drift the rod back and up by rotating the upper body, making sure the rod tracks straight by letting the hands drift away and up to counter the rotation of the torso. Failing to let the hands drift away would result in hooking the backcast stroke and I do this occasionally.

The power stroke begins with the rotation forward and as the torso squares to the target, I essentially drop my hands downward, pulling through the powerstroke with both hands, finishing with a pronounced snap of the lower hand and a hard stop into the gut. At no time do I ever push the rod (see the Sexyloops discussion on "Are you a pusher or are you a puller.") I'm firmly in the puller camp. If I do this right, I get a very straight tip path, tight loops and a very straight lower leg of the loop (no dipping).

One problem I get into here if I begin the drop of the hands at the same time as the body rotation starts. This opens the loop up and sucks a lot of power out of the cast. The body rotation, a la Mike Maxwell and Henrik Mortensen, creates a slow accelerated preliminary load on the rod that the hand drop and snap speeds up and completes -- makes for a very nice, deep load without the need for heavy grains. I use this casting flaw deliberately at times when I want to open up the loop and slow the stroke down.

When the stroke finishes, my top arm has a 90 degree angle at the elbow and is tucked in close to my side. The bottom hand is in the lower gut.

What I can't do with the rotator cuff problem (both shoulders) is use either top hand to stop the rod. I must use the bottom hand pull into the gut as my means of stopping the rod. BTW, the shoulder problems were work related and not from fishing.

If this all comes together, I get tight loops with high line speed using lighter lines. You may recall watching me cast at the Salmon River clave as you commented on the tight loops and line speed then.

I use this stroke both on my overhead and Spey cast deliveries. However, I've found that some rods don't like this stroke very much unless I really lighten up on the lines and cast just off the top two-thirds of the blank.
 
#18 ·
sean said:
I am not understanding the big clousers are able to be thrown better with an underhand stroke. I can throw anything I want on these setup as long as the leader is tuned for it. 600 grains has that effect:)
You read that backwards, I was agreeing with you that high grain weights work best with big clousers.


sean said:
BTW there are already fish all over the cape and from what I saw yesterday the big residents are starting to show. Your yearly cape trip is going to be a good one.

-sean
Sounds super -- and I thought we had a fantastic trip last season. Can't wait.
 
#20 ·
Nice descriptions and it's possible we are trying to solve a problem that does not exist :)

But here's what I would ask you to try: the "knukle dragger"

Stand near a wall with your backhand knuckles against that wall at casting height, like Bruce Lee backfisting someone to his side.

I already know you can turn and drift, so keeping the knuckles on the wall go back to your stop position at the end of the backcast.

One point there it's important to keep that hand from falling off-line, or come off the wall - and the bottom hand from rising above the height of the casting elbow.

Note that the rotation of the body is critical in keeping the knuckles on the wall.

Next...

Can you bring that hand forward so that the knuckles never leave the wall and scribe a horizontal line far enough to make your bottom hand pull into the gut?

Aside from what you hear from the big dogs, I guarantee you this is a great place to callibrate your cast from - the top hand moves in a straight line along the wall. Don't raise it above your head, down drop it down, just keep it straight. You can tune the other stuff later.

Can you comfortably open the elbow so that the hand never lowers or rises, hooks or doglegs? In other words the knuckles scribe a straight line on the wall?

If not then there are possibly some unnecessary forces on the rod, or else forces that will require a more complicated motion to maintain path of acceleration thru.

the forward cast

Now that you have stabilized your upper hand path, it's a matter of deflecting the rod thru the stroke-to-stop so the path of the line remains true. As you speed up, the rod deflects more. As you stop, it unloads into the release.

Needless to say, you need to speed up to bend the rod more as it comes over the top. Watch the line, it will tell you when you are over/under bending the rod because the line will not remain straight coming over.

If you aim to do this with the bottom hand, great. But in this case the bottom hand must "honor" the path of the upper hand and not pull it down into the gut. Rather it will come to the chest or armpit (abrupt stroke) or the bicep (long stroke).

In general, I find that the Atlantis rods can be easily cast if the line is matched up with the top hand moving thru a linear path and the rod's deflection managed to keep the path straight. Whatever the bottom hand and body needs to do to honor that, just do it.

Because there is so much efficiency in a linear path of acceleration there is very little effort involved. In fact I make the mistake of doing too much more often than not doing enough, 10:1. When a cast just goes without even trying, it's the efficiency that's doing the work not the power.

From there you can then introduce dropping of the arms and stuff but do it for a reason, IMHO. I don't believe in using motions because I heard about them without knowing *why*.

I prefer instead to calibrate to highest efficiency, then adding kickers for understandable reasons.

Might work for you, be glad to show you in person.
 
#21 ·
Thanks for the knuckle dragger test. Just tried it and my top hand does scribe a straight line. I should clarify that when I talk about dropping hands, it's really the bottom hand that's dropping with top going along for the ride. Sometimes I curl the top hand inwards on the last bit of the stroke (knuckles coming off the wall at the end) and the cast finishes with a little flip. As soon I concentrate on keeping the top hand path straight at the end, the little flip goes away.

Your comment about low effort is very true. The higher the efficiency, the longer the cast with the lowest effort. I'm bedeviled by inconsistency simply because I don't get to spend enough time on the water. But when it comes together . . .

We can play around with this on the 9th while we're waiting for those big, striped subs to cruise by.
 
#22 ·
Hope I don't jinx it but not sure we will have much in the way of wait times the way things are shaping up :)

Should be fun.

Just to be clear... in practice there is a drift up as well as back during the time the backcast unravels so in real life it's not so linear. This is to compensate for gravity and time and most importantly it's to keep the path of acceleration (or what will become it) true until the power is applied, thus it's still a matter of honoring the POA; which is the underlying point of all this.

You make an excellent point about the finish. A tip 'curl' whether inward or under or both tucks the bottom leg just under/inside the POA to ensure that you don't get tailing loops or collisions. This makes sure there is a good spin on the wedge as well which improves turnover which helps the line keep on keepin on.

It's a beautiful thing, the fly cast.
 
#23 ·
OK I am never going to get the weekend started unless I finish my work but...


I have to mention something Sean enlightened me to on the water the other day. He was using a longer floating head on the 9/10 and I was using a shorter intermediate head which required shooting of line.

The fish were running unusually close and the conditions were such that running line was a liability - winds that could knock us over, waves that were horrendous to deal with, messy balls of yarn in the baskets.

Sean was very effectively covering the fish using the stability of the fatter, longer and easy to maneuver floating head while I had to deal with shooting line problems much of the time in those conditions. On one particular pod of big fish I began to cast and stopped when a huge mass of tangled running line hit my strip hand. The pod passed unmolested and Sean snake rolled the floating head into action and it had plenty of distance to tempt a keeper bass to strike.

The enlightenment was that sometimes when conditions are really bad it can be just as good or better to adopt a more stable head section, like a Spey style head, and use control than to try to tame running line with a wind-piercing short shooting head.

In fact it made me think that a 65, 75 or even longer head and NO shooting might be the most effective way to cover cruising fish in certain situations. Of course I am aware of this in typical current flows and estuaries but we are talking chaotic wind and surf here.

It also made me think about intermediate spey lines and how they might fare with their wave cutting ability and more direct presentation in deeper water.

Of course when the fish are cruising far out then there would still be a shooting need, but this is minimized to something that is much more manageable in bad conditions.

It's not an all-purpose use of the two-hander, sometimes you need to get very far and very deep like in a riptide and diameter is a liability in the current if you are trying to fish the bottom contour in large volume flow, which is a great way to catch giant stripers.

However the revelation was that even in surf, sometimes the characteristics of the head alone can provide what the shooting head config can not much like a double taper can provide great control within it's range.

I will be adding a long belly line on an extra spool to my backpack.
 
#24 ·
Hmmm -- just remembered that I have a clear intermediate DT-10-I . . .

Wonder how those nice, finely tapered Spey lines would manage big, ugly clousers? :roll: Use of those lines would limit the angler to something that's not so big and ugly, I would think.

Also, lifting a lot of belly off the water with 11' is a lot different than lifting it off with 15'. Is this the place for something a lot longer? Have 15 footer, will travel.
 
#25 ·
Peter I would not want to be caught in heavy surf with a 15 footer. Would not be much fun. I do have some 12' 6" rods coming from meiser to try out would sound like they will be perfect.

My head was 43' + 10' leader so no problem on a 11' rod. The fish were only out 40-60 'and I was shooting a little line at times. It was a rio skagit head with a floating tip but it turned over everything just fine. I was not using clousers that day but have put juros deep eel (witch is clouser like but much better casting) on this setup and it casts fine.

Also a snowbee 65' head cut back 5' does a good job of throwing big flies as does the new cnd lines. THe big fly roblem for me came down to adjusting leaders. I started using butts of 30lb but have upped that to 40-50 and end with 30lb fluoro. That solved the turnover problems.

-sean
 
#26 ·
The reason the deep eel is castable despite metal eyes is balance of materials. The eyes counterweight the 6" of material behind it so it flies horizontally like a dart, which coincidentally has all the metal up front yet flies horizontally. Mark Sedotti who is a casting freak (I mean that in a good way Mark) uses huge bunker flies that are counter-weighted this way to cast a country mile.

One of it's endearing qualities of any favorite sand eel imitation is that it's a castable fly with big fish appeal in surf or flats conditions. So even though it's not a real cast-killer it still catches serious fish.
 
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