Bonefishing / translation of the fly rod

As a complete, "aside" I just sent this message to Peter Minnick on a very special bonefish fly. Figured those of you who do fish for bonefish might appreciate it :-

The POP HILL SPECIAL is one of the simplest and most efficient flies for bonefish ... for use on sandy and marl flats in the Bahamas.

It uses a different principle from most attractor patterns or, "match the hatch" patterns.

This fly was born when Pop was standing on a white marl flat on the back side of Andros. The sky was bright with wind blown white clouds. The fish were unusually spooky. Our standard patterns were not working well.

Pop had just had a radical neck dissection operation for a malignant melanoma on his casting arm side and wasn't able to make many casts nor achieve distance ..... so he took the time to relax and observe. ( a lesson to be learned right there ).

As he stood poker still on the flat, he noted bonefish coming very close to his feet and feeding on critters he couldn't see. They were camouflaged and were apparently the same dusty white color as the flat. Each time one of these critters puffed the sand, a bonefish would move forward and feed. He, then, took a little bait net and scooped up some little crustaceons which were literally either white or transparent.

He went back to my mother ship and tied up a couple of very simple flies on #2 stainless hooks. The fly had a body of nothing more than one layer of clear 20# mono. Thread was white flat-waxed nylon for the head. Only 3/4" long white hackle feathers were used for the wings.... 2 on each side. Important is the fact that, unlike most bonefish flies, THE WINGS WERE TIED PROUD ON THE SIDE OF THE HOOK OPPOSITE THE POINT.

That meant that the fly would ride hook point DOWN. Upon the retrieve, the hook acted like a tiny plow and kicked up a puff of sand with each short retrieve thus mimicking what he had seen.

Worked like a charm. I took his flies out on the same flat and caught 11 bones that afternoon.

As with anything, there are advantages and disadvantages. The down side of this fly is that it will catch on any grass or stubble on the flat .... and, so, is only of good use on clean sandy, shallow flats. One exception is that it also works well in Bahamian bone fish, "muds" where a school of fish are feeding in deeper water. Trick, there, is to use an intermediate line and make the cast on the up-current side of the mud, then allow it to sink. Put the rod tip way down in the water (right to the bottom) and make a slow, jerky retrieve. You won't be able to get your fly back to the skiff without a bone !

You can read more about it in Dick Brown's book on permit flies. (BONEFISH FLY PATTERNS, 1996, Dick Brown, ISBN 1-55821-392-9, pp. 138 - 139.) The picture onp 138 shows it tied with yellow thread and the hackles longer that usual. He, also, used a short shank hook for most of these flies.

Best retrieve is a series of very short (say 2" - 6") snappy pulls. If the bone follows and doesn't immediately take, let it set for a couple of seconds and then make a slow long retrieve with the rod tip DOWN IN THE WATER. This makes a trail of, "smoke" He'll take it almost every time.

Regarding Jeff’s answer, I think we need to qualify WHO is doing the casting. While an advanced caster may be able to make laser tight loops with a softish rod, the average caster cannot. Therefore, the shape and height of the loops will be different for most casters depending on the nature of the rod. So, please follow me here, I believe that most casters cast a less efficient loop (aerodynamically speaking) with a soft rod than with a stiff rod. If the loop is less efficient, then it suffers more losses as time proceeds. If you want an inefficient loop to travel a certain distance, it will need to start out faster than would another loop that’s more efficient.

JEFF IS A SUPERB CASTER. HE CAN DO THIS WHEN MOST CANNOT. YOU ARE RIGHT ABOUT MOST CASTERS FORMING A LESS EFFICIENT LOOP WHEN USING A SOFT ACTION ROD. I ALSO AGREE THAT THE LESS EFFICIENT LOOP MUST SUFFER MORE LOSS OF SPEED AS TIME PROGRESSES.

In my experience (my own casting, and what I try to work on with my more advanced students), is to work on making the most perfect loops (efficiency-wise) that they can, and then back off on the power for shorter casts. Inefficient loops have a terrible snowballing effect. The caster realizes he doesn’t have enough steam, so puts the coals to it on the next stroke. Tail. Back off and underpower. Turns into a vicious cycle, even for intermediate casters…

I AGREE. THIS IS ONE REASON THAT THESE CASTERS ARE MUCH MORE LIKELY TO GET A TAIL WHEN USING A SOFT ACTION ROD. THE SPIKE OF POWER EARLY IN THE STROKE CAUSES A DIP AND RETURN OF THE ROD TIP... ie. A CONCAVE ROD TIP PATH.

LEFTY HAS A WAY OF TEACHING TO AVOID THIS. HE TELLS THE CASTER TO USE NO MORE POWER ON THE FINAL DELIVERY CAST THAN WAS USED ON THE PRECEEDING FORWARD FALSE CAST. THAT IS PARTICULARLY TRUE WHEN THE CASTER IS USING A SOFT ACTION ROD.

If you’re a good enough caster to be capable of creating the exact same loop shapes and heights with both the soft and stiff rods, then I agree with Jeff’s statement. The line doesn’t care what the rod is doing below the tip. It only receives its flight plan from the rod tip.

One other comment that was made concerned little to no significant loading while dragging. I strongly disagree. When the flyline is stationary (in the fully unrolled condition from the previous stroke), it exhibits maximum inertia. As you apply force on the cork, since the line is not moving, neither will be the rod tip at the outset. We have to break that inertia, albeit gradually to maintain SLP at the early phase of the stroke. The only way that the rod will not load while you drag it (translationally) is if the flyrod is in perfect linear alignment with the straightened (unrolled) flyline. ONLY under that condition will there be no torque imparted at the rod grip (thus no possible loading of the blank). Well, I guess there’d be the gravitational load on the rod due to its own weight…

REMEMBER, AS SOON AS YOU DO APPLY TORQUE, YOU HAVE ROTATION...NOT PURE TRANSLATION.

YOU ARE SIMPLY USING DIFFERENT WORDS TO EXPRESS MY OWN OBSERVATIONS. BRUCE RICHARDS, AS YOU KNOW, THINKS THAT THE ONLY THING THAT TRANSLATION DOES IS TO TAKE UP SLACK. I CAN'T HELP BUT THINK THAT IT ALSO BREAKS THE INERTIA OF THE MORE SLOWLY MOVING OR STILL LINE BEHIND THE ROD TIP. MOTION STUDIES SHOWED THAT A REALLY GOOD CASTER CAN ONLY GENERATE ABOUT 3 METERS/SEC. VELOCITY WITH TRANSLATION OF THE HAND. THAT, PERFORCE, IS ALMOST THE SAME VELOCITY AT THE ROD TIP DURING THAT PHASE. THIS CONTRASTS WITH A MEASURED 80m/SEC. VELOCITY AT THE ROD TIP GENERATED WITH ROTATION.

THE OBSERVATION OF VERY LITTLE ROD BEND DURING TRANSLATION EMPLOYED BY MOST CASTERS TELLS ME THAT THERE CAN BE LITTLE LOADING DURING THAT PHASE. THIS IS IN KEEPING WITH THE VELOCITY MEASUREMENTS.

TO PROVE THIS TO YOURSELF, TRY CASTING WITH PURE TRANSLATION....NO ROTATION WHATSOEVER . NOTE YOUR ROD BEND AND "FEEL" OF THE LOAD. Jim Penrod and I did that today. We noted several things:

1. It is very difficult to do this with pure translation. As soon as we introduced the slightest rotation, the feel of rod load appeared. (One of us stood to the side to be sure no rotation occurred ).

2. Very little rod tip bend was noted. The fact that there was any bend helped prove that you are corrrect that there is some rod load ... but not much.

3. Even though Bruce Richards had measured a translational velocity of 3m/sec., I doubt that either Jim or I could gain that much speed without simply jamming the rod forward with a jerk (not real casting at all).

Regards – TAM

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Troy...

Note my comments in CAPS in your text.

Gordy