Off the Water with Hank Parker EP 26: Q&A and fun stories

[@codym8897]

Hey Hank Parker's Outdoor Magazine, I'm a fan of your show. I'm wondering if you would consider uploading full episodes of your show from Season 8 in 1992? I think your fans would really appreciate it.👍

[@danielraynor4075]

Thanks again for another great video Hank an have a great day 🎉🎉🎉😊

[@bobbycolson1957]

Grand babies are the BEST

[@JimWalkerMusic]

Greetings Hank from Headland, Alabama! Mr. Parker, you do realize Sarabeth is going to be a bigger celebrity than you are someday soon? Lol! She's intelligent and beautiful. Everything a KZbin influencer needs to be! I for one watch and enjoy every episode. You both do a wonderful job!

[@HankParkerOutdoorMagazine]

Absolutely my buddy!!! I have high hopes for her!

[@JimWalkerMusic]

@@HankParkerOutdoorMagazine 💖

[@SCOTTOSINGA]

Always awesome! Hank do you remember a man named Dan Salvatore? Fished and Lived near you I heard.

[@RyanHotlen]

Your like gadabout Gaddis !! The flying fisherman lol !!

[@academicmailbox7798]

The advice for the one or two day per year angler is pretty straight on (some of us with all kinds of commitments, count ourselves lucky to maintain that two day average). I've looked at what's happening, comparing the gear baitcaster and spinning tackle setup's to various fly angling ones. And it boils down a basic principal of physics, of constant weight or load (what happens to a 'fly rod'), or intermittent weight tension or rod load. The latter is what occurs in spinning and baitcasting systems.

[@academicmailbox7798]

We look at 'heavy' line material used to load a fly rod (because with the fly rod tackle one quickly starts to find oneself needing and requiring fairly massive rod blanks and rod designs just to throw 'line' which loads that fly rod that might only weigh an ounce or two). We describe heavier or sinking density line material either by 'inches per second sinking rates', or by grains of weight per foot. It's sort of like David Dudley's lure lab where he measured depth achieved by a stock Megabass 110 when reeled back. In these fly lines, the sink rate of three inch per second, generally takes four to five grains of weight in the fly line per foot.

[@academicmailbox7798]

At a cast length of short distance (fly fishing's home is really when working up at shorter distances, sort of akin to flipping and pitching). If one could describe 'dry fly' angling, it combines aspects of 'top water' zone fishing in gear tackle, with accuracy and cast rate of flipping and pitching. There's really no equivalent to dry fly on the gear side. A fly cast of 'thirty feet' where one wanted to achieve modest sink rates over the retrieved distance, your taking a 'line weight' of four grains over thirty feet of line. Or something akin to 120 grains of total weight outside the rod rings. It's about a quarter of one ounce weight, but that is one quarter of one ounce loaded 'constantly' on that fly rod. Compared to gear angling where the 'tip action' of the rod is what matters. Why? Because that quarter ounce pitching jig or chatter bait lure, or whatever Texas rig one is throwing. It only needs to load the tip of one's baitcasting rod tackle for a brief moment, sufficient to flip or pitch the bait accurately and with barely enough backbone to the said fishing rod.

[@academicmailbox7798]

The argument that I would make is that in working with fly rod tackle, when you really start to break down the numbers. Some really weird things start to happen. As one gets to three and four hundred grain weights in fly fishing (say as you approach one ounce of weight), or forbid that you have a six hundred grain fly line on, say ounce and a half. And you even decide to put some heavy density material extension on the end of that, to bring your fly lure down, or slow it in faster currents. The type of fishing rod you need then just boggles the mind. It starts to look more like Marlin fishing gear very fast. Why? It's nothing with gear tackle to throw even a couple of ounces worth of swimbait lure a distance. All day long. Because that swimbait gear rod, still under eight foot length for competition boat fishing purposes, is only under load by that swimbait for a short duration. I think Zaldain and others recommend punching tackle rods (that would be purpose made to punch with ounce sinkers etc), for beginners to get into swimbait lure fishing with. In the past, salmon anglers used to employ fifteen foot poles to throw their lines that extended an ounce in weight.

[@academicmailbox7798]

That was the shock to me when I put numbers for gear tackle alingside fly angling tackle. There are fifteen grains in one metric 'gram' (a lot of tackle in Europe is stamped with gram weights, like five to twenty gram, or less than a quarter ounce to three quarters is my baitcaster rod spec). And fifteen grains in one gram, multiplied by five grams, or 75 to 80 grains. That's considered to be a decent amount of weight in fly fishing. It's considered to be almost nothing in bass angling tackle. Everything in fly fishing rods is considered on the trout end (salmon fly fishing rods get even more strange than trout), in terms of these fifteen grain increments. Where a change of thirty grains of weight, while considered meaningless by many bass gear anglers, on the fly fishing tackle side thirty grains of weight is a big deal. Why? It's that thing of rods being under 'constant' load during a cast, or even a retrieve at many times, is totally different to a rod expected to throw the exact same weight. But where 'the weight' is not spread out over many feet of line, but is concentrated on a single 'object' which is a Texas rig, a jig, a chatterbait etc. Intermittent rod load condition as opposed to constant load.

[@academicmailbox7798]

To add a final thought, David Dudley measured his Megabass 110 achieving a three foot depth using a straight winding retrieve of that bait. Which is impressive for casting a lure and winding it back across a testing pool, minus any hook changes or weight added to the bait. And he desribed the amount of side to side sway the jerk bait would achieve when twitched through the water. So both on the depth achieved quickly and side motion, there isn't a lot that fly fishing tackle can do to emulate it. However, when Hank described a baitcaster rod and reel set up as being more of a mechanical wench type of instrument, than a spinning rod. It did remind me of one of thing things about fly fishing practice, it tends to be that aspect of setting the hook and keeping tension on a fish (I think it's one of reasons when small mouth bass fishing can be challenging, as guys need spinning tackle to attract small mouth bass to bite, and simultaneously find themselves in trouble as the same tackle which got the bite is unable to put enough tension on the fish to play the fish). In fly fishing tackle the types of fish we fish for, often do hit lures when they do, with the speed and ferocity of a train colliding with a static object. It's a sensation (which is why at that point of contact you need a system that holds the fish instantly, usually it's the fly angler's own hands on the fly line producing the stoppage to the line shooting through the rings). To get a hookset achieved, or you tend to lose fish, fractions of a second post-fish take. In fly fishing, unlike baitcasting, there's none of this thing of the angler doing a hookset. In fly fishing for the weight-ier game fish species, all you're attempting to do is hold on (as the fish charges the bait like a train passing through a station platform without stopping or without slowing down). You just do that thing where the gust of wind almost blows you over, and you never look much in control as an angler ever.

[@Huewii_com]

Hank, does God ever put on your mind about starting a church? If so, I'm member #1. :)

[@hirambrashier1449]

Some guys insist on using bait casting reels for ultra lite lures. Simply don’t make sense to me. I think they just hate spinning outfits so bad they make it hard on theirselves.