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Everglades Sight Fishing
Everglades City, FL
The basic rig for redfish, snook and juvenile tarpon.
By far the most commonly used rig is an eight weight with a floating line. Eight's are about the median weight for fishing snook and reds and small tarpon in the Everglades. With a few adjustments you can handle most situations and a variety of flies in the size ranges we most often use, roughly size 2 through 2/0.
You'll want a fairly stout leader, the oysters, the mangrove roots and the sharp gill plates of the snook are unforgiving of light tippetts. On this rig I'd have a tapered leader about nine feet long, testing 12 or 16 pound test.
Any tapered leader style will work, but on this 'essential' Everglades rig, I'd want it made from monofilament as opposed to fluorocarbon. That's because the majority of our fishing is in extremely shallow water and mono has a slower sink rate than fluoro. The saltwater, tapered leaders you can buy at any fly shop will work just fine.
At the terminal end of the tapered leader we'll need to add a 'bite tippet,' also known as a 'shock tippet.' This is that short length of heavier line between the leader and the fly, it's there to resist abrasion at the jaw and gill plates of a hooked fish. On this 'control,' rig we're going to use a 'bite' of 30 pound fluorocarbon. Just for everyday fishing in the Everglades I like a bite tippet about twenty or more inches long. I start with a piece about thirty inches and tie that to the class tippet with a double uni-knot. A blood knot will work too. With the heavier line, the 'bite,' I'll usualy make three turns through the loop and then with the class tippet, the tapered end of the leader, I'll take five or more. The longer bite tippet gives you, amoung other things, a chance to retie flies several times, in the Everglades where everything cuts, stings, bites, poisons, strangles and constricts, that goes a long way.
Then we'll tie on the fly, probably a #1 or #1/0, using an 'Improved Homer Rhode Loop Knot.'
That's the basic rig, the one most commonly used in the 'Glades.
A couple of other choices...
Some situations will require a truly stealthy approach and a delicate presentation with a small fly to ensure a precise delivery. For that it's nice to have a six or seven weight. Lately some rod manufacturers are even offering saltwater rods in five weight.
Floating line.
Leader: 9 foot, tapered monofilament, 10 or 12 pound test..
Bite tippet: 20 or 25 pound flourocarbon.
And...
And then there are times when the wind is up, or we're blind casting a shoreline while drifting along the banks of a jungle river, maybe the water is turbid and we can't see the fish or we want to throw a weighted fly along a deeper shoreline. I like the nine weight for that, even a ten, if it's not too stiff.
Floating line.
Leader: 9 foot, tapered fluorocarbon, 16 or even 20 pound test.
Bite tippet: 30 or 40 pound flourocarbon.
A basic rig for Everglades tarpon...
This is a little more complicated, a little harder to define due to the variety of different habitats tarpon use in the 'Glades. With that said, this is the rig I would choose if I had to have only one throughout the season. It would most likely be an eleven weight, maybe a ten. I'd look for strength in the lower section for fighting the fish and some flex in the tip for short range presentations. With that in mind, I might overline it one size to facilitate emergency short range deliveries. Since this is the rig I'll be using throughout the season, I'll hedge my bets and use a floating line with an intermediate rate sinking tip.
I like a whipped and glued loop at the end of the fly line. I use this for the backing connection too.
Next comes a butt section of heavy fluorocarbon, about six feet long. It might be fifty pound test, Im looking at the relative diameter of the butt section material to the fly line diameter, I want a progressive taper from the line to the leader. I might make this section in two pieces, maybe tapering with a blood knot to 40 pound test. At the end of the butt section where it loops to the fly line I use a double surgeons loop, sometimes a perfection loop, and the end that loops to the tippet, a perfection loop.
This looped butt section is going to be on almost all of our tarpon rigs, it stays there more or less permanently and we'll change tippets by looping them on and off the butt section.
The class tippet for this rig is going to be 20 pound test, fluorocarbon, I like Yo-Zuri HYBRID, it's a fluoro-polymer-alloy and it holds the bimini very well. The loop that fastens to the butt is formed with a bimini twist of at least twenty turns and a double surgeons loop. I try to keep this connection trim and short, including all the knots, about three inches.
The length of the class tippet is largely determined by the immediate fishing conditions but for this universal Evergades rig we'll make it two feet. Tie the bitter end to a sixty pound fuorocarbon bite tippet of about twenty inches with a slim beauty or an improved blood knot.
Tie on the fly with an Improved Homer Rhode loop knot, keeping the loop small, just enough to let the fly swing freely, no more than 3/8 of an inch.
That's it then, the median rig for 'Glades tarpon, strong enough for big fish and versatile.
Two more I'd want
When you're obviously surrounded by giants, they're fresh in from the Gulf and active and rolling, it's a comfort to have a twelve weight along. A regular intermediate line is what we want on this. (There are exceptions to this too, we'll try to carry a few variations.)
We're also going to change the tippet structure using a bimini twist at both ends of the class tippet and tying the doubled bimini to the bite tippet with a slim beauty or improved blood knot. The 'bite' will be sixty or eighty pound test, fluorocarbon.
We need a stealth rig too, a lighter set up for touchy fish and sleepers. I like a nine weight for this but I want one that's meant for tarpon, my favorite is the Billy Baroo by Biscayne Rods. This is not a typical nine weight, it's one piece, graphite construction, and has amazing strength in the lower part of the rod. We'll load it with a floating line. It's a fine line we're trying walk with this one, to put together the lightest rig we can while still having enough rod to fight the fish.
For this rig I forego the loop connections in the leader and build a ten to twelve foot tapered leader with blood knots. This one will probably taper down to sixteen pound test. I've also used one piece tapered leaders like you buy in the fly shop.
You just tie the 40, 50 or 60 pound, fluorocarbon bite, 20 inches, to the class' with a Slim Beauty or Improved Blood Knot.
IGFA...
Since I like a bite tippet of more than twelve inches, for a lot of reasons, these leaders won't conform to IGFA standards, if you want IGFA specified leaders I can make those too.