Before Saltwater

Although many people take up flyfishing because of the beauty and challenge of the sport, initially, I just wanted to catch more fish. Like many flyfishers, I was a spin angler to begin with. It was another woman who first put a fly rod in my hand and showed me how to catch sockeye salmon on Alaska’s famous Russian river. Then she referred me on to a guy she knew that taught fly fishing. She got me hooked, and he went from there.

Thereafter, I fished with a fly rod every chance I got. Everywhere I fished, it seemed, there’d be women asking me to teach them or to take them fly fishing, Pretty soon I did, and my business, Women’s Flyfishing® was born. That was fifteen years ago.

Fly Fishing The Salt

Alaska’s fishing takes place in its famous rivers and lakes as well as in salt water, due to the salmon’s migration home from the sea. Like most Alaskans, I fished offshore in charter boats for both halibut and salmon, but with conventional tackle. My first experiences flyfishing the salt took place primarily while wading the estuaries of salmon- spawning rivers. But, in 1988 I got my first opportunity to fish salmon on a fly rod from a skiff in Neah Bay, off the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. The fact that salmon out on the ocean would take a fly virtually on the surface astounded me. I was ready for more.

Some years later I finally got to sample true “blue water” fly fishing in Mexico with the help of Gary and Yvonne Graham of Baja on the Fly. Once I figured out how to deal with my tendency towards sea sickness, I knew that saltwater fly fishing was definitely another dimension of my love affair with fly fishing. That first trip I caught tuna, jack cravelle, needle fish, and even two small roosters. I also got my first glimpse of those awesome dorado.

Up to that trip, I’d never before encountered such a colorful fish, one that seemed to have swallowed neon lights. That first fish chased my fly through a school of bait fish and right up to the boat before veering off at the last possible second. “Faster. Strip faster,” Gary was hollering as I struggled with this new technique called the two-handed strip. I couldn’t hit the stripping basket with the line, I couldn’t keep the line in one hand or the other all the time, and I unconsciously slowed down the strip enough to make the fish lose interest just as it was about to take the fly. I really had a lot to learn.

So in awe of the incredible beauty of this fish, I was often too busy just looking at it to concentrate on catching it. Even though I’ve since caught lots and lots of dorado, I’m still can’t believe the glowing colors of the "peacock of the sea.” On each sleek body with its high forehead, those aqua pectoral fins, that butter yellow tail, and the sea-green back always seem to be painted in some slightly different way. I fell in love.

Photo used with permission of Women's Flyfishing®

Other fish besides dorado have also played a part in my romance with salt water, however. While trolling for marlin one day, a fish hit my huge blue and silver fly and hightailed it for the horizon with a level of acceleration that absolutely flabbergasted us all. Now, I’ve caught a lot of fish with a lot of speed, but never have I seen fly line and backing peeling off my reel with such velocity!

As the fish did its level best to spool me, I just hoped that the captain was skilled enough to keep backing the boat enough so it didn’t break me off but not so much that slack line would cause me to lose it. And, it wasn’t like I got a chance to take in line during momentary rest periods like I’m used to in fresh water. This fish didn’t know how to rest, only how to run. Suddenly quit and then came to the boat quite passively, as meek and compliant as any fish I had ever landed. It turned out to be a rare wahoo, often called the fastest fish in the ocean, that had graced us with his presence. And, according to Gary, he was the first fly-caught wahoo ever recorded in that part of the Sea of Cortez.

Fresh vs. Salt

Saltwater flyfishing isn’t necessarily better than fresh water flyfishing, just different. To me, that wahoo demonstrated one of the most distinguishing differences, sheer speed. In the salt, baitfish move at top speed. They have to, or they’re lunch. Everything in the ocean has to be able to outrun something else not to be lunch. There’s nowhere to hide. Furthermore, fish in saltwater, unlike their fresh water cousins, grow up with absolutely no boundaries.

The fish “hunt” is salt water seems quite distinct as well. Whereas locating fish in fresh water requires understanding currents or locating hiding places like undercut banks or weed beds, fishing in saltwater requires noticing natural indicators such as fleeing bait fish or feeding birds or trolling until fish appear.

Setting the hook is also different in different water. In fresh water we “raise the rod tip,” to set the hook when the fish hits. But doing that in salt water simply pulls the fly from the fish’s mouth. Instead, a sideways strike or a strip-strike with the line are required. It’s been hard for me to forego the techniques I’ve always used, and, on occasion I still try to set the hook as I’ve done all my flyfishing life.

Playing the fish in saltwater is much the same as I’m used to, thankfully. Because I’ve fished for salmon for so many years, I’m used to letting a fish run, palming the reel to slow it down, keeping the rod tip pointed at it, and being careful not to turn away and change the angle of the hook as I bring it in. All of those techniques are equally as useful in saltwater as in the fresh water of Alaska.

The two-handed strip was difficult for me to master, however. Not having one hand holding the rod seemed totally foreign to me at first, and I still lose a fish on occasion because I can’t move my hand from the line to the rod quickly enough to keep a tight line on a fish.

Of course, the flies are another of the contrasts between fresh and salt water flyfishing. Larger and more gaudy than most of their freshwater counterparts, saltwater flies are mostly imitations of one just one thing-bait fish. The epoxy heads, the bulging eyeballs,

and the sheer amount of various synthetic materials make tying and using saltwater flies a whole other challenge.

Surely there are other differences that I have yet to understand. After all, I’m just a novice at this saltwater fly fishing. A novice eager for more.

©2001 Cecilia “Pudge” Kleinkauf, Owner, Women’s Flyfishing®