How to set up a fly rod?

Question

Bassmaster993,

If you are out there, Pheasant Tail asked me to add this to my answer of your question about which line to use for bass fishing.

I was away from my computer fly fishing for Coho salmon at Tofino, British Columbia. Your question closed so I couldn’t add it to my answer.

I thought if you are reviewing these questions you may run into this one.

Hope you have a great bass fishing trip.

Larry

How to set up a fly rod--------------

Can you go to a person who knows what they are doing to get help? If so, I would strongly recommend it. Otherwise, give this a try. You need to learn it anyway.

Did you buy a package deal, that gave you a rod, reel, backing, line, leader and flies?

Or, did you buy separate pieces.

If you bought the package deal, then everything should match up, however I have seen some all-in-one outfits that were not fit to be called fly rods.

If you bought separate pieces, then I hope someone guided you through the purchases. Like is the fly rod the size (as in the weight of the rod, not the actual weight (yes, here is where you start scratching your head trying to figure out what I am saying) but the indicated weight of the rod. Like is it a 5 weight or a 6 weight, or did you buy a specialty rod, like a 2 or 3 weight or a 8 or 9 weight?

What kind of fish you are going for, is the determining factor in what size rod to buy.

Then your reel has to match up fairly close to the rod. Reels are sold with designators indicating that they are for a 5 or 6 weight or a 7 to 8 weight or a 2 to 3 weight rod. This is important. You can not use a 2/3 weight reel on a 6 weight rod. The line will totally fill the reel and there will be no room for backing or anything else. Also, the reel helps balance the rod while you are casting. So, if you have an ultra light reel on a heavy rod, the balance of the reel is going to be way up the rod somewhere, not down at the cork handle you are holding on to. That means you will have a hard time casting and wear yourself out faster than you should.

So, let's hope the reel matches the rod.

Eric is right, use the Arbor knot to tie on the backing to the center spool of your reel. But first, do you want to reel this in with your right hand, thus holding the rod with your left hand, or do you want to reel it in with your left hand holding the rod with your right hand? I am going to assume you are right handed, if not the question simply needs to be reversed.

With small fish you can get away with casting with your strong hand and then switching the rod over to your other hand to reel in the line when you have a fish on. However, if you are going after big fish, then it is best to hold the rod with your strong hand and reel with your other hand, since it is your strong hand that has to hold the rod during the fight. Your muscles and mind-hand coordination are better with your strong hand.

Stop right here: You want to have at least one guide to put your backing through before you tie you it to the reel, so make sure you thread the backing and later the line through a guide. Some rods require you to put two pieces together to get a guide to use.

The line has to come off the bottom of the reel. Let's say you are right handed and decided to reel in with your left hand (best choice). Tie the backing on so the line comes onto the reel from the bottom front and wraps up behind the reel then back out the top front, tie your arbor knot.

Reel in all of your backing if it is a complete outfit, otherwise you will have to play around with finding the right amount of backing. The papers that came with your reel should tell you how much backing in 20 pound Dacron or 30 pound Dacron your reel will take, but how are you to know how much you have reeled on? (I usually take my reel to my local fly shop and have them load it for me).

The backing serves two purposes. First, it helps fill the reel with line so your fly line does not have to be wound up in such small circles (that really causes a problem with the line). Also, if you hook into a big one or hook a tree or rock then you have some extra line to play with to get to shore or back up to where you snagged up the line. Fly lines are expensive and you do not want to be loosing those.

Eric is right, the nail knot is an excellent knot to use to tie the backing onto the fly line. In fact, once you learn to tie the knots, then you can tie two nail knots in a row onto your fly line. If the first nail knot should fail, the second one should hold.

Below are some websites you can go to in order to learn to tie the knots you need to learn. Practice with some string, two different colored ones if you can, and learn how to tie the knots we mention.

You now have the backing tied onto your line. Usually there is a little tag that mentions which end should be tied to the backing. If not, then if you are using a weight forward line, the backing gets tied to the end that has the really long and slender line. The other end has a very short slender line then very quickly thickens up, then slowly thins back down. That is the end you tie your leader onto.

So, tie your backing onto your fly line and now you need to reel it in. I prefer to take a small long box and punch a pencil or small 1/4 inch dowel through one side, push on your lines plastic holder then push the pencil out the other side. Now your line will come off the spool nice and straight and not twist on you.

Once you have reeled in all the line, now you will find out if you used too much backing because your line will not fit smoothly onto the reel. Best bet, strip your line out, and then take off some backing, cut it and tie the line back onto the backing and reel it in again.

Now you come to your leader. It has a loop on it you said. That makes it handy, but then you have to have a loop on the line or you can not use it. Some lines being made now have loops built into them. If you do not have one of those, then the best thing you can do is tie a short piece of mono onto your fly line then tie in a loop at the other end.

For now, use the nail knot to tie the mono to your line. The thicker the leader, the fewer the wraps you need to form a nail knot, but the rule of thumb is 4 or 5 turns. You can buy a nail knot tool, I would strongly recommend it, and it makes tying nail knots super easy with just a little practice. The key to any nail knot is to pull the tag end of the leader quickly and smoothly. If you go slow you end up with a horrible looking knot. If you practice ahead of time, you will tie a good looking nail knot.

For a short piece of mono I have often just cut off a foot of my leader, the thick end, and tied it to my line, then tied in a small loop using a Perfection Loop knot. If the leader came with a loop, then you have a built in loop, but you will then have to tie a Perfection Knot loop back into your leader.

It is important that this short, 4 to 5 inch piece of leader be just about as thick as the line, you can not use a real limp and small size piece of mono. If you do you will not be able to transfer the power of the cast into your leader.

If you are going to tie on a tippet to the other end of the leader I suggest learning the Blood Knot or the Improved Surgeon's Knot. The blood knot may be the best one to use.

When putting the rod together, line up the guides and push the pieces together with an equal amount of pressure from both hands. The guides have to line up for proper casting. After an hour or so of casting, make sure you test the sections to keep them from slowly coming apart.

Now tie on a small piece of yarn and learn how to cast.

Here are three sites you can go to and learn about knot tying for fly fishing. I really love the Animated Knots by Grog site, the first one listed.

Good luck.

Larry

http://www.animatedknots.com/indexfishing.php?LogoImage=LogoGrog.jpg&Website=www.animatedknots.com

http://globalflyfisher.com/fishbetter/knots/table.php

http://www.flyfisherman.com/skills/lkknots/index.html

Answer 1

Thank you, Larry.
I edited my original response and posted some links for knots and a loop to loop connection.

From his first question about what type of rod to buy
for bass fishing (bluegill also), he is going with a Redington RS3 9'6wt and a Pfluger Trion reel.

Again, thank you for taking the time to respond and I hope you had a great trip.

Answer 2

The best way to do it is a little time consuming but it works great. Wind all the fly line on your spool. Using a nail knot tie the backing to the fly line. Wind the reel till the backing fills the spool. Pull the line off and place it on the reel, backing first and wind it back on. This will insure you have the right amount of backing. As for the leader with a loop on the end, it's for quickly changing leaders. You need a loop on the end of your fly line. You can get them at any fly shop. The loop just slides over the end of the fly line. They take a little while to get on but the time you save changing leaders makes it well worth it. You slide the loop on the fly line through the loop in the leader. Then you run the end of the leader through the loop in the fly line and pull it all the way through till the loops meet. To change leaders you just slide the old leader off and slide a new one on. No knots to tie. Anyone at a fly shop in your area can ger you set up and fishing in no time. Good luck fishing.

Answer 3

Awesome

Answer 4

Wonderful and very correct answer, just seems a bit long.