I've been fishing the salt in San Diego for a few months. After fishing I usually give my reel a good soak in the sink, sometimes I strip off a bunch of line and let it soak loose in the sink. Then dry with a towel and air dry.

What I'd like to know is, what's a good oil to use on the spots that need it, and where's a good place to get it? The reel is a Teton Tioga. Preferably in San Diego, but online works too. Thanks.
Marc

Marc, I suspect this isn't quite the answer you wanted, but my suggestion would be to first contact the Teton reel folks to find out what they recommend. Their e-mail address is info@tetonflyreels.com (I don't know if they have a web site). You might also want to show it to either Bill at Stroud Tackle or Peter at the San Diego Fly Shop; once they see the braking system, they can probably advise you of the whats and wheres of proper lubrication. And, of course, perhaps someone visiting this thread can do the same....

Marc,

I fish Tioga size 10 frames almost exclusively. I fish 'em with the "LA" large arbor spools on my 6-weight and with the "standard" arbor spools on my 8/9-weights. I used them for many years with zero failures when I guided up here at Newport Bay and most of the 12 of them that I own still function and present as new.

After an outing, I fill the sink up with hot water and Ivory soap. I strip the line off into the sink and agitate it in the suds a bit to clean it, then wind it back on the spool. I separate the spool from the frame and crank the drag to max on the frame. I then submege the two parts and scrub 'em up with an old baby bottle brush. I rinse them in hot water and leave the pieces separated to dry.

Once dry, I clean the inside of the spool out with Simple Green on a Q-Tip cotton swab to remove the old reel lube that has now been contaminated with water from the washing operation. When it's as clean as I can get it, I put a fresh drop of Penn Reel Lube on the spool catch--the shiny stainless steel part that you see when you look into the bore of the spool--and work the catch a couple of times to work the lube over it well. I put a few drops of the same stuff on the spindle that the spool rides on, insert the spool into the frame, spin 'er a few turns to spread the lube good, back the drag off all the way, and call 'er clean.

I don't know if Wes Ahmet--the guy who runs Teton--would think my method is a good one or not, but it works for me.

The drags on these babies are sealed fairly well against water intrusion, but I cinch mine down tight before submerging for cleaning anyway, just in case water does try to get in, then back it off all the way for storage.

You can get the Penn Reel Lube at any of the "Mart" stores--K," "Wal," "Sport," and so on. Most places that sell Penn reels carry it.

When I was guiding, I'd be using these things over 100 days in the salt each season, and with the minimal cleaning descirbed above, they've held up very well, which is but one of the reasons why I like fishin' them. They're one of the best values in fly fishing, in my opinion, and a great product, even if price isn't a consideration.

--JP

_________________
"I fish, therefore I am."

Thanks Richard for the info. There is a Tioga website with all the maintenance info you could ask for. Thanks JP for another thorough reply. Those Tiogas seem to be pretty popular, I sure am grateful they're out there. The 8 wt was pretty hard to get ahold of the last time I needed a spool. I like that if you look hard enough a spool can be picked up for less than the line that's going on it. I've been able to spool up 3 lines for my 8 wt.; WF-9-F, a streamer express 250 grain, and an intermediate sinker that cover every need in the SD salt without having to live in my car. The large arbor/standard arbor interchanability is a plus also.

JP, I find your choice of 10 wt reels with your lighter weighted rods interesting. I'm a novice, but everything I've been told is balance your rigs. I'd like to hear your philosophy on this subject. I'd like to put together a 6 wt. setup for surf and bay situations (probably a TFO Pro series) and using my current reel and spools would sure be a benefit. Thanks again.
Marc

Marc,

I catch a lot of fish from the Southern California coast, and it's not by accident. I am a firm believer in the idea that 90 percent of the fish caught are landed by 10 percent of the anglers seeking to catch them. Being counted in the tenth percentile doesn't require anything special in terms of tackle or technique, for that matter. It's simply a matter of paying attention to details and doing all of the little things right, 100 percent of the time.

In order for you to understand why I use a Tioga 10 frame on a 6-weight rod, it might be benificial for me to expalin why I use the rod that it's mated to in the first place. I have refined a light-tackle approach to fly fishing the Southern California coast that works very well for me and has proven to work very well for the clients of my guide service that I have taught it to.

In the shallow embayments that I fish, the bulk of the forage utilized by the game fish that I target are small crabs and shrimp, not baitfish. In other words, the fish that I am seeking to catch are looking for a nonthreatening meal that is fairly small and slender in profile. These fish also tend to rely very heavily on tide-induced current to deliver these small morsels to them.

This is why my "go-to" pattern is a marinized Woolly Bugger that I call a Newport Special. It is tied on Partridge JS Sea Streamer Gray Shadow hooks from size 10 to 6. These are a fine-wire (for salt water) hook. The use of this hook keeps the overall weight of the fly down. This makes it easy to cast on light rods and gives me the kind of light, intermittent contact with the bottom that I'm looking for--in other words, the end product will be heavy enough to get down to the bottom, but light enough to bounce, tumble, skate, and semiroll along it. The fine-wire hooks give instant penetration and set very quickly, and this is crucial where the catch of spotted sand bass is concerned, because these fish can be very light takers.

The thread is Danville size A flat waxed nylon for strength and speed in building up the reverse-taper "head" I place behind the eyes.

The tail is Gehrke's Fish Fuzz. This material is like craft fur, but the fibers have more taper to them. I use dolphin yellow, brown, and pearl white.

The body material is J. Fair's long shuck in flourescent chartresuse or pearl, or short shuck in fiery red. This material in gives me some sparkle (think of the "air bubbles" trapped in the segmented bodies of shrimp), which I prefer over flash (baitfish). It's durable and helps the fly impart the little tale-tell vibrations to the water that make it not only look alive, but feel alive.

The eyes are 5/32-inch Spirit River I-Balz. In attaching them, I completely invade the head space, mounting them as far forward toward the eye of the hook as I can get them. This gives me maximum jigging action with minimum weight and when coupled with the buoyant tail material lets the fly ride along the bottom with a pronounced tail-up attitude (burrowing shrimp, small fish with gill disease, aquatic worms). It also make sure that the fly pushes a lot of water on the retrieve. They are mounted on top of the hook shank, so that the hook point rides inverted.

Here is where the "reverse-taper head" behind the eyes comes in to play. Whithout it, water flowing over the eyes will tend to cavitate, making an unnatural-looking pocket of cavitating water behind them. The reverse taper head fairs (i.e. a "fairing", as used in the nautical world and aerospace) out the flow of water past the eyes and into the "buggy" body material.

These little flies work very well, but only when fished on leaders light enough to allow them to respond naturally to subsurface currents. This means that you are limited to fishing leaders in the 5X-to-3X range.

"Geeze, dude, I asked about your reel. . . . What's all this stuff about"?

We're gettin' there, Marc. . . .

We've got little flies to "match the hatch," and we're fishing light leaders so that these flies do what they're supposed to, with minimal angler input. Now, we come to the tricky part. . . .

In fishing this method, I need a rod that has to do some things that at first seem mutually exclusive. It has to be forgiving enough to protect the light leaders that I fish with, but it needs to have enough power in the back half of the blank to cast the lines that I need to use to deliver the goods, and it has to have enough power to turn a fish and get it coming my way. It has to be able to withstand loads that most 6-weights won't be subjected to, i.e. landing smoothhound sharks, bat rays, big halibut, and so on. It also has to withstand repeated thwacking with high-velocity weighted flies. It doesn't need to turn over a heavy fly, nor does it need to be light in weight. It helps if it's cheap enough to buy so that anybody with a job--any job--who wants one can afford to get one.

Enter the first-generation Echo 690-4X 6-weight. . . . .

These are fast, powerful rods--powerful enough to throw a 300-grain integrated head to over 90 feet, in fact. They get their power from a butt section that is larger in diameter than most other rods with a similar line-class rating, rather than through the use of a stiff, high-modulous material (which is also an expensive material). For what I do, this is the right way to get the action that I want, because the higher the modulus of elasticity of the graphite is, the trade-off is usually lower strain rate. Here, "low-tech" is the right thing for the job, because I need all of the strain rate I can get sometimes.

Basically, I've got 8-weight power in the butt, without, uh, 8-weight largess, and with a more flexy and shock-absorbent front half of the blank than the typical "eight." I've got the shock absorption that I need to protect the leaders that I fish, and I've got enough poop in the back half of the blank to zing that 300-grain integrated head as far as 90 feet, if I want to.

Now, enter the reel. . . .

I use the size 10 frame because its 3.75-inch diameter is about what most makers of "true large arbor" reels use on a frame intended for 6-weight or 7-weight rods, while the relatively narrow spool makes it easy for me to get the line back on evenly in the heat of combat. With the "LA" spools on the 6-weight, I've got the line and backing capacity that I need on those ocassions when Mrs. Smoothhound wants to book it for Catalina Island and I've got other ideas. One of the things that I like about the Tioga is that the size 10 standard arbor works well enough on my 8-weight for the fishing that I do. With the stiffer rod, I'm using stouter leaders and bigger baitfish imitations and generally don't need to let fish run very far, so with it, the advantages of a large-arbor reel on the class of fish that I catch are largely moot, but not so with the lighter stick, where I need to let the fish the run a bit on occasion. With one frame, I can accomodate the two rods that I bring and set them up with appropriate spools, either large or sttandard arbor, with various lines and so forth, and don't need a bunch of frames.

In short, the 3.75-inch diameter of the Tioga 10 frame is about right for a large-arbor reel used in the salt on a 6-weight in my view. Weight-wise, it balances well on the Echo rods that I fish, which aren't particularly light compared with other models of the same line class rating. I also like the drag design of the Tiogas. They do what they need to do without failure, fuss, bother, or unnesscesary expense.

This response was probably more than you wanted, but I thought a little background would be helpful in explaining why I think the Tioga 10 is the right tool for the job on the waters that I fish with the techniques I use in fishing them.

Blessings and TL's
--JP

_________________
"I fish, therefore I am."

JP
Thanks, it's good to get the perspective of someone with experience behind them. I'm just learning and your posts have been incredibly helpful. I've added some crabbier flies to my bay box, as a result of a response to my inquiry in the saltwater forum (folks, you should read this if you're a bay fly rodder http://www.calflyfisher.com/msgboard/vi ... .php?t=158) And now I won't be so rigid in my thinking about building a good salt setup.
Marc