My new foam stripping bucket is really winning the war against the dreaded “Flying Spaghetti Monster”. Unlike Pastafarians who wear colanders in devotion to the “Flying Spaghetti Monster”, I use my new stripping basket to keep him away. For those of you unfamiliar with Pastafarians, go to this Wiki link. Believe me I am not one of the “devoted”, I only believe in the “Flying Spaghetti Monster” because he is very real when he occasionally jumps up into the guides of my fly rod.
Here is a video of me doing a little yard casting with the bucket, New SS Bucket, 98feet out of the bucket. It wasn’t quite all of the 105 feet of Orvis Hydros Bonefish (6wt) line, but the cast, when I measured, was right at 98 feet and most importantly, there was no “Spaghetti Monster” sighting. This certainly wasn’t the only cast, just the one my wife recorded for me.
To help prevent occurrences of the “Flying Spaghetti Monster”, I have been prototyping several line management solutions for the bucket. Its easy to make multiple bottoms for the bucket which can be changed out in a few seconds. The bucket bottom in use in the video is the one I have had the most success with which is end-to-end loops of stiff plastic line. Fly fishers have struggled with line stripping bucket bottoms so my efforts are nothing new really, searching the Internet will verify that. The typical solution is using plastic tines or cones sticking straight up but I thought I would simply make loops of the stiff plastic line instead. Since the bucket is made entirely of foam it was easy for me to just watch what was happening in the bucket with the coils of line and then push loops of line in where I saw a problem area, basically wherever the coils appeared to want to congregate or lay on top of each other. I also put a loop in front of the rod hold to prevent any loops from getting under it.
Surf casters typically strip in running line until the belly of the line is near the rod tip, but using the “Samurai” System one is not just coiling the running line. Since the rod is in the holder and only a few inches of flyline are out of the tip, the belly of the line is coiled in the bucket along with whatever length of running line you think you need. Typically the belly itself is at least 30 feet and even if you keep a short amount of running line, say 15 feet, that means you will have 45 feet of fly line in the stripping bucket. Also, the longer the line stays in the bucket, i.e. when you are looking for fish, the more time the line has to shift and for coils to slide into one another. So it is important to have a line management bottom in the bucket, especially for those long casters that want to have 70, 80 or even 90 feet of line in the bucket.
A couple of best practices for using any stripping bucket are:
- It is important to have slick, clean line to reduce the friction which will slow down the line and create opportunity for coils to get caught up. The “Monster” loves dirty line.
- I find I get the best results if I keep the reel very close to the bucket when I strip the line in which makes for tighter coils which seem to hang up less.
Tight loops,
Glen
"Samurai" Fly Shop 