Road prong

[Bran]

Fished up Road Prong yesterday for a few hours. Had a good trip, I have always wanted to fish it and opportunity finally presented itself. Ill post a couple pics when I get home but the most noteworthy thing is I had to go up to a 5x and Florida tippet. They were pretty spooked and the water seemed a little low.
Ended up with about 12 to hand and 5 or 6 ldr's. Nice day in a beautiful place!

[jeffnles1]

That is a pretty stretch of stream.

[Owl]

Ok, call me stupid - what is a "Florida" tippet? I know I've not been fishing alot in the last few years, but this is a new one to me.....


And did I read right that they were spooky so you went down to 5x?

Back in the day, 5x would be throwing like throwing steel cable on a mountain stream full of 8 inch trout....did something change horribly while I was gone from fishing? LOL

Glad you had a nice day. I was fishing at the confluence and we got about 20 yards upstream and a HUGE thunderstorm rolled in on us. Never have made it back to try further upstream, but it's somewhere on my to-do fishing list.

[jeffnles1]

Ok, call me stupid - what is a "Florida" tippet?

When I read the post, I read it as Fluro tippet. Funny how the mind plays tricks on us. I bet that is what he meant.


I do use mainly 5X and 6X tippet in the park streams. It probably is overkill but the fish don't seem to mind.

Jeff

[alexys01]

Back in the day, 5x would be throwing like throwing steel cable on a mountain stream full of 8 inch trout....did something change horribly while I was gone from fishing? LOL


4x is .007 line diameter which is probably 6lb breaking strength
5x would actually be .006 line diameter which should be less than 5# line strength.
I actually have some bass pro mono 2# test that is .007 diameter.
4 -5 x tippet is pretty much what i use 99% of the time for small stream trout. tippet diameter is universal , where # test is generally what the manufacturer claims the breaking strength is. That all being said 5x is a fairly light tippet (especially when throwing beadheads and or more lead.) with only 3 thousanths of an inch difference than a light 8x. Hope this helps.

[Crockett]

I would agree 5x is plenty strong and also plenty small enough for the trout not to see easily. Talk about steel cable heck a few weeks ago I forgot my tippet and all I had was a leader with no tippet left on it at all. It was very thick and easy to spot but I still caught trout and had plenty hitting my stimulator. Probably would have been better if I had tippet but still worked.

By the way thanks for the report Bran. I fished road prong the first time back in mid november. I wet waded and it was freezing also I didn't catch a thing that day. Seemed like a very rugged stream very hard to get from one "level" to the next if not impossible at spots without gettin out of the creek. Lots of falls and barriers.

[tennswede]

Back in the day, a decade or more ago when I fished high mountains streams a lot more than I do now, I never used anything lighter than 4X. It's not needed. I caught plenty of fish, one of em' was my biggest Brook trout from the park to this day. An 11 1/2" fish from WPLP. Guess what the fish took? A Joe's Hopper size 8. It was a blast. to see that brookie come up and take that hopper.

[Owl]

Hmmm.....my love of 7X could have come from fishing two streams in GA specifically...one is a brownie stream that gets alot of pressure, and the other has a 16 inch minimum size limit on it - the only one in GA other than the "trophy" streams( and now some DH streams)...

the fish were super spooky in those two streams and I seem to remember going down to 7X and my luck improving...but I think I'll give the 4X a try next time I'm in the park and see what gives. Thanks guys.


old dog - new trick....we'll see.

( 5 X still looks like rope to me. )

[tennswede]

Owl,

Not surprised at all when you are taking about those GA streams. I haven't fished them but have done a lot of research on them. It's kind of the same as the tailwaters. Last weekend I used 7x fluorocarbon on SoHo. Is it necessary all the time? No, but a lot of times when you fish emergers it's the ticket to a day of catching quite a few fish vs catching one or two.

[jeffnles1]

I will sometimes use 7X on the tailwaters. I'm not sure the fish see it any more or less than the 5X. If the trout can see a size #22 midge and start risingto it 5' before it drifts over the fish's head, my guess is they can see just about any size tippet line too.

I find the lighter tippets (6X 7X) give better drifts on those tiny midge and BWO type flies than heavier tippet does. I use the lighter tippet when on the tailwaters and fishing a lot of midges, griffith's gnats, thread midge numphs, etc. down to size 22 and below.

Jeff