Lessons learned (so far)

This summer I bought my first set of fly fishing gear truly ready for salmon fishing. It is still only one hand 10 feet, 8 AFTM rod and reel and lines suitable for that. I'll report my evaluation on pros and cons of this set later. But the main thing was that I got my first shooting head line and started practicing under arm casting with it. Below is the list of my learnigs related to using shooting heads:

- Shooting heads don't come in the right length out of box but you need to cut them to the right length. The right lenght depends on the rod, your casting skills and the circumstances where you fish, ie. the river size, the strength of the stream and wind

- You can come a long with only one floating shooting head for salmon fishing, but it's not ideal. I think one should have a couple of different length floating shooting heads for different water and weather conditions. In addition one intermediate shooting head would be good in case the water is high. This is enough if you only fish in small or medium size rivers like Vetsijoki and Utsjoki. If you fish in big rivers also, I guess you need to have even more sinking shooting heads.

- Once the shooting head is of right length, you can really have long casts quite easily.

- The upper cast is not as light and fun with a shooting head as with WF line if you fish in a very small river where you don't need long casts.

- I don't recommend 10 feet long one hand rod for shooting heads. It is a bit too long making casting pretty hard for your wrist. I did a lot of double handed casting when I needed long casts because I left the shooting head still quite long (and thus heavy) to be able to have longer casts when needed.

- It is best to start learning under arm casting by taking a course or having someone there to guide you. I didn't have anyone to teach me and I didn't have time to take a lesson or course before starting. I have to say it was even dangerous at times. I got the fly to my back and neck couple of times (luckily I had a coat and a hood on) and even hitting me finger couple of times. Once the fly bounced in the back of my head. I'm lucky to survive without fly ripping off my ear or something.

- If you don't have anyone to guide you, search web for help in casting. I found f.ex. these helpful: Caddis expert and Spey video clips.


Other learnings:

- Lohenkalastajan käsikirja is really a good read for any (finnish reading) person interested in salmon fishing.

- Do test your tippet line before starting fishing. It's not fun to loose a nice fish and a good fly because of bad tippet line.

- When the water is high, do use bigger flies than in normal summer water conditions. Take also into account that the colors that normally work in certain river might not be the best when the water is high.

- Always keep a loop of loose line in your hand so you can release it if a salmon catches the fly when the line is straight and tight, as it usually is at the end when the fly and line is almost directly downstream from the fisher. This gives the salmon some time to really bite the fly and get it stuck in its' jaws.

Challenges with a shooting head and weather conditions

Last night I finally got to go fly fishing salmon from the river Utsjoki for the first time this summer. It really didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. I had some problems with casting for two reasons, the shooting head that was too long and the wind was absolutely crazy.
I thought that when you buy a a rod, reel and lines with shooting head, the head would be ready for use out of the box. So I just set everything tying the lines together with loops and went fishing. Obviously I was wrong and that became self evident in a few minutes. I realized that my brand new 10 feet AFTM 8 Guideline LPXe rod can't handle 12 meters long shooting head. Immediately I sat down on the beach and went surfing the internet with my Nokia N76 for information on the shooting head lengths and realized I have to cut it 2,5-3 meters shorter. Well, I didn't want to do it then as I didn't have those easily attachable loops for the line end and the problem trying to make those loops yourself was still fresh in my memory.
So I continued fishing although you couldn't talk about casting a fly...it was more like throwing. And I had been told using a shooting head would make fly fishing easier! The wildly blowing wind didn't make it any easier. The wind blew the line to my face a couple of times while I was trying to cast it. I was very lucky not to get the fly to my face!
Did I catch anything besides my jacket? ...No :( As any fisherman I have good excuses. Besides the challenges with casting, the water is now really high. I have never fished on that part of Utsjoki with water being that high. I didn't really know where to look for the fish. And I only had floating line (shooting head). I think I have to get the fly well below the surface in order to catch a salmon in these water conditions. This means I got to get me a intermediate or sinking 2 shooting head...and of course those easy to use loops for it. So I have to go shopping now. In the mean while read the blog by Aslak Pieski, mostly about river Teno and fishing there, from here: http://www.tenojoki.fi/tenopaasivut/aslak/