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I've fished quite a bit in freshwater and caught bass, bream, crappie, pickerel and even a few stripers in Salt when I lived up north. I used freshwater setup as only caught schooling sized fish14-22". I want to try my hand at fishing the flats with a fly. I have no clue if my starter setup will be sufficient enough. I have 9'' 9wt from BPS. I am not sure my reel will handle much but definitely think I need a new line as I have a floating line on the reel right now. Can anyone suggest a decent entry level saltwater reel and what type line I need? I want to get out there asap becuase I've been catching plenty of trout and ladyfish on spinning gear so I think I should be able to get into a few fish. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Don

Go ahead and use what you've got now to get started, Don. The 9-wt may be a little overkill, but I'd stick with a weight-forward floating line. An 8-wt is a good all around salt combo, but if you're targeting trout, reds, ladyfish, macks, you might want to eventually scale down to a 7-wt.

Use a fluorocarbon leader with 16- to 20-pound bite tippet and you'll be good to go. For trout, foam poppers are good, along with Clouser minnows, Deceivers and shrimp patterns. Those will also work for reds, plus spoons flies like the Wakulla Wobbler. Clousers are good for Spanish and ladies. I also like epoxy glass minnow patterns.

Search for Terrier's posts. He fishes flies almost exclusively and ties his own patterns I believe. FHC also fishes flies primarily so maybe he'll chime in too.

Good luck and post up some results.

Agree your present outfit will be fine. Would recommend a reel that is salt resistant whenever you can. Other than the floating line, a clear intermediate comes in handy. I haven't had a chance to fish inlets or passes yet, but a sink tip for them would be useful. I use a lot of clousers but also use other baitfish patterns and shrimp and crab. Might mention joining Big Bend Fly Fishers. Meet once a month in Tally. A lot of experience there. Check Facebook for them. New meeting place is Wahoo Seafood.

A 9wt will work, but if you do a lot of blind casting it will get heavy. I normally bring a 7wt with intermediate line, a 7wt with floating line and an 8wt with an intermediate. Most of the time I fish the 7wt intermediate rig (redington cps rod, lamson guru reel) with a light clouser but if you only have a floating line that will work - especially for topwaters like a gartside gurgler. I like Wulff Bermuda and Airflo tropical for floating line. As for reels, Most of the time, you don't have to put the fish on the reel - just hand strip it in. However, sooner or later you will hook into something that will take you deep into your backing and test the reel's drag, so you may have to upgrade. You don't have to spend a lot for our inshore flats - Lamson and Ross make good stuff for not that much. Of course, if you can afford a Tibor, Abel, or Nautilus get one of those. I fish clousers, gartside gurglers and EP minnow patterns most of the time - if I just had to pick one fly, it would be an olive/chartreuse/white clouser with copper gold and pearl flash.