When you accept the challenge of fly fishing the salt, you face a strange and exciting new world, FLY RODDING THE COAST is a guide to meeting that challenge.
In this fully illustrated volume, author Ed Mitchell covers the essentials of saltwater fly fishing, how to read the water, the weather, and the shoreline; how to fish from the beach or a boat; how to fish during the day or at night; how to find the best places to wet line. He also discusses in detail the casting techniques saltwater fly rodders need to know to be successful. Individual sections cover the range and behavior of the quarry. A chapter on fighting and landing the fish explains exactly what to do when a feisty striped bass or bluefish is on the hook.
The details of saltwater fly fishing are covers as well, from tying knots and choosing equipment to reading a nautical chart and "matching the marine." The book also includes a full -color gallery of more than fifty saltwater flies.
To fly rodders, the ocean might seem like a world far removed from the freshwater stream. Pounding waves and rip currents replace riffles and quiet pools. Poppers and even-inch streamers replace delicate midges and nymphs. Churning water thick with hungry fish replaces a quick surface dimple as the sight of angler hopes to see. And a new quarry - big, aggressive stripers, blues, bonito, or little tunny - replaces the elusive trout.
But the challenge of fly fishing itself, of convincing a wary game fish to hit a handmade imitation on the end of a line, remains the same. As Mitchell says in FLY RODDING THE COAST, "There really is just one world of water. Success in fishing for one species always provides lessons that can be applied to fishing for another. And the knowledge learned to the sanctuary of a small trout stream is an easy in miniature for for what anglers face in the brine. In every instance, from the beautiful brook trout high in its mountain hideaway to the muscle-packed bonito racing over an ocean reef, it is a game fish fully adapted to its surroundings., in order to survive. In every case it is up to the fly rodder to discover how that strategy is pieced together.