Anyone Fish Winter Rockfish on the Fly?

Just wondering if there are any fly-fishermen out there that fish for rockfish on the fly? Big Clouser patterns,whistlers....Leaches? Anyone? If so let me here your line systems and what flys you prefer in specific situations. Thanks all...

Welcome to the board, Water Wolf.

I mostly flyfish, but I mostly fish inland (fresh)waters. When I do fish the salt, it's mostly with casting gear. That said, if I was mostly targeting rockfish, I wouldn't much worry about getting real sophisticated with tackle, for them. Rockfish aren't known for being all that selective! Anything that looks remotely like a fish or a squid will work.

 Since I usually fish for trout, inland, my heaviest gear is only 6/7 weight. It's kind of tough for me to justufy spending a lot on tackle that I might use only a couple times a year! But, if money were no object, I'd rather have an outfit in the 8-10 weight range. Lighter if just for rocks (and maybe coho), heavier if for big lings and kings/springers, too. Rocks are often shallow, so a fast sink tip can be enough to get to them. I find full sinking lines to be a pain, because most of the line has to be retrieved before recasting. A sink tip can be easier to pick up and recast if a fish starts busting bait nearby.

Hope this helps.

Hi Water Wolf-

The derby that we had this ussmer was really the first time that I have attempted rockfish on a flyrod, and I did land a nice fish on one of the days.  I just tied off on the edge of a kelp bed and fished the current the was running along the edge. I used my 9wt with either a Teeny 500 grain line or a shooting head system- kind of experimenting with bothe.  I did learn that the braidied loops can fail!  I had one fail and lost a 24ft Rio head along with it, so I may re-think using loops on my shooting head system moving forward.

Clousers in 1/0 or 2 were the fly of choice for me, especially in Chartruse.  There is a guy (Anil) at Puget Sound Fly Company here in seattle that has this pretty dialed in, so you might check out their website for additional info:

http://www.pugetsoundflyco.com/index.php

I am looking forward to heading out to the Straight again this year and spending more time figuring this out. 

Pete

That sounds like a blast...What was the structure like around you? What type of Rockfish were they? Thanks for the link I'll be sure to check it out. So you are in Seattle? I read about the place you are talking about on the net. It was talking about the great year round fishing down there. Sounds sweet. Thanks dude