Ideal setup?

[Rendier]

Hi guys,

I've never fished for yellowfish before , I know.

What is the ideal setup to fish for yellows in the Vaal?

1. Rod length?
2. Rod weight?
3. Reel?
4. Line?
5. Leader?

Ideal, as is not breaking the bank, but not breaking the blank on the first outing either

Cheers

[Byron]

Hi guys,

I've never fished for yellowfish before , I know.

What is the ideal setup to fish for yellows in the Vaal?

1. Rod length?
2. Rod weight?
3. Reel?
4. Line?
5. Leader?

Ideal, as is not breaking the bank, but not breaking the blank on the first outing either

Cheers

For SM's

1. Rod length? - 9 - 10 ft, fast
2. Rod weight? 5#
3. Reel? Match rod
4. Line? Floating
5. Leader? Depends on water depth, 10lb straight flouro/or regular mono. Add droppers on 6-8lb flouro, if you are going for them on dry then a tapered leader at least 9ft.

For largies you need at least a 7# with matching reel and a floating line and or a slow intermediate.

That's that short basic version.

2c

[Scythe]

Coming from the Cape, I'd assume you're into dry fly fishing and softer actioned rods, so I'd assume you'd want to be able to use it for all three kinds of fishing, Nymphs, Dries and even the occasional streamers/dragon.

However:

I'm also taking into consideration that you've started angling competitively so that would be your main focus, not recreational fishing for SmallMouth.

This is only aimed at SmallMouth, please remember, different strokes for different folks, I'm just hoping to give you a general idea.

Rod rating : 5WT
Rod length : 9' or 10' will do for either nymphing, CZN, or dry fly.
Reel : To match rod
Line Type : WF Floater
Line Colour : A camoflauge colour.

About the rod:

A day on the Vaal can be long and draining and it can get quite tiring if you're nailing 30 +2lb fish per session, two sessions daily, three days in a row.

The rod should preferably as light as possible, funnily enough I am yet to find ANYTHING lighter than my 5WT Shimano 8'6 and I have pulled big fish over 4Kgs on it. In addition to this, it's also DIRT cheap so you can have plenty of spares.

Gary uses the Stealth rods, though I'd never choose them for recreational fishing, they are cheap, and light and strong enough.

Again, with competition fishing, you'd want something with enough oomph to pull a fish while remaining as light as possible because you will be using mostly short line nymphing techniques which invariably eat your tricep and deltoids.

About the reel :

Large Arbor, again as light as possible. You could even go a reel size or two down and put on less backing. We all have dreams of being taken into our backing by a fish, but realistically speaking the second you let a SmallMouth run downstream of you further than a line length, your chances of landing it become virtually zero. If you fight a SmallMouth competition style, it would be very rare for you to end up going into your backing anyways and your objective is to get the fish landed and released as quickly as possible. Most reels these days will have adequate enough drag systems anyway.

About the line:

You want a camoflauge colour line with a highly visible indicator tip (Both Rio and Airflo have Nymph tip lines when last I checked, I'm sure there are others by now)

I prefer the camo lines because in thin water they will rarely spook fish and you want to be watching the tip of the line anyways. I like a line with a soft outer coating and no memory issues.

If you want to know more about recreational fishing for SmallMouth, it's a different ballgame altogether.

HTH,

ps : For the leader, Fluorocarbon is your friend !

[KevinC]

Hi Rudolph

I hear that the guys really rate the TFO Professional 10ft 6wt. I want to purchase one in the next week or 2. I have also just purchased a Vision GT4 10ft 5wt which looks and feels very lekke- although I have yet to test it so I cannot give an opinion.

I know the guys also really enjoy the vision 3zone 10ft 5wt.

I am leaning towards the 6wt purely for the backbone and hopefully this results in landing yellows quicker when faced with a time limit. (I used to own a Vision 3zone 9'6 6wt (was appropriated by someone) which I used on the Orange and that rod was a machine! I loved it, yet I understand that the 6wt does not come in 10ft which is a pity.) Although guys moan about the weight of the rod when czech/ mono nymphing all day I have not experienced this problem when using a 6wt.

To each his own I guess.

[chris williams]

The Greys Missionary rods are also excellent and reasonable value, in the lengths/line ratings the other guys recommend.
I have a fantastic T+T 10' 5wt medium action but it's a tad pricey but as I'm an old man I allowed myself the luxury..

[swsmith]

Kevin...how do you find that Gt4 casts...........????

[KevinC]

Kevin...how do you find that Gt4 casts...........????

hahahaha! Not as well in my hands as in Leonards...

[swsmith]

all part of the sales pitch......he forgets about us plebs lower down the food chain that are still tryin to climb our way up..........i still dont think you need to cast a full line in either salt/fresh to still catch good numbers of fish......

[KevinC]

ja, with time you get it right- all to do with getting to know a rod. Eish bru, 1m of flyline left aint too bad when casting a stick for the first time It aint the Hardy but I'll get there...

[KevinC]

Back to the thread- I am very interested to hear what the Yellowfish fundis have to say wrt Rudolph's initial post...