Choosing A Saltwater Fly Fishing Rod

Choosing the right saltwater rod for your trip to the Florida Keys, Bahamas, Belize, and anywhere else there are hard fighting fish in salty locations can be a daunting task. I guide clients from all over the world on a daily basis in some of the toughest salt water fly fishing in the world, The Florida Keys, more specifically, Islamorada. If you have been in my boat, you know how particular I am about rods, if you haven’t, well, I am very particular about rods. In this post I want to discuss what I use as my daily drivers, what I keep in my quiver, and what you should bring on a saltwater trip. There are endless manufactures to choose from, they all make pretty great rods these days, but you don’t want to fish for tarpon with a 7wt and a 12wt is gonna be overkill for schooled up bonefish.

The Salt water fly rod

Sealed Drag

Most rod manufacturers offer graphite or some sort of composite material in their rods. They can be built with carbon fiber, and boron, kevlar, and even nano materials. The goal with all these new materials is to create a lighter, more accurate, more responsive fly rod.

You can’t really go wrong with any rod manufacturers. They are all putting out great rods. I personally fish, Sage, Orvis, G.Loomis, and Hardy.

Saltwater fly rods come in Four, two, and one piece configurations. Hardy is the only manufacturer that produces a one piece, although G.Loomis used to. The one piece rod is an amazing boat rod, but it’s pretty impossible to travel with. The typical traveling angler will be looking at four piece options which have been refined to cast just as well as their one piece counterparts.

Fly Fishing in saltwater, UNDERSTANDING the ENVIRONMENT

WHAT ARE YOU TARGETING?

Salt water fly fishing offers diverse fishing with a wide variety of species, each with their own unique habits and behaviors. To help you make an informed decision, we'll discuss the fishery and the types of fly rods that are commonly used down here.

The Florida Keys are known for their flats fishing, which is where most fly anglers focus their efforts. The flats consist of shallow, sandy areas that are home to a wide variety of fish species, including bonefish, tarpon, permit, and snook. These fish are notoriously difficult to catch, which is part of what makes flats fishing so challenging and rewarding.

Bonefish are the most common target for fly anglers in the Keys. They are fast, elusive, and can be incredibly picky about what they eat. Tarpon are also a popular target, and they are much larger and more powerful than bonefish. Permit are perhaps the most challenging of all, with a reputation for being incredibly difficult to catch.

The types of fly rods that are used in the Keys depend on the species you're targeting and the conditions you're fishing in.

Rod Weights for different Species

UNderstanding reel size and arbor size

You would hate to show up for a Tarpon trip with an undersized reel, and equally so, you probably wouldn’t want to cast all day at bonefish with a reel the size of your head. Most anglers can easily differentiate the size of the reel they need based on species and rod weight, but there are some things that should be taken into consideration especially when it comes to tarpon fishing

If you’re going to spend the day blind casting for tarpon in mangroves and tannic water it might be in your best interest to look for a lighter reel. Casting with a heavy reel all day is exhausting and can definitely strain your arm and make the rest of your trip painful. Lighter reels like the Nautilus NV-G are a great sealed drag option to keep your arm happy.

On the other hand, if you’re going to be sight fishing to giant tarpon on the ocean or in the back country you’ll probably not be casting all day and having the largest reel and arbor you can find makes life really easy when you need to pick up a lot of line quickly and it makes fighting fish much easier. A Tibor Signature 11-12 or Tibor Pacific makes fighting big fish more manageable.

A quick note about fly reel arbor. The arbor of a fly reel is the diameter of the spool where the line is attached. The bigger the arbor, the faster the rate of retrieval of line. There are three sizes of arbor, small, medium, and large. Most modern saltwater reels fall under large arbor, and every reel mentioned in this article has a large arbor.

THE BEST SALTWATER REELS BY MOON CAST ANGLERS