Traditionalists Should Approve Of Dec 'chuck-and-duck' Ban

[Phil Lilley]

Fly-fishing: Traditionalists should approve of DEC 'chuck-and-duck' ban Thursday, February 28, 2008

Morgan Lyle

http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2008/feb/28/228_FlyFishing/

Beginning Oct. 1, you may start seeing something along the fly-fishing-only zones of the Salmon River that, so far, you haven’t seen very often: back casts.

The Department of Environmental Conservation is poised to rid the fly zones of “chuck-and-duck” fishing, which employs large amounts of split shot or similar sinkers, and basically converts a fly rod to a kind of plug-casting rig. Only true fly-fishing — casting the line, not the lure — will be allowed.

Generations of anglers after steelheads and salmon on the Lake Ontario tributary have considered heavy sinkers necessary to get their flies to the bottom of deep pools where the fish lie.

The split shot also enabled an alternate way of casting: You gather in your slack, raise the rod tip over your left shoulder, snap it forward, lobbing your sinkers and fly into the current. This works even when you’re pinned up against a wooded bank with no room for a back cast, or when you’re shoulder-to-shoulder with other anglers, which are both fairly common occurrences on the Salmon River.

Of course, if a pool is ringed with anglers lobbing “slinkies” — three-inch lengths of parachute cord stuffed with split shot and clipped to the leader — then real fly-fishing is going to be difficult, if not impossible. Getting a fly near the bottom of an eight-foot-deep pool, even when using a sinking fly line, requires casting well upstream of the target lie. That’s not possible in crowded conditions. Chuck-and-duck fishing leads to crowding, and crowding makes chuck-and-duck necessary.

And, of course, all those flies dragged to the bottom by all that weight cause lots of foul-hooking. For a significant percentage of chuck-and-duck anglers, that’s the whole idea. They’re convinced salmon and steelhead seldom, if ever, bite, and believe snagging them is the only way to catch them.

All that ends in the fly zones on Oct. 1. You’ll still be allowed to use weighted flies and weight on your leader, the way you would nymph-fish a trout stream, but you won’t be allowed to use weight to the extent that it becomes “the primary means of propelling the cast.”

In other words, you have to cast the line, with the fly going along for the ride, which is the basic defin­ition of fly-fishing.

At first, I imagined an uproar in the parking lots when anglers who drove all night from Pennsylvania or Massachusetts are told they can’t use their slinkies. Indeed, there have been a handful of complaints to the DEC about banning chuck-and-duck from the fly-fishing-only water.

But overall, the trend on the Salmon River’s fly zones has been toward traditional fly-fishing, back cast and all, according to Fran Verdoliva, the Salmon River program coordinator for the DEC.

“You see less and less people in that particular section using the running line, strip-casting technique,” Verdoliva said. “You see people using some weight, but still able to roll cast or overhead cast.”

I wondered about how the rule would be enforced, since the new regulation doesn’t say specifically how much weight is allowed. Verdoliva said DEC law enforcement officers know the difference between chuck-and-duck casting and trad­itional roll casts or overhead casts. As he noted, the difference in the two techniques is pretty obvious.

What about the catching? Is it possible to catch bottom-oriented salmon and steelhead with traditional fly-fishing gear and tactics? You bet. There has always been a small group of Salmon River anglers who fish that way. They catch their share of fish, and while they probably hook up less often than chuck-and-duckers, they probably find the fish they do catch more rewarding.

“There have been a couple of people who’ve contacted me through the department and said, ‘I won’t be able to fish anymore,’ ” Verdoliva said. “To put it bluntly, that’s kind of stupid. If that’s the only way you can fish, you’re pretty limited.”

And as Verdoliva, a former Salmon River guide who still enjoys chuck-and-duck fishing sometimes, pointed out, if you simply must chuck and duck, you’ll have 12 miles of river on which to do it. Meanwhile, those of us who really want to fly-fish will finally be able to.

By the way, during the summer, weight will continue to be banned altogether from the Salmon River’s fly zones, in order to provide fair chase for summer-run steelheads and Atlantic salmon.

Most people think of the Salmon River as being a fall, winter and

early spring fishery, but the summer species are becoming more common, and people who know how to fish for them are having success, Verdoliva said.

“It doesn’t sound like much, but we had 20 Atlantics here come to the hatchery this fall,” he said. “We’ve never had any at all before.”

[jvmorton2002]

This is the first time I've ever read an explanation of "chuck and duck" fishing at all (I'm pretty new to fly fishing) seems like if one has to resort to that, they might as well switch to spinning gear- I'm one of the worst casters you're likely to see, but even I can roll cast well enough to not anger the more experienced folks at our local stream(which happens to be surrounded by trees, cat-tails and prairie grass as tall as me)

[Phil Lilley]

Using this technique with spinning gear is difficult. It's hard to put the weight exactly where you want it on every cast like you can with a fly rod. You pull out the exact amount of line to reach your spot and let it fly, hitting it every time. You can also hold a 10 ft fly rod high over the drift and lessen the line drag in the water, unlike a shorter spinning rod and mono line which sags too much, catching the water and pulling the weight and fly un naturally thru the drift.

And casting this rig is much easier than a regular fly cast. Our clients in AK pick it up almost immediately and are very successful hooking fish.

The technique is so successful at getting a fly to the bottom and keeping there longer and thus hooking more fish that it makes alot of fly caster jealous and they want to ban it. Others have different reason, some which I understand. But to ban a technique because it's too successful in hooking fish (fair) is ridiculous.

[strangercreek]

It wouldn't bother me, I couldn't catch fish like that regardless, or on a nymphing rig for that matter (I couldn't catch a trout with a nymphing rig if it was laying on the bank )

I fish this way in some of the creeks around home as a backcast isn't possible, but I am usually just throwing the line and a fly, no sinkers

[Brian Wise]

Verdoliva said DEC law enforcement officers know the difference between chuck-and-duck casting and trad­itional roll casts or overhead casts.

You mean law enforcement in other places have an idea of fly fishing techniques? Must be nice....

Brian

[jscheetz]

Beginning Oct. 1, you may start seeing something along the fly-fishing-only zones of the Salmon River that, so far, you haven’t seen very often: back casts.

Not to worry - all those Salmon River folks are welcome to come down to Taney. It's crowded - so they should feel right at home - They can shuffle and catch fish right at their feet so they don't need to cast much - and if they miss their home river they can stand knee deep in outlet 2 and snag fish all day.

Actually the Chuck and duck issue is kind of like the snaggers in the outlets - while there is a legal way to use it as a method to catch fish - just like floating a fly down from the outlet - it can also be used to snag the heck out of em - and we already know there are plenty of "fishermen" who don't care how they get a fish on their line. So the few idiots make it tough for the people who are tying to do it the right way. Wish we could get some enforcement of the regs here. Cause without enforcement of it the idiots will still be doing it - kind of a "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" thing. The laws will stop law abiding citizens from doing something but the unethical types will be prone to continue with their behavior regardless.

JS

[watermen]

Chuck and duck is the only way to fish some of the bigger rivers that flow into great lakes. I have used it in orecon and washington to great effect in their rivers. They use much heavier gear and many spots are difficult to fish with conventional sink tips, if not impossible. My grandfather handed me my first flyrod at six and to him any trout not caught on a dry fly that he tied was not worth pursuing. He never looked down on me for being a bait fisherman as I found small brushy creeks within a bikeride the best places to trout fish.There is to much seperation of of ethics going on in all aspects of game management. A man that kills a deer with cedar hand fletched arrrows and a long bow has my respect, but he should not get a woods to himself that I can't use a compound in. Too much meism going on in regulation of game ethics in my opinion.