Going Real Deep

[JonS]

I'm going up to Alaska on a kayak fishing trip. We're spending 5 days on a remote island and there's a great fishery for lingcod, rockcods and halibut. The standard gear is heavy jigs and going deep. Some of the rockcods are much shallower but still deep by flyfishing standards. I figured it would be fun to catch them on the fly rod. I've got a couple TFO bluewaters so they'll handle the lifting. I won't be casting really so I figured I'd tie some real heavy clousers. I've got LC-13 but want suggestions if there's anything that'll go down deeper/faster. thanks

[Onshore]

Jon,

My experience with LC-13 is that for it's weight it will sink about as fast as a 300gr. line because it's diameter is smaller. However, you could go to a 400 or higher gr. sinking head fastened directly to a mono running line and probably get down faster.

I've fished both in up to 90' of water off Cape Cod and taken big Stripers. If it's not too windy; cast ahead of your drift and strip line till your verticle the, jig it slowly to
the surface.

As for fly, a big Clouser will sink slower than a small sparse one. We used to tie them
about 2 or 2-1/2" long on a heavy 3/0 or 4/0 hook.

Good luck and post your success when you get back, please.

[Onshore]

Jon,

Just a couple of thoughts on your problem. We used to take big Stripers in 90+ ft. off Chatham on Cape Cod. We rigged as follows. 25' of LC-13 tied directly to 20 lb. soft mono. That head weighed 325gr but it sank faster than a 325 gr. shooting head cause the LLC-13 was a smaller diameter. We also used 400gr. or higher shooting heads (the head only) fastened to 20 lb. mono.

We found that large flies sank at a slower rate than small sparse ones. We ended up tying on 4X heavy 3/0 Bait Hooks. Clousers about 2" or 2.5" long tied sparsly. That will descend about as fast as the head. Color made little difference as long as it was white or chartreuse or yellow.

The idea was to locate the fish and get up-wind of them. Then to cast ahead of the drifting boat and strip line till you were vertically over the fly. Then, strip it in slowly.

Good luck and, let us know how it works out for you.