TFO. FW - Fly/Spin

[paul sach]

Been looking at TFO offering a combination fly /spin 6'0 med flex rod was wondering if anyone has any experience with this combo rod, I've handled combination rods b4 but they didn't feel like a fly rod or spinning rod, understand it was built on a blank developed by Joe Robinson who wrote piscatorial absurdities ...pretty interesting phylosphy on panfishing different thinking to say the least ....

[Mark Sleeper]

Hi I have the FWSF 601-2  6'0"UL line wt 2-6 lb lure wt 1/32-3/8 oz signature series rod  I have a Ross Evolution 1.5 reel with cortland 444 DT3F Sylk double tapered line , this is one of my favorite set ups,I have caught sunfish, crappie ,perch, sm and large mouth bass up to 5lb with it ,glad I have it hope this helps you, Mark

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

Piscatorial absurdities is a book?

[Joe Angelucci]

The concept is called Threadlining which is spin fishing with an under 3 weight fly rod and reel. The goal is to use the lightest possible rod / reel with light  tippet ( 1.5 / 3.0) lb test.

Some people consider it Ultra / Ultra Lite fishing. I was never able to put together a proper rod / reel combination 

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

We've been talking about that for a long time here at BBC. Guys like Johnny Wilkins and Joe Angelucci have taken it to the nth degree.
I use a very soft fiberglass fly rod for this method, with 4lb test and 2-3 on leaders.- and that's big compared to some like Joe.
My rig last season was a 5 wt, 8.5ft garage sale fly rod, with a Daiwa US40 trigger spin and the lines mentioned.
Works good.

[Joe Angelucci]

David  Sounds like a blast... I got a Pflueger 8056 rod 8 feet that I can pair with an Alpha 25 reel with 4 lb test . Think the rod is rated 5/6 weight 

[JBplusThuy]

Did you replace the guides?

[paul sach]

I've read his book and watched his casting demonstrations on YouTube, never could duplicate his casting stroke, the rod is a very soft flexing blank, supposedly the TFO FW-F/S was developed off his rod, his ultra ultra light line 1.5 -3 test was alittle to fragile for this fisherman ...... Come to think of it there used to be a web site called "Threadlining" wonder what happened to it ? Some very learned Panfisherman frequented the site with good information ..
Paul

[Tony Livingston]

What about just having a spinning rod built on a fly rod blank? Awesome combination.

[jim cosgrove]

your correct tony.guys that shore fish the great lkes off piers and walls have been using flyrod blank spinning rods for decades.the length and softness allow light line to be used.the hookset is a lift more than a hard set similar to ice fishing.i have great luck with short i piece ultralight glass or composite rods.very whippy and cheap.any decent reel and 4or 6 lb nanofil or braid.i hooked and landed a 9 pound bass on this combo over the summer.and not in open water.rocks brush weeds.i can throw some tiny stuff with these rigs and still feel the bait.

[JBplusThuy]

I've got a couple of those, but they aren't really BG rods :-) Vintage (late sixties/early seventies) Fishing Facts/Northwoods Tackle Nightcrawler Secrets rods built on 9-wt Fenwick blanks. I don't really use them much, since they're really boat rods and I'm mostly a shore and tube fisher, but they were the rods I dreamed of but couldn't afford when I was a kid, so I picked them up on eBay.

I  wonder if I'm the only guy in California who has Nightcrawler Secrets rods? :-) Also have a 7-footer (eBay) and a 5-foot one-piece (original owner, saved up my allowance and aluminum can money for it when I was in middle school; still frequently used).

[Slip Sinker]

I really liked the concept of spinning reel attached to the fly rod… brings back fond memories of my dad and I crappie fishing. He had a Shakespeare 2052 reel taped on his bamboo fly rod. The bend in the rod was awesome as he played the crappies into the boat. It satisfied the long Ultra Light spinning rod in that days market. I believe nowadays the manufactures has filled that gap with similar Fly rod feel rod blanks in some of their product lines.

Feeling retro a couple summers ago I taped an ultralight spinning reel on to one of my fly rods. The first thing I noticed is you lost the rod /reel balance so I had to step the reel up in weight to accommodate the lengthy weight of the fly rod. Threading the super line through the guides and making a few practice casts there is severe restriction from spinning spool to the first guide. Getting over that I took it for a test spin a small walk from the house.

Casting my high productive 2” swim jigs I managed to catch a few fish and it was fun. However the balance was still off and loss of sensitivity was significantly noticed. The difference in sensitivity between the 5.5 ft and the fly/spin with similar lines was substantial.  

Owning nearly every model of the Spinmatic rod and Celilo Ultra Lite rods I experiment a lot with combinations of rods, reels and lines and have found there is on the longer rods where the law of diminishing returns starts kicking in for me at over 6.5 to 7 ft long rods. There is a point where the longer rods lack the sensitivity and feel.

If the term “Thread lining” is to thin mono lines thru a fly rod blank then a term like “SuperLIning” should be coined to human hair diameter Super lines with 2-6lb strength thru tiny sensitive spinning rod blanks.  for the past few seasons I've been pitching tiny baits and offerings into fishy places filled with structure and pulling out quantities of panfish and significantly sized preds on super lines rated at 2-6# test with 1.5# test mono dia or less..

After much experimenting the most sensitive rigs I have now is at 5.5 – 6-0 with either fireline 2# ice braid or Nanofil 2-6#. Tiny jigs catch lots of panfish but they also catch a lot of large bass, pike and walleye. My numbers are way up fishing like this the past two seasons. just thought id share.

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

Super small braids seem like a next evolution step. Ull have to try it!