Ultralight in the salt - anybody interested?

[William Ewels]

Not to discount the incredible effort and exploits of dedicated saltwater fly-fishos, but there is a relatively untapped flyfishing opportunity that is easily accessible to everyone without huge travel costs, guides, specialised gear, etc ... it's salty ultralight

The rods I'm using for this caper are:
1) Sage TXL 00wt (my own custom build)
2) CTS Affinity MX 1wt (my own custom build)
3) Dan Craft FT 2wt (my own custom build)
4) Explorer Guide series 3wt
... but any lightweight troutie outfit will work if you take care to clean it well after salty use

Key flies in #8 - #12:
1) salty bugger (f'n brilliant south african pattern)
2) surf candy
3) fuzzel fish (aussie patern)
4) salty BMS (aussie pattern)
5) bread fly (ag sies man!)
6) weed fly (ag nee man!)

A couple of months ago I bought an Explorer 000wt click drag reel from the guys at Eikendal - man this reel has been getting some work hanging off my 1wt

[William Ewels]

Some more ultralight pics:

[William Ewels]

In case you're not convinced

[Michael]

Can't see the pics, says "to view, registed at imageshack..." bla bla bla

[William Ewels]

Can't see the pics, says "to view, registed at imageshack..." bla bla bla

Oh bummer! Let me see what I can do about that.
Can you see this?

[Michael]

Oh bummer! Let me see what I can do about that.
Can you see this?

Yeah thumbnails are fine. Why not attach all of the pics as you did now?
Would love to see all the photo's!

[William Ewels]

Almost forgot ... the 00wt get's in on the action too

[Conrad Botes]

That's really awesome William. Those little tuna must really rev you quite a bit.

During the Cape winter, when fishing in saltwater is usually very quiet, I love catching blacktail on light saltwater gear. I typically use a 5wt Bomber (fast action) to cast into wind, but sometimes also my TFO 3wt. Great fun!

The blacktail venture into very skinny water and you can sight cast to them. They're a bit like your bream by the looks of it.

[William Ewels]

Conrad, great pics thanks for chiming in and bringing back memories for me. I grew up fishing light tackle on the Natal and Transkei coasts for blacktail and all the other gully species - wish I'd thought of using flies on them back then.

Now I'm on a mission to catch 100 species on the Dan Craft FT 2wt (quite a beast of a 2wt but it's up to the task) - only one third of the way to my target so I'm really interested in blacktails and their friends. I travel to Somerset West about once a year to visit my old folks. Are the blacktails a winter prospect in False Bay?

Another thing - I'm just starting to get into weedfly techniques. The weedflies are made with olive green ice dubbing - and sometimes brighter greens or even browns depending on local weed. Fished into washes with a short sinktip looped to a floating line. There are guys who fish weedfly over here in Aus off ocean rocks with phenomenal success for weed eating species. We are just getting into the season for this method - I'll post more info on this when I have it worked out a bit better. I have a suspicion that fish such as hottentot and bronze bream could also be prime targets for this technique.

[Andre]

Nice thread, I'm glad to see that other guys are experiencing the fun around light tackle. I believe that ultra light tackle fishing is a little misunderstood. I posted some stuff a while back about catching yellowfish on light rods, between 000wt and 3wt, and the guys almost lynched me around the ethics of catching bigger fish on light tackle. it will be interesting to see if the same guys come forward to lynch you guys, or they have changed their tune in the meantime.
Anyway, nicely done....