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GL Chinook & CND Atlantis

1K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  sean 
#1 ·
Been meaning to do this for a while but today was the first time I went chasing chinook with the Atlantis. I've tried a 13' - 8 wt. but handling it at short range when sight fishing to chinook in the riffles, proved to be a real pain. I wanted to use a two-hander to exploit the leverage of the grip when fighting these strong fish but I didn't need the overall length.

Well, despite not hooking any today (no recent rain = few fish), the Atlantis + Beach line combo was up to the short range casting challenge -- a perfect compromise between length and leverage.
 
#2 ·
Which beach line did you use? Curious, would a floater provide the best control in tight quarters?

I used to live near tidewater on a Puget Sound river and had many memorable big chinook encounters over the years - they are a force to be reconed with!
 
#3 · (Edited)
Airflo Beach line intermediate. I forgot one thing though when I started today. I used to fish floaters, a short leader + a weighted fly and or splitshot to get the fly down while keeping the line up. I fish the riffles, looking for chinook in depressions. The fly needs weight to get into the depression but I don't want the line sinking too far as I could foul hook the fish or flush it out of the depression should the line make contact with it. The intermediate stayed about the right height but my frst attempt at the sole chinook around ended up with the unweighted fly running way too high. Ended up with some float rod guy deliberately snagging the damn thing while I was some distance away busy digging in the satchel for some shot. Looked to be about a 20 pound hen. Took off like a rocket when the guy snagged it. Such is GL chinook fishing.

The Airflo Beach line + Atlantis turns out to be a damn fine short range spey casting outfit -- worked great. I'm tempted to try it with the Airflo Skagit line next -- a short bit of T-14 would help with the "fish in depressions" thing.
 
#4 ·
I plan to use the same rod and line for chinook this fall. Had been waiting to hear the word that the head length/weight issues in the first release of lines was fixed. Last I heard, they were still not on the shelves (the actual 38 foot heads, that is). The first Beach lines I tried had shorter heads than the specs stated. I plan to get the 9 sink for the deep runs where the standard setup is a 9 weight and 30 foot fast sinking head and the floater for using poly leaders in shallower waters.
 
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