Weighting Flies

Hi Tyers, I'm totally new to the idea of wrapping wire around a hook shank to get a fly deeper. I have no experience casting with weighted flies except for tiny jigs. I need to know if there is a standard for the number of wraps you can put on a fly before it gets too unwieldy. I'd like to know before I tie many more flies without being able to try them out. I'd hate to have to razor blade them apart and start over.
I'm using no-lead wire approximately the size of the hook shanks I'm weighting. Most of my flies are on aberdeen hooks, but some will be on long shanked hooks.

Rodger

You can use as many wraps as the hook shank will hold and even do two layers of wire if you want. As a practical matter I don't like how bulky the flies look when this is done and usually use less and add weight to the leader if needed.

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Rodger;
What rainbowchaser(Jim) said. You may also want to place the weight forward, centered or rearward to change the action. I just tied a beadhead soft hackle with 8 turns of .015 wire behind the bead as I want it to sink head down(don't ask why, cause I don't know!!). Now I'm going to fill the sink with water, tie on some 5X flourocarbon tippet and see if it worked!

Just a quick tip on bulk; instead of wrapping the wire around the shank try laying it lengthwise to the shank. Cut the wire two or three times the shank length, start thread on the hook, lay the wire along the shank between the eye and bend, secure with thread and then bend the wire back along the shank again, secure with thread, and again bend the wire back along the shank and secure. Be sure your wire lays alongside the previous length of wire each time you lay the successive lengths. I usually start the first length of wire on the far side of the shank, next length centered, and the last length on the near side. Then cut off any excess.

Hope this helps...

:)

Rodger, Let me tell you a little about my experience with lead. Your goal is to get the fly down and down fast. It's very easy to do it to fast and have the thing dragging on the bottom. There is no way now I would put wraps of lead on a hook for the full length of the hook. It's a tremendous amount of wgt. It also makes the nymph look like it's on steroids. Start with a single length equal to the hook back, tye it in parallel with the hook, and see if it sinks fast enough for you. Or maybe half that, this is an area where less is more.
Also I think that you don't really cast wgted. flys the same as dry/wet flys. I would say that fish that are feeding subsurface are much less wary than those feeding on the surface. So you can get closer; a good roll cast is often good enough.
Let me also add that a good wgted. fly to use is tying thread the length of the hook, coating it with 5 minute epoxy and rolling it in gravel. Add a black or peacock herl head and fish. Let the epoxy get gooey before you coat the hook.

There are many opinions about this, but I'll share what I was taught and it holds true most of the time. I never weight a fly because I don't know ahead of time where I'll be fishing, how deep, fast or slow, etc. the water will be where I'm fishing. For instance, a period without rain will lower water and less or no weight may be needed. You can put weight on, but you can't take it off. I use a tuck cast and as few tin shot as I need to get the fly down in the rocks. That's not to say weighting a nymph is wrong--it's just what I was taught. If I know where I'm going to fish and that the water there is fast and deep I'll add some weight to the fly. But, like the others say, in doing so it changes the appearance of the fly too much in many cases. You can tie some with and without weight and use different color thread for the head to indicate which fly is weighted. Everyone eventually develops their own style and whatever works for you is the way to go. Good fishing!