Twenty-two things I learned on 12/22, my last trip to the beach and first with a fly rod.

[Nymph-wristed]

1. I need to buy a 9 or 10 weight rod if I really want to attempt this again.

2. Stripping basket

3. Fly lines love the metal hooks on your gravel guards; this has been true for streamer fisherman on rivers and cricks since the dawn of time, but it is even truer in the surf.

4. Stripping basket.

5. Both pairs of my waders now leak—not awesome in December. Even though LL Bean has and will again totally refund my money on both pairs, I am on my third set of mid-priced stocking foots this season, second boot foot for the salt.

6. Simms and Patagonia are $499.99 but when one fishes 100+ times in a year, they may be a necessary investment.

7. There is a reason Simms uses neoprene gravel guards.

8. I know a guy who puts in some shifts at a fly shop that carries the aforementioned brands, and I will have refund money from two sets of LL Bean waders shortly.

9. Kneel less or get knee pads (stop fishing Valley?).

10. A good saltwater fly line needed, one suited for hard work in winter water temps.

11. A new bass/streamer line also now needed.

12. Part time job needed or wealthier spouse or adoption by well-heeled fly fisher of both means and generous spirit.

13. Damn! 9 weight rod will need reel, backing, and line, yeah?

14. There’s always a chance a young bull may get up 15 minutes before me and arrive at my “secret spot” and catch two fish before I hoof it up there.

15. Fish the low tide if you need to wade like a hero.

16. Ocean fish, even 25 inchers, are like river fish on steroids.

17. Use heavier tippet.

18. Don’t trust NOAA.

19. In December, a one skunk streak, not my historically self-imposed two skunk rule, is enough to call it quits for the year.

20. I may like this whole fly rod in the surf thing if I am better prepared next fall.

21. Work smarter not harder in tough conditions.

22. Stripping basket.

 

[BrookieChaser]

#20 may need extended past 2 skunkings for saltwater.

#6 is spot on. #6.5 but I have the feeling the sand is going to be hell on stockingfoot waders.

#2,4,22 make your own with a dishpan from Walmart and an elastic tie down. Put fingers on the bottom to help with tangles when shooting line.

 

[afishinado]

Nymph-wristed wrote:
1. I need to buy a 9 or 10 weight rod if I really want to attempt this again.

2. Stripping basket

3. Fly lines love the metal hooks on your gravel guards; this has been true for streamer fisherman on rivers and cricks since the dawn of time, but it is even truer in the surf.

4. Stripping basket.

5. Both pairs of my waders now leak—not awesome in December. Even though LL Bean has and will again totally refund my money on both pairs, I am on my third set of mid-priced stocking foots this season, second boot foot for the salt.

6. Simms and Patagonia are $499.99 but when one fishes 100+ times in a year, they may be a necessary investment.

7. There is a reason Simms uses neoprene gravel guards.

8. I know a guy who puts in some shifts at a fly shop that carries the aforementioned brands, and I will have refund money from two sets of LL Bean waders shortly.

9. Kneel less or get knee pads (stop fishing Valley?).

10. A good saltwater fly line needed, one suited for hard work in winter water temps.

11. A new bass/streamer line also now needed.

12. Part time job needed or wealthier spouse or adoption by well-heeled fly fisher of both means and generous spirit.

13. Damn! 9 weight rod will need reel, backing, and line, yeah?

14. There’s always a chance a young bull may get up 15 minutes before me and arrive at my “secret spot” and catch two fish before I hoof it up there.

15. Fish the low tide if you need to wade like a hero.

16. Ocean fish, even 25 inchers, are like river fish on steroids.

17. Use heavier tippet.

18. Don’t trust NOAA.

19. In December, a one skunk streak, not my historically self-imposed two skunk rule, is enough to call it quits for the year.

20. I may like this whole fly rod in the surf thing if I am better prepared next fall.

21. Work smarter not harder in tough conditions.

22. Stripping basket.

Lol....yeah get or make a stripping basket for sure.

If you plan to do any amount of SW surf fsihing, I would recommend you go with bootfoot waders. The sand eats stockingfoot waders and boots for breakfast. You can use the BF waders for SW and fishing during the winter, since they are generally warmer.

Also hose off everything with fresh and let dry > all your tackle, equipment, waders, rain jacket, etc.

 

[poopdeck]

That's funny!

 

[Nymph-wristed]

BrookieChaser wrote:
#20 may need extended past 2 skunkings for saltwater.

#6 is spot on. #6.5 but I have the feeling the sand is going to be hell on stockingfoot waders.

#2,4,22 make your own with a dishpan from Walmart and an elastic tie down. Put fingers on the bottom to help with tangles when shooting line.

Good stuff! Yeah, I have plugged the surf for a long, long time, so that skunk rule pertained to spinning rod/plugs and might need a recalculation. At least I can cast and know where they live in the surf, but I need to feel like I can reach where I want to reach without dying. I have a dry top and used to wade waist deep on bars in the dark, but now I am late 40s with a wife and family, so they need me alive, I assume...

I returned a pair of leaking bootfoot AND a pair of stocking foot to buck up for the G3s, but TCO had the older version, so I got a deal, and I can replace the bootfoots later this year (without my wife knowing).

Good tip on the dishpan! I think I have a stripping basket buried in the garage if I didn't crush it under other neglected toys, but I will have a Walmart back up too next fall.

 

[Nymph-wristed]

Merry Christmas, btw. Any advice on a good coldwater, saltwater line?

The rest of the story, so the list makes more sense, from my Sick Days Fishing blog:

"As you can probably read between the lines above, I took my last surf trip of the year this morning, on a mission to catch even a rat on the fly rod. NOAA said light NE winds turning SE, and that was true at 10 AM when I was walking home, but it was a snottier NE before sunrise, and I got beat up and moisturized early trying to get out far enough in an incoming tide to double-haul and shoot enough line to likely holding spots. Standing in the wash meant getting lassoed by fly line in the 3-4 foot swell with barely a 2-3 second wave period, so the only way around the nonexistent stripping basket, was to stand deeper and remember to stay standing. My waders leaked in both legs. My SA Sharkwave line meant to shoot streamers on the Delaware and Susquehanna is toast, cut with 10+ yards missing. Instead of a rat, I guess I hooked one of those slot size fish whose mouths are just big enough to gorge on Atlantic herring, and it broke my 10 lb. fluorocarbon leader and took my favorite half ‘n’ half teaser, of which I had one with me.

When I arrived it was nearly dark still, but I could see a silhouette up the beach in my honey hole, my shore/sure thing this morning. When I spoke to him later, he said he caught two there on a black Mag Darter. When I was sick with surf fishing, I used to quit for the season after logging two consecutive skunks in December. With the price of gas and fly lines and waders these days, my new rule is two skunks suggested but only one is required, especially when all the signs of life that were present two days ago are now absent, no bait, no birds Back to the trout once I get a pair of waders. Happy Holidays to all! I hope Santa is good to you"

 

[BrookieChaser]

Merry Christmas to you too, NW.

I laughed at the "wife and kids" comment. I'm still young and dumb with no wife or kids to care if I come home. My sketchiest encounter was when I kayaked into sharks looking for fish. One shark (about 5' long) rammed my kayak and about knocked the paddle out of my hand. The jetties and wading at night can get sketchy too.

As for a cold water salt line I'd have to check what I have. Mine are all SA intermediate and full sink. I know SA sent me the new "sonar" line, I also have the "frequency" series and the "mastery streamer" line. The "sonar" series has warm and cold line. But, from my experience, any line will be stiff in the cold. I use the "mastery streamer" for winter streamer fishing for trout. It gets stiff, but I just stretch it more often.

I rinse all my gear in fresh water while saltwater fishing, including the flies and line. Pro tip- if there's not an outside spigot break the rod down and use the bathroom faucet, or grab a gallon or two of water at the Wawa or Royal Farms until you can get to pressurized water.

 

[Maurice]

So lemme get this straight. Yer gonna take the refunded money from two pairs of LLBean waders that you’ve returned several times, essentially renting them for free on their company dime and use it to buy waders from a company who understands that waders leak and thumps you on the head when you have them fixed.

That’s pretty low.

You know they kiss yer butt at LLBean with unreasonably rewarding guarantees to KEEP u as a customer.

The rest I enjoyed.

 

[Nymph-wristed]

Maurice wrote:
So lemme get this straight. Yer gonna take the refunded money from two pairs of LLBean waders that you’ve returned several times, essentially renting them for free on their company dime and use it to buy waders from a company who understands that waders leak and thumps you on the head when you have them fixed.

That’s pretty low.

You know they kiss yer butt at LLBean with unreasonably rewarding guarantees to KEEP u as a customer.

The rest I enjoyed.

Yeah, I've gone through this a dozen times over the years with countless guys, so I won't even try to explain fully. Neither wader lasted a year this time, so they are not designed for me, obviously, and I take care of my stuff. They will still get my money in other ways in the coming years...

 

[AFISHN]

Don't buy a stripping basket!!!!!
I have two different kinds you can have one.
I'll bring them when we fished together in 2018,if you can wait.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Tom

 

[Swattie87]

AFISHN wrote:
Don't buy a stripping basket!!!!!
I have two different kinds you can have one.
I'll bring them when we fished together in 2018,if you can wait.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Tom

Do they come with a satisfaction guarantee?

Haha...Sorry n-w, couldn't resist the presentation on that drag free drift.

 

[Nymph-wristed]

Bastards! :-D :-D I mean thank you both (for the ball busting and the basket).!

In the spirit of stoking the flames since the holiday is over and it's too cold for me to fish (and Maurice insinuated that I am a lowlife :-( let me explain a little more how I sleep at night with my own interpretation of satisfaction with a product. This is, of course, only my point of view and I am trying not to preach or judge anyone else's feelings about it or call anyone low for disagreeing with me:

The company, a decent company by corporate standards, offers a nice 100% satisfaction guarantee, but that is as much their brand as it is some high-minded philosophy. If they were hurt by it, and they did take a downturn a few years ago and publicly debated doing away with free shipping (and have tweaked the policy in question too), for example, another thing that goes hand in hand with the LL Bean brand, then they would have abandoned both policies for the bottom line if they weren't essential to their brand. Cabela's has picked up the same policy on Cabela's branded items because it's a home run, even for a publicly traded, ever expanding corporation that just gobbled up Bass Pro.

Hardly "shopping small," this family run business also made like 2 billion dollars in profits last year.

They "make and effort" to carry Made in America goods, and you can even search by their site by that designnation. Know how many they have? 207 out of thousands of items made elsewhere on the cheap. Most are boots, also their brand as much as anything else.

Linda Bean made an undisclosed political contribution to the MAGA Super PAC, whose position on the environment means taking public lands from us and marketing patriotic energy independence by drilling for fossil fuels while my neighborhood (and maybe yours) is full of solar panels made my Siemens or the Chinese...

I can also rationalize further as I stand in line at Beans with countless others making Christmas returns that I bought my new waders from TCO, a small shop in PA, and I bought American made Simms this time because I had the luxury to afford them (this time).

I like Beans, and I have many quality garments and other outdoor toys from them. I will likely buy more the day I return my waders. That said, it is there policy, and satisfaction is in the eye of the buyer, and they certainly know most of us will feel too "low" to return something. If we all returned them when they leaked, I bet the product would miraculously get better. Instead, we figure a year is long enough or we didn't care for them well or whatever.

My wife got a cold cup of coffee a few day ago from a small coffee shop that she loves to visit. She likes the products, the people, and so on. She almost didn't take the cold coffee back to the counter because she felt bad about it. I said, If this was Dunkin or Starbucks would you pay for cold coffee? She would tell me the same thing if I felt too low to return leaking waders to a corporation with a 100% satisfaction policy.

 

[afishinado]

Everyone has their own take on things.

While working at Orvis, I saw the good, the bad and the ugly.

The vast majority of people buy something, use it, and are fair-minded to determine if they received their full value from it.

Some folks don't want to return anything. If they had a problem, I always encouraged them to bring it back for a replacement or refund.

There is however a smaller group that uses something, brings it back, sometimes years later for a refund or replacement....over and over.

Bringing back older waders and boots are quite common.

I had one guy that had a second home in Arizona, every fall he'd buy warm-weather clothes, polos, shorts, etc. In the spring he would return it all and get his money back. Next fall the same thing over and over for about five years.

I've had many guys return all his flies, leaders and tippets after their fishing trip and some bring back their rod, reels, lines, nets, etc. They really didn't "rent" them, renting implies some sort of payment. They just used them for free.

And even had a guy come in with his worn out flies looking to replace them and telling me he never used them, they just fell apart in his box.

I recall a lady that kept bring in her dirty smelly torn up dog bed every year or so for a replacement.

A really good one was a family that after their father died (the day of funeral) they cleaned out his closet of clothes. They wheeled the everything in several shopping carts with trash bags filled with clothing. Some of the clothing must have been in their father's closet for decades. They wanted a refund for everything.

I could go on....

Anyway, we all pay for those that abuse the return policies of companies. As I said, most folks are fair and will only return things if they were dissatisfied with the product and/or it didn't last as long as they had hoped.

LL Bean considers changing its return policy

 

[Dave_W]

afishinado wrote:
Everyone has their own take on things.

While working at Orvis, I saw the good, the bad and the ugly.

The vast majority of people buy something, use it, and are fair-minded to determine if they received their full value from it.

Some folks don't want to return anything. If they had a problem, I always encouraged them to bring it back for a replacement or refund.

There is however a smaller group that uses something, brings it back, sometimes years later for a refund or replacement....over and over.

Bringing back older waders and boots are quite common.

I had one guy that had a second home in Arizona, every fall he'd buy warm-weather clothes, polos, shorts, etc. In the spring he would return it all and get his money back. Next fall the same thing over and over for about five years.

I've had many guys return all his flies, leaders and tippets after their fishing trip and some bring back their rod, reels, lines, nets, etc. They really didn't "rent" them, renting implies some sort of payment. They just used them for free.

And even had a guy come in with his worn out flies looking to replace them and telling me he never used them, they just fell apart in his box.

I recall a lady that kept bring in her dirty smelly torn up dog bed every year or so for a replacement.

A really good one was a family that after their father died (the day of funeral) they cleaned out his closet of clothes. They wheeled the everything in several shopping carts with trash bags filled with clothing. Some of the clothing must have been in their father's closet for decades. They wanted a refund for everything.

I could go on....

Anyway, we all pay for those that abuse the return policies of companies. As I said, most folks are fair and will only return things if they were dissatisfied with the product and/or it didn't last as long as they had hoped.

LL Bean considers changing its return policy

Good grief! :-o

In four decades of fishing I don't think I have ever returned anything I bought.

I think some of these companies really need to re-visit their policies and return some sanity to the business.

 

[Dave_W]

Nymph-wristed wrote:
Any advice on a good coldwater, saltwater line?

The salt - and surf and jetty fishing in particular - is just brutal on fishing gear compared to the typical freshwater fishing so many FFers are accustomed to.

In addition to the stripping basket and bigger rods you've taken note of....I strongly recommend you get set-up with a fast sink shooting head. The main reason is wind. A double hauled SH will enable you to really punch into wind. In surf fishing, precise casting is of little importance - what you want is distance and a SH will shoot well and buck the everpresent wind. A fast sink head will not fish poppers (it can work if the fish are right in the wash and you're hardly casting) but I don't FF much at the beach with poppers and prefer to get down fast. The current along the surf can be very strong and a fast sink SH gets out far and gets down fast, where you want your fly.

My experience fishing the surf really improved when I started using big, fast sink shooting heads. I use the same one regardless of water temp (can't remember the brand or grain weight as I've cut it up and modified it, like much of my equipment). It does help a lot if you take some time before walking out to the beach to manually stretch your running line. Really, don't scrimp on this chore. A streched running line will perform much better and tangle less in the stripping basket.

 

[sandfly]

standing in the wash ? that's where the fish are !

 

[AFISHN]

I can tell it's too cold to fish.

 

[moon1284]

Bass pro bought cabelas not the other way around.

 

[pete41]

I have never returned anything- but came close to returning some milk to Walmart today[not sour but stinky]..I dumped it-never have taken anything back--does that mean I'm a nice guy,coward or just lazy?Ponder time..

 

[Swattie87]

I'm fine with folks taking stuff back for a refund under a "satisfaction guarantee" as long as they legitimately weren't satisfied by the product, within reason. That leaves some room for the fact that some people are harder to satisfy than others. And that's ok...that's part of having a satisfaction guarantee offered on your products. That being said, the stuff afish mentioned is bologna.

In terms of FFing gear, I remember two significant returns that I've made. Both Cabelas house line products. One was a pair of waders that leaked on their initial suit-up due to a clear defective seam. Exchanged, no questions asked, no problem. The second was a $200 range Cabelas branded rod that shattered under very little load while attempting to string it up. I think I had the rod for about 2 years when this happened. In that case I felt that 2 years of use (maybe 20 outings) for a $200 rod was not enough for me to feel satisfied with the purchase. They weren't happy about honoring a refund, and we eventually "compromised" on a $75 store credit. I still shop at Cabelas at essentially the same rate I did before, FWIW. I buy some stuff there, but not necessarily a ton. Though I haven't bought one of their rods since.

I've never taken Bean up on their guarantee. I've owned and really like their waders. They all eventually leaked, but after a couple years of rough use. I felt like I got my reasonable money's worth out of them. I will say, that every time I buy a new pair of Bean Waders...every couple of years or so, they have increased in price. Could probably make a case that everything has gone up in price, but I do think Bean waders are outpacing inflation. Not sure if excessive and unreasonable returns have a hand in that or not, but it's certainly plausible.